William A. Longacre

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Atlas Longacre, II ( December 16, 1937 in Hancock , Michigan , † November 18, 2015 in Tucson , Arizona ) was an American archaeologist . In the 1960s he was one of the initiators of New Archeology (also: "Processual Archeology" ). Longacre is also considered a co-founder of Ceramic Sociology .

Life

Longacre grew up in Houghton , Michigan. His father taught there as a physics professor at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology . Longacre himself attended the Michigan College of Mining and Technology and then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , where he received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology in 1959 . He then continued his studies at the University of Chicago . Here he met Lewis Binford , who came to the university as a visiting professor in 1961 , and was one of the group of students around Binford from which the research approach of New Archeology developed. In 1963 he was the first of these students to receive his doctorate and specialized in the archeology of the North American Southwest. In his dissertation Archeology as anthropology: A case study , he dealt with the archaeological site of Carter Ranch Site , a pueblo from the 12th to the mid-13th century in eastern Arizona. Soon afterwards he received an offer from Emil W. Haury to work at the University of Arizona . Longacre accepted this and taught from 1964 as an assistant professor at the Department of Anthropology there . Longacre was to spend a large part of his further academic career here. He later became an associate professor and professor.

In 1966 he became director of the university's archaeological field school . Inspired by Paul S. Martin , under whose direction he conducted fieldwork while at the University of Chicago, Longacre built the University of Arizona Field School into one of the premier programs of its kind in the United States. During his tenure as director between 1966 and 1979, more than 300 students conducted archaeological fieldwork in the Grasshopper Pueblo in eastern Arizona. For many, the new techniques and analytical methods introduced here should shape their future academic careers.

As a result of the questions raised by the New Archeology issues and findings brought Longacre 1973, at the suggestion of the anthropologist Edward Dozier , who also with the Pueblo culture concerned, but it also experiences with ethnological studies on the Kalinga in the northwest of the Philippine island of Luzon had , a new research program, the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project , is under way. The underlying idea was to transfer knowledge about the Kalinga gained from ethnoarchaeological ceramic research using the New Archeology method to prehistoric pueblo societies. In 1975 the project started, which in the next decades was to become one of the longest running ethnoarchaeological research projects and for many archaeologists of behavioral archeology it was their first contact with archaeological field research.

The regular research stays aroused his interest in the country and so he began to teach archeology at the University of the Philippines . This 30-year activity as a visiting professor had a lasting influence on the professionalization of archaeological research and teaching in the Philippines.

From 1989 he became head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, replacing William Stini . He held this position until 1998. In the same year he was appointed Fred A. Riecker Distinguished Professor . In 2004 he retired . During his 50-year academic career, he supervised 22 doctoral students, including Michael W. Graves , James M. Skibo and Miriam T. Stark, and has published nine books and more than 60 articles.

Longacre was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an honorary member of the American Ceramic Society . In 1994 he received the Society for American Archeology's Award for Excellence in Ceramic Studies .

Publications (selection)

  • with Sally J. Holbrook, Michael W. Graves (Eds.): Multidisciplinary Research at Grasshopper Pueblo. (1982, Anthropological Papers, Number 40. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ)
  • (Ed.): Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology (1991, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ)
  • with James M. Skibo (Ed.): Kalinga Ethnoarchaeology: Expanding Archaeological Method and Theory. (1994, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ William A. Longacre Jr. Passes , Southwest Archeology Today
  2. ↑ James M. Skibo, Miriam T. Stark: A History of the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project. In James M. Skibo, Michael W. Graves and Miriam T. Stark (Eds.): Archeology as Anthropology: A Critical Retrospective (2007, University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Pp. 93–110)
  3. ^ Sally R. Binford, Lewis R. Binford: Archeology in Cultural Systems (1968)
  4. ↑ a b c d e f In Memoriam: William A. Longacre , February 12, 2016, UA @ Work
  5. ^ History of the School of Anthropology , website of the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona
  6. ^ Award for Excellence in Ceramic Studies , website of the Society for American Archeology
personal data
SURNAME Longacre, William A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Longacre, William Atlas (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American archaeologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Hancock , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH 18th November 2015
Place of death Tucson , Arizona