Tamira Brennan | Anthropology | SIU

Tamira Brennan

Adjunct Assistant Professor

I have been doing archaeology since 1999, primarily in research-based Cultural Resource Management settings ranging from fieldwork to administration. This work includes a seven-year long stretch as a field supervisor, lead researcher, and ceramic analyst on the Illinois State Archaeological Survey’s investigations at East St. Louis, one of the largest late pre-Columbian sites in the Eastern Woodlands. I have worked across the Midwestern and Southeastern U.S. on sites ranging from the Archaic to Victorian eras, but my temporal and geographic foci lie in the terminal Late Woodland and Mississippian periods (AD 900 -1450) of the Midwest and Midsouth. I have also recently been active in excavations and research on early historic (contact, French Colonial, and early American) periods in Illinois and Missouri. My research interests include pre-Columbian architecture, Late Woodland and Mississippian ceramics, and communities of practice. I particularly enjoy teaching courses in archaeological field methods and materials analyses, and I am very active in issues pertaining to Illinois archaeology. I am currently Curator for the Center for Archaeological Investigations and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Anthropology.

Selected Publications

Brennan, Tamira K.

In press (2018). Making Mounds, Making Mississippian Communities in Southern Illinois. In Mississippian Communities, edited by Elizabeth Watts Malouchos and Alleen Betzenhauser. University of Florida Press.

2010. The South Cape Site: a Fortified Mississippian Village in Southeast Missouri. Missouri Archaeological Society Quarterly 27:12-19.

2007. In-Ground Evidence of Above-Ground Architecture at Kincaid Mounds. In Architectural Variability in the Southeast, edited by Cameron H. Lacquement, pp.74-100. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Brennan, Tamira K. (editor)

2018. East St. Louis Precinct (11S706) Mississippian Features. New Mississippi River Bridge Technical Report No. 5. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

2018. The Russell Site (11MS672): A Mund Phase Seasonal Site and Moorehead Phase Ceremonial Node in the Northern American Bottom. Technical Report No. 128. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2016. Main Street Mound: A Ridgetop Monument at the East St. Louis Mound Complex Research Report No. 36/New Mississippi River Bridge Technical Report No. 1. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brennan, Tamira K., Alleen M. Betzenhauser, and Michael Brent Lansdell, 2018. The Social Implications of Change in Greater Cahokian Potting Practices. In East St. Louis Precinct (11S706) Mississippian Ceramics, edited by Tamira K. Brennan, Alleen M. Betzenhauser and Michael Brent Lansdell. New Mississippi River Bridge Technical Report No. 7. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Brennan, Tamira K. and Corin C. O. Pursell. In press (2018). Kincaid Mounds and the Cahokian Decline. In Cahokia in Context: Hegemony and Diaspora, edited by Charles McNutt and Ryan Parrish. University of Florida Press.

Emerson, Thomas E., Brad Koldehoff and Tamira K. Brennan (editors), in press (2018). Creating Greater Cahokia: Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavations of the East St. Louis Precinct. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Koldehoff, Brad and Tamira K. Brennan, 2011. Exploring Mississippian Polity Interaction and Craft Specialization with Ozark Chipped-Stone Resources. 2011. Missouri Archaeology 71:132-164.

Lansdell, Michael Brent, Alleen Betzenhauser, and Tamira K. Brennan, 2017. Wings, Warriors, and Weeping Eyes: Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Ramey Incised Motifs at the East St. Louis Mound Complex. Illinois Archaeology 29:165-190.