John M Sullivan

Life Experience: John Sullivan attended the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss, where he received a BA in Anthropology and History and his masters’ degree in Archaeology. During his tenure at Ole Miss he spent a lot of time doing archaeological surveys, assisting professors in running field schools and various other projects. In 2000 he started work at Winterville Mounds Park, newly administered by the Department of Archives and History. As site archaeologist his duties included managing the sites collection, assessing the preservation of the Mounds, helping to develop educational programs for school groups and the public. In 2005 Dr. Ed Jackson, from the University of Southern Mississippi, and John Sullivan held the first archaeological field school at Winterville Mounds and the first archaeological excavation in 35 years. With the help of, three of these field schools have completed yielding new information on living conditions at Winterville Mounds. Another project he and Paul Martin started 2003, working on using cadaver dogs as a possible survey tool for archaeologists in locating Native American burials. In 2008 John left Winterville Mounds for the Bureau of Land Management and has exposed the Federal Government to the use of cadaver dogs for locating and avoiding Native American burials. They have started investigating this technique in different soil types in the Southeastern US.