Gail Wagner Speaks at Midlands Chapter May Meeting

Gail Wagner Presents "Past Uses of Plants by American Indians"

Meet in the conference room at Hamilton-Owens Airport, 1400 Jim Hamilton Blvd., Columbia

Did you know that for thousands of years, eastern North American Indians relied on native plants they had domesticated, but those crops now are extinct? And one of them had never before been recognized as a food prior to its archaeological discovery! Gail will bust myths and we will learn what archaeological evidence combined with early historic accounts tell us about the plants important in traditional Indian lives prior to and at early contact with Europeans.

Gail Wagner is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of South Carolina. As co-director of the Wateree Archaeological Research Project in central South Carolina and a specialist in ethnobotany or plant/people relationships, she researches the lifeways and diet of South Carolina Indians who lived between A.D. 800 and 1730. Since 1978 she has been helping museums and organizations re-create Indian gardens typical of different time periods. In 2018 she was named a Distinguished Ethnobiologist by the Society of Ethnobiology and in 2022 she received the SC Governor’s Award in the Humanities.