Kristen Gremillion

Gremillion was born in Detroit, Michigan, but her family moved to New Orleans when she was still very young. She grew up in New Orleans and only left in 1982 when she went to attend graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Gremillion began her college education at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1976, majoring in anthropology. In 1979, she transferred to the University of New Orleans in Louisiana, where she graduated cum laude in 1980, receiving a B.A. in anthropology. In 1985, Gremillion received an M.A. in anthropology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, writing her thesis on Aboriginal Use of Plant Foods and European Contact in the North Carolina Piedmont. In 1989, she received her Ph.D. in anthropology, also from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; her dissertation title was "Late Prehistoric and Historic Period Paleoethnobotany of the North Carolina Piedmont".

While in the process of completing her M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology, Gremillion was self-employed as an archaeobotanical consultant. After completing her degrees, in 1990 she became a visiting lecturer for East Carolina University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology. From 1991 till 1997, Gremillion was an assistant professor at the Ohio State University in the Department of Anthropology. Then in 1997, she shifted from assistant professor to associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, where she continued to work. In 1999, Gremillion was granted an adjunct appointment in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the same university.

Gremillion has worked on research surrounding when and where the domestication of plants may have taken place in Eastern North America, focusing on the forager-farmers of the eastern Kentucky uplands. Her research suggests that experimentation in plant domestication may have started in the uplands, instead of the rich soiled flood plains as former theories have suggested. Gremillion suggests that domesticating plants in the uplands would have been more cost-effective than the flood plains because these people lived in the uplands and would be able to experiment with domestication without having to travel great distances to get to the fertile flood plains.

In 1992 she was the project director and field supervisor for excavations at Rock Bridge shelter in Wolfe Co., KY.

Her other field work after this includes:

• Project director and field supervisor for an excavation at the Cold Oak Shelter in Lee Co., KY (1994)
• Project director of an archaeological survey in Lee Co., KY (1995)
• Project director for excavations at Mounded Talus shelter in Lee Co., KY (1996)
• Project director and field supervisor for excavations at Courthouse Rock shelter (1998) in Powell Co., KY.
• Project director and field supervisor at Sheldon Skidmore site and Shepherd site (2000) in Powell Co, KY
• Project director and field supervisor at the Anderson and Martin site (2001) in Powell Co., KY

Gremillion's publications have centered on food production, crops, and dietary analysis of societies in the archaeological record.

• 2011 Ancestral Appetites: Food in Prehistory (Cambridge University Press, 2011). ISBN 9780521727075

Delcourt, Paul A.; Delcourt, Hazel R.; Ison, Cecil R.; Sharp, William E.; Gremillion, Kristen J. (1998), "Prehistoric Human Use of Fire, the Eastern Agricultural Complex and Appalachian Oak-Chestnut Forests: Paleoecology of Cliff Palace Pond, Kentucky", American Antiquity, American Antiquity, Vol. 63, No. 2, 63 (2): 263–278, doi:10.2307/2694697, JSTOR 2694697, S2CID 163220544.

Gremillion, Kristen J. (1993), "Crop and Weed in Prehistoric Eastern North America: The Chenopodium Example", American Antiquity, American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 3, 58 (3): 496–509, doi:10.2307/282109, JSTOR 282109, S2CID 161993446.

Gremillion, Kristen J. (1996), "Early Agricultural Diet in Eastern North America: Evidence from Two Kentucky Rock Shelters", American Antiquity, American Antiquity, Vol. 61, No. 3, 61 (3): 520–536, doi:10.2307/281838, JSTOR 281838, S2CID 162232718.

Gremillion, Kristen J. (2004), "Seed Processing and the Origins of Food Production in Eastern North America", American Antiquity, American Antiquity, Vol. 69, No. 2, 69 (2): 215–233, doi:10.2307/4128417, JSTOR 4128417, S2CID 144789286.

Gremillion, Kristen J.; Sobolik, Kristin D. (1996), "Dietary Variability among Prehistoric Forager-Farmers of Eastern North America", Current Anthropology, 37 (3): 529–539, doi:10.1086/204515, S2CID 54044182