ARCHAEOLOGIST TO SPEAK SUNDAY

Dr. Jeff Mitchem, an archaeologist at Parkin Archaeological State Park in Parkin, Ark., will speak Sunday about the "Archaeology of Mississippian Life and de Soto Contact."

He is the featured speaker for the annual Thomas Beckwith Memorial Lecture. The slide lecture begins at 2 p.m. in the University Museum. A reception will follow the free lecture.

Mississippi River settlements were abundant in the region 1,000 years ago, said Pat Reagan-Woodard, museum director.

The University Museum at Southeast Missouri State University holds one of the world's best collections of Mississippian ceramic vessels, pots and stone tools. Thomas Beckwith collected the artifacts around 1890 at a site near Charleston.

As an archaeologist, Mitchem has done field work at Mississippian Native American settlements in the Southeast United States, the Mississippi Valley and the Great Basin.

The Mississippian people lived in an area from present-day St. Louis to Memphis, Tenn., Woodard said. A metropolis city was near Cahokia, Ill., she said.

The lecture is sponsored by the University Museum and the department of sociology and anthropology.