Dr. Jeffrey M. Mitchem
After graduating high school in Lakeland, Florida, Dr. Mitchem intended to go into veterinary medicine, but instead earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors in Anthropology at the University of Florida. He then attended the University of South Florida (Tampa) for a M.A. in Public Archaeology with a thesis on research in Idaho. He returned to UF for a Ph.D. with a dissertation revising Gordon Willey’s definition of the Safety Harbor Culture along the west coast of Florida. Half of his dissertation was a report on the Tatham Mound. Upon graduation in 1989, he taught for one year at LSU in Baton Rouge, and in 1990, accepted a job with the Arkansas Archeological Survey to create and supervise an ongoing program of research and interpretation at the Parkin Site in Parkin Archeological State Park. The 17-acre Parkin Site is the location of the village of Casqui described in all four of the Hernando de Soto narratives, where a cross was raised on the mound in 1541. He retired in 2021 and moved to Tallahassee, Florida.