Timothy Pauketat

Dr. Timothy R. Pauketat is an American archaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He is best known for his investigations at Cahokia, the major center of ancient Mississippian culture in the American Bottom area of Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri.

Early life and education

Pauketat attended Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, graduating in 1983 with a B.S. in Anthropology and Earth Sciences. During college he worked as an intern with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He next worked as a staff archaeologist with The Center for American Archaeology, a cultural resource management firm based at Kampsville, Illinois, and as an assistant curator and research assistant for SIU-Carbondale from 1983-1984.

He earned an M.A. in Anthropology at SIU in 1986. After working for the Illinois State Museum and Michigan’s museum of anthropology from 1984-88, Pauketat earned his PhD in Anthropology in 1991 from the University of Michigan.