science · 29 October 1885 · 139 years ago
birth
Born 29 Oct 1885; died 11 Jun 1963 at age 77.
Alfred Vincent Kidder was an American archaeologist who was the foremost American archaeologist of the southwestern U.S. and Middle America of his day and the force behind the first comprehensive, systematic approach to North American archaeology. His excavations included Pecos in New Mexico and the Maya in Guatemala. In spite of his great efforts and diligence he was criticized for his lack of integrated conclusions drawn from his numerous reports from the field without any synthesis and interpretation of that data. In his time, archeology was still considered as “gentlemanly adventure” with the goal of adding “artifacts”to museums. Kidder emphasized archeology's need for the scientific “eye” was the development of fact collecting techniques and clear definitions.
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