Dr. James Schoenwetter (January 2, 1935 - August 22, 2015) was born on January 2, 1935 and passed away on Saturday, August 22, 2015.

Dr. Schoenwetter, Professor Emeritus at ASU, received his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University in 1967. Schoenwetter joined the department faculty in 1967, following four years at the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and retired in 2000. His research interests were in the areas of prehistoric cultural ecology, applications of pollen analysis in archaeology and research methodology.

Prior to retirement, he directed the department's palynology laboratory. Pollen research by Schoenwetter and his students involved a variety of sites in Mesoamerica, North America and Europe, and continued through his retirement. He has directed archaeological and botanical fieldwork in the Midwestern and Southwestern United States, California, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Jalisco, England and France.

Dr. Schoenwetter pioneered the study of pollen records from archaeological site-context deposits in the Southwest and Midwest in the 1960s, identified palynological evidence of Archaic Horizon maize cultivation in Arizona, Illinois and Mexico in the 1970s and was among the earliest students of the palynological records of historic archaeology site-context deposits. He consulted with students and archaeologists on the development of methods of pollen analysis for the resolution of archaeological problems and prepared a body of unpublished reports and meeting papers written during his research career.

Dr. Schoenwetter was a resident of Tempe, Arizona.