Gayle J. Fritz is an American paleoethnobotanist working out of Washington University in St. Louis.
[1] Fritz runs the Paleoethnobotany Lab at Washington University in St. Louis under the auspices of the Anthropology Department.
[2] Her work focuses on crops other than maize, such as chenopodium and amaranth, and emphasizes the importance of direct radiocarbon dating when establishing the models of early agriculture.
[3] She also proposes a diversity of pathways from hunting-gathering to agriculture, highly dependent on regional variations and the intricacies of local cultures, and explores the role of women in early societies, often challenging a "Big Chief" model of hierarchical dominance.
Her research interests include grain amaranth, chenopod, maygrass, tobacco, and hickory nuts.