Richard Edwards

Lecturer, Anthropology
Principal Investigator, Archaeological Research Laboratory Center

Education

PhD, Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
MS, Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
BA, History and Sociology/Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Parkside

Courses Taught

ANTH 103 - Digging up the Past: Approaches to Archaeology
ANTH 530 - Paleoethnobotany: Introduction & Lab Methods
ANTH 565 - Seminar in Regional Archaeology: Great Lakes Archaeology
ANTH 566 - Archaeological Analysis and Report Preparation
ANTH 567 - Archaeological Field School

Teaching Interests

Edwards is committed to undergraduate and graduate research opportunities, and regularly presents research with students at professional conferences. He is responsible for extensive collections from previous excavations at numerous Late Precontact sites, which include ceramics, lithics, faunal, and floral remains. These collections are available for student research. He is currently accepting students working on their M.S.

Research Interests

Dr. Edwards is an anthropological archaeologist. His area of expertise is the Late Precontact western Great Lakes, though he has worked on field projects from Georgia to North Dakota and on research teams in North America and Europe. He has directed laboratory and field projects for over a decade and is currently focusing his research at a number Late Precontact Oneota and Langford village sites in what is now southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois. This includes Zimmerman (11LS13), Koshkonong Creek Village (47JE379), and the Crescent Bay Hunt Club (47JE904). He teaches multiple courses in field and laboratory methods and in Great Lakes archaeology.

Edwards research focuses on the impacts of adopting agricultural on the economy, social organization, and identity networks. While his research is centered in the western Great Lakes, he aims to address large-scale issues of interaction and identity. Edwards’ research has historically focused on cultural responses to risk, the role of food in forging multifaceted social identities, and the role of dogs in past societies. He primarily conducts paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological research, but he also is experienced with ceramic analyses and stable isotopic studies of dog remains. He has published his isotopic research and has articles and a book on Late Precontact risk management strategies, which combines many of these lines of evidence.

Related Activities

Edwards is also a Principal Investigator in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Cultural Resource Management firm. There, he directs compliance archaeology and architecture history projects. Additioanlly, he is activley involved in many professional organizations.

Current Positions:

President Elect, Midwest Archaeological Conference, 2025-present
Gubernatorial Apointee, Wisconsin Burial Sites Preservation Board, 2025-present
Book Review Editor, Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 2023-present
Guidelines Committee Chair, Wisconsin Archaeological Survey, 2023-present

Past Positions:

Nominations Committee Chair, Midwest Archaeological Conference, 2023-2024
President, Wisconsin Archeological Survey, 2021-2023
President-Elect, Wisconsin Archeological Survey, 2020-2021
Student Travel Award Committee Chair, Wisconsin Archeological Survey, 2019-2022
Board Member, Wisconsin Archeological Survey, 2017-2020
Website and Social Media Manager, Wisconsin Archeological Survey, 2016-2023
Student Committee Member, Midwest Archaeological Conference, 2011-2013
Program Chair, Wisconsin Archeological Society, 2010-2012
Editoral Board Member, Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology, 2008-2010

Current Memberships:

Society for American Archaeology
Registered Professional Archaeologist
Midwest Archaeological Conference
Wisconsin Archaeological Survey
Wisconsin Archeological Society

Books

Edwards IV, Richard W. (2020) Indigenous Life Around the Great Lakes: War, Climate, and Culture. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN.

Jeske, Robert J., Richard W. Edwards IV, and Katherine M. Sterner (editors) (2020) Life, Death, and Landscapes at Lake Koshkonong: Oneota Archaeology in Southeastern Wisconsin. Occasional Papers No. 4. Midwest Archaeologic al Conference, Urbana, Illinois.

Selected Publications

Edwards IV, Richard W. (2022) Remnant Potawatomi Corn Hills at Carroll University, Waukesha County, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Archeologist 103.

Edwards IV, Richard W. (2020) Risky Landscapes: The Role of Agriculture in Upper Mississippian Societies. In Life, Death, and Landscapes at Lake Koshkonong: Oneota Archaeology in Southeastern Wisconsin, edited by R.J. Jeske, R.W. Edwards IV, and K.M. Sterner, pp. 63-82. Occasional Papers No. 4. Midwest Archaeological Conference, Urbana, Illinois.

Jeske, Robert J., Katherine M. Sterner, and Richard W. Edwards IV (2020) New Perspectives from Lake Koshkonong. In Life, Death, and Landscapes at Lake Koshkonong: Oneota Archaeology in Southeastern Wisconsin, edited by R.J. Jeske, R.W. Edwards IV, and K.M. Sterner, pp. 1-26. Occasional Papers No. 4. Midwest Archaeological Conference, Urbana, Illinois.

Jordan, Karsten, Robert J. Jeske, Richard W. Edwards IV, David Strange, Kayla Kubehl, Jeffrey A. Behm (2019) Assessing Subsistence and Its Relationship to Cultural Complexity in the Late Prehistoric Upper Midwest: A New Perspective Provided by Dental Health. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 168(4):750-763.

Edwards IV, Richard W., Robert J. Jeske, Joan Brenner Coltrain (2017) Preliminary Evidence for the Efficacy of the Canine Surrogacy Approach in the Great Lakes. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13:516-525.