J. Alden Mason

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John Alden Mason (* 1885 in Orland , Indiana ; † November 7, 1967 ) was an American archaeologist , anthropologist and linguist .

The focus of his research was on various indigenous cultures from North, Central and South America.

Mason grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown . He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907 and his doctorate in 1911 from the University of California, Berkeley . His dissertation was an ethnographic study of the Salinan , an Indian tribe in California . He was also the author of a number of linguistic studies including a study of the Pima languages. His later ethnographic work also included studies of the Tepehuán (Mexico) as well as the collection of evidence of the oral culture of the Arawak , the African American and the early Spanish colonial days in Puerto Rico .

Mason was curator of the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania from 1926 until his retirement in 1958 .

In 1952 he toured Peru . He wrote his main work about ancient Peru: The Ancient Civilizations of Peru (German under the title: Das alten Peru: Eine Indianische Hochkultur. )

His papers are held by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia .

Works

  • The ethnology of the Salinan Indians. Berkeley, The University Press, 1912 (University of California Publ. In: American Archeology & Ethnology. 10/4; pp. 97-240; plts. 21-37).
  • The Ancient Civilizations of Peru. Harmondsworth et al. a. : Penguin Books, 1957
    • German under the title: The old Peru: An Indian high culture. By Ferdinand Anton. Transfer from d. Engl. By Hannes WA Schoeller, Magnus cultural history. Essen: Magnus-Verlag 1975 (first in Kindler's cultural history )
  • Notes on the Indians of the Great Slave Lake area. New Haven: Yale University Press [et. a.], 1946 (Yale University Publications in anthropology 34)
  • with George Agogino: The Ceremonialism Of The Tepecan. Eastern New Mexico Univ. 1972

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nicolás Kanellos (Ed.): Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Literatur and Art . Univ. of Houston 1993, pp. 235 f.
personal data
SURNAME Mason, J. Alden
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mason, John Alden (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American archaeologist, anthropologist, and linguist
DATE OF BIRTH 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Orland , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1967