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Peter E. Siegel is associate professor of anthropology at MSU. Prior to joining the MSU faculty in 2006, Dr. Siegel worked for 14 years in the applied sector of heritage management. In that job, he conducted archaeological projects throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the United States and in Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and South America. His major areas of interest lie in the pre-Columbian archaeology of the Caribbean, lowland South America, and eastern North America.
Since coming to MSU, Dr. Siegel has obtained funding from the National Science Foundation to pursue research into human-land relations in pre-Columbian times of the eastern Caribbean. He assembled a swat team of crack researchers from around the country to journey to Caribbean islands with the goal of reconstructing ancient environments and human impacts to them. The team included Jason Curtis (geochemist, University of Florida, Gainesville), Nick Dunning (geoarchaeologist, University of Cincinnati), John Jones (palynologist, Washington State University, Pullman), and Debby Pearsall (paleoethnobotanist, University of Missouri, Columbia). Cores were taken from selected wetlands on Trinidad, Antigua, and St. Croix to collect preserved microfossils to help in reconstructing past environments and landscape conditions.
In addition to teaching and doing archaeology, Siegel enjoys juggling and playing blues harmonica.