Stuart Struever

Stuart McKee Struever
Stuart Struever in the field
Born	(1931-08-04)August 4, 1931 Lima, Illinois
Residence	United States
Nationality	United States
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Dartmouth College University of Chicago
Known for	New Archaeology, Woodland period Archaeology, Large scale Public-oriented Archaeology
Awards	Distinguished Service Award (Society for American Archaeology, 1995); Presidential Service Award (Society for American Archaeology, 2003)
Scientific career
Fields	Anthropology, Archeology
Institutions	Northwestern University
Doctoral advisor	Lewis Binford

Stuart McKee Struever (born 1931) is an American archaeologist and anthropologist best known for his contributions to the archaeology of the Woodland Period in the US midwest and for his leadership of archaeology research & education foundations. He was a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University.

Struever was born in Lima, Illinois on August 4, 1931, the son of manager of the American Nickeloid Company. He attended Dartmouth College, majoring in English and graduating in 1959. His graduate work was done at the University of Chicago, where he pursued his interests in the Hopewell Tradition of the Middle Woodland period in the American midwest. He was a well-published researcher before he earned his PhD in 1968 under the supervision of Lewis Binford.

After completing his doctorate at the University of Chicago, Struever joined the Dept. of Anthropology at Northwestern University where he taught for most of his career and served as chairman for many years. Into the early 1970s he continued to be an active researcher, publishing on topics including settlement pattern, early agriculture, and trade. By the mid-1970s he had begun to focus mainly on leadership of the Center for Illinois Archeology (later renamed the Center for American Archeology or CAA), headquartered in Kampsville, Illinois. (This center used the "archeology" spelling although the conventional spelling is "archaeology.") The CAA grew rapidly throughout the 1970s, converting many buildings in Kampsville into archaeology laboratories and offices.

With the CAA Struever developed the model of using archaeological education to generate funding to support a large multi-disciplinary archaeology research center. Education was provided mainly through numerous field schools, including a university-level field school operated in conjunction with Northwestern University and programs for high-schoolers and adults. The profile of the foundation was raised enormously with its large-scale excavation at the Koster Site in Greene County, Illinois. Initial research at this site was focused on Woodland period remains near the surface, but test pits encountered fourteen cultural levels or "horizons", dating back to the early Archaic period. Beginning in 1968, excavations at Koster expanded into one of the largest archaeological projects in the country by the mid-1970s. Several hundred college students worked at the site. It was featured in various national magazines and documentaries before excavations ended in 1979.