Archaeologist Biographies A-C

Jorge R. Acosta
Mexican archaeologist Jorge R. Acosta excavated at most of the greatest sites in Mexico

Robert Broom [1866-1951]
Robert Brooom was a Scots-born South African paleontologist, and a specialist in Australopithecines. His work included excavations and study at Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, and Kromdraai.

Richard E. W. Adams [b. 1931]
American archaeologist in the Maya area; perhaps most influential work focused on the existence of craft specialists.

Charles Conrad Abbott [1843-1919]
American archaeologist and naturalist Charles C. Abbott was of the group of early archaeologists interested in determining the earliest human occupations of the New World.

Robert McCormick Adams Jr. [b. 1926]
American archaeologist, specializing in Near Eastern archaeology.

William Foxwell Albright [1891-1971]
William Foxwell Albright was the long-time director of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and is widely considered the father of modern biblical archaeology.

Bridget Allchin [b. 1927]
Bridget Allchin is a specialist on India and Pakistan, where she has conducted research for close to fifty years, on occasion with her husband F. R. Allchin.

Caleb Atwater [1778 - 1867]
Adventurer-traveler Caleb Atwater spent a great deal of the mid-19th century traveling in the midwestern United States investigating burial mounds and discovered and mapped hundreds of them.

Frank Raymond Allchin [b. 1923]
English archaeologist F. R. Allchin has spent his career studying the prehistory of India and Pakistan, occasionally with his wife Bridget.

John Aubrey [1626-1697]
British adventurer and scientist, John Aubrey wrote Monumenta Britannica, published in 1674, which described Stonehenge and Avebury in some detail.

Adolph Bandelier [1840-1914]
Historian, ethnographer, archaeologist, novelist, Adolph Bandelier did pretty much everything that interested him.

Otto Nikolaevich Bader [b. 1902]
German born archaeologist and paleontologist Otto Bader excavated the important paleolithic sites of Sungir and Kapova Cave.

George Fletcher Bass
The "Father of Nautical Archaeology," George Bass has spent his career furthering the cause of underwater archaeology

Ofer Bar-Yosef [b. 1937]
Israeli archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef has worked extensively in Israel and the Levant on numerous sites.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell [1868-1926]
English archaeologist and antiquarian Gertrude Bell was a phenomenal force in Mesopotamian archaeology at a time when it was largely a man's game.

Giovanni Belzoni [1778-1821]
Giovanni Belzoni was aegendary Italian pot hunter and early archaeologist

Ignacio Bernal [1910-1992]
Mexican archaeologist Ignacio Bernal was an influential pioneer of the study of Mexico's prehistory.

Ruth Fulton Benedict [1887-1948]
American anthropologist Ruth Benedict's 1934 book Patterns of Culture remains a classic of comparative cultural anthropology used in classrooms today

Lewis Binford [born 1930]
The quintessential "young turk", American archaeologist Lewis Binford dang near revolutionized the field of archaeology in the 1960s

Thomas Geoffrey Bibby [1917-2001]
English archaeologist T. Geoffrey Bibby was best known for his finally successful search for Dilmun

Hiram Bingham [1875-1956]
American explorer and diplomat Hiram Bingham had an enormously varied life, including the discovery of Machu Picchu.

Frederick Jones Bliss [1859-1937]
British archaeologist Frederick J. Bliss was a student of Flinders Petrie, and conducted work first at Meydum at Egypt.

Barbara Bocek
American archaeologist Barbara Bocek was at Stanford University when she wrote her two seminal investigations of bioturbation of archaeological sites by prairie pocket gophers.

François Bordes 1919-1981
French archaeologist and lithic specialist François Bordes was best known for his pioneering work in experimental replication of stone tools

Paul Emile Botta [1807-1870]
French archaeologist Paul Emile Botta was a politician in Mosul in what is now modern Iraq when some workers stumbled on the site of Khorsabad.

Jacques Boucher de Perthes [1788-1868]
French customs officer Jacques Boucher de Crevecoeur de Perthes had a hobby that got him into trouble--archaeology.

Robert Braidwood [1907-2003]
American archaeologist, excavator at Jarmo and Cayönü.

Charles Kimberlin Brain [born 1931]
Zimbabwean paleontologist, currently at the Transvaal Museum.

Henri Breuil [1877-1961]
The French archaeologist Abbé Breuil was known as "the Pope of Prehistory."

Robert Broom [1866-1951]
South African paleontologist, specialist in Australopithecines.

James Henry Breasted [1865-1935]
The first American to get a PhD in Egyptology (1894, from the University of Berlin), James Henry Breasted was the founder of the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

Karl Butzer
American geoarchaeologist, extremely influential in terms of his impact on considerations of the environment

Frank Calvert [1828-1908]
Consular agent for the United States at the Dardanelles and part time archaeologist

William Camden [1551-1623]
16th-17th century British antiquarian.

Bartolomé de las Casas [1484-1566]
Spanish Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas was one of the early Spanish visitors to the New World, arriving in Santo Domingo in 1502.

Alfonso Caso [1896-1971]
Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso was trained at the Colegio Nacional, and was the head or an important founding member of almost every important scientific institution in Mexico.

Frederick Catherwood [1799-1854]
English explorer and artist Catherwood travelled the world, and is probably best appreciated for his alliance with writer John Lloyd Stephens.

Lynn Ceci [d. 1989]
American archaeologist Lynn Ceci can be credited with injecting cultural components into the study of shells.

Luigi Palma di Cesnola [1832-1904]
Luigi Palma di Cesnola was an Italian archaeologist of the 19th century who enhanced his early career as a minor diplomat by excavating in Cyprus.

Jean-François Champollion [1790-1832 ]
French linguist Jean François Champollion is perhaps best known for his role in the pioneering decipherment of the previously unreadable ancient scripts of Egypt

Gertrude Caton-Thompson [1899-1985]
Gertrude Caton-Thompson was an English archaeologist who conducted work in Egypt and southern Africa.

Kwang-chih Chang [1931-2001]
Chinese-born archaeologist, taught at Harvard and Yale University in the United States.

V. Gordon Childe [1892-1957]
Australian-born British philosopher and archaeologist V.G. Childe is perhaps best known for his interest and influence in the realm of social evolution theory

J. Desmond Clark 1916-2002
ritish archaeologist Desmond Clark spent the majority of his career investigating the prehistory of Africa

John Grahame Douglas Clark [1907-1995]
British archaeologist Grahame Clark was one of those rare individuals who know they want to be in archaeology at age 10, publishing professional papers for the Natural History Society while still a schoolboy at Marlborough College.

David L. Clarke [1937-1976]
A British archaeologist who was extremely influential for the length of time he had on earth.

Bernabé Cobo [1582-1687]
Bernabé Cobo was a 17th century Spanish priest, who lived 61 years in Mexico and South America, and did his best to convert the Inca to Christianity.

Ernst Curtius [1814-1896]
German archaeologist and art historian, conducted archaeological research in the late 19th century