Heritage, Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 1990 Page: 27
37 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Portraits in American
Archaeology: Remembrances
of Some Distinguished
Americanists
Gordon Randolph Willey, University of New
Mexico Press 1989. $35.00 Cloth, $19.95 Paper.
Reviewed by E. Mott Davis
Recently retired from the Harvard
faculty, Dr. Gordon Randolph Willey-as
close as anyone to being Dean of American
Archaeologists-has looked back over his
career and selected sixteen men of importance
to him. Beginning with his undergraduate
mentor and ending with colleagues
of recent years, he recounts his
experiences with them. None of the men
are still living, leaving the author-a man
of some reserve-freedom to express his
feelings of affection and respect.
Willey has written about those things
he likes to recall and those that will interest
his readers. Where less pleasant matters
cannot be avoided, they are touched upon
lightly.One has the impression that the author
sat down, thought over his past, and let his
remembrances pour out on paper. Each
chapter is a chronicle of Willey's personal
experiences with the person. Many famous
names appear as chapter titles-A.L.
Kroeber, Junius Bird, Julian Steward, and
Alfred Marston Tozzer.
Willey's professional prose has always
been characterized by enviable directness
and clarity; but it is one thing to be a skilled
expository writer reviewing a historical
sequence or describing the stratigraphy of
a midden, and quite another to be able to
characterize with sensitivity the personality
and appearance of a friend or to tell of
high adventure in the field. The brief character
sketches in this book often do not
come across, at least to this reviewer who
knew some of the people described.
Occasionally the phraseology is-uncharacteristically
for Willey-awkward. In
acknowledging this shortcoming I need
not feel disloyal to a respected friend, since
most of the book carries the reader along
very well. There are a number of passagesfor
instance, his speculations on what
might have been behind the intellectual
drive of his old friend Jim Ford-that are
moving and eloquent. Furthermore, the
writing picks up vigor as the book progresses,
climaxing in the final chapters
which are high-spirited tales of adventure
and misadventure in the jungles of the
Maya area..
However, the bibliographic references
that are inserted parenthetically in the text
are inappropriate interruptions in what is
designed to be a personal narrative, not a
scientific report. Apparently, the author
and/or his editor could not quite divorce
themselves from the stylistic dictates of
technical writing. I should think most
readers would find these parentheses
intrusive and irritating.
Gordon Willey's career, roughly from
the mid-1930s to the 1980s, spans the time
when the thrust of American archaeology
was changing from a concentration on the
space and time distributions of artifact and
cultural types to additional concerns with
more basic matters such as economic, social,
and political organization, ecology,
and the dynamics of cultural change. The
earlier "space-time systematics" or
"culture-historical approach" found itsmost sophisticated expression in the artand-architecture
studies of the great ancient
civilizations such as those in Mexico,
the Maya area, and the Andes. Thosestudies, still viewed by much of the lay
public as typical archaeology, were carried
out largely by archaeologists of independent
means; in effect, the modern
aristocracy was studying the ancient aristocracy.
But at the same time more humble
prehistoric cultures were being investigated
by shoestring projects, or-as in the
Depression-era public works projects of the
New Deal-on public funds. It was not
until after World War II, with the great
expansion of academic programs spurred
initially by federal reservoir salvage work,
that young people aspiring to be archaeologists
could have much hope of actually
making a living at the trade.
Willey's tales reflect this history, since
he entered the field as an undergraduate of
modest means at the University of Arizona
in the early 1930s, moved on into several
years of WPA archaeology in Georgia, and
later found himself making his reputation
in the great ruins of the Andes and finally
in the Maya area. His more recent research
was often done in the company of men of
the old art-and-architecture school, the
patrician archaeologists-superb scholars
and field men-who provide the high
adventure in the final chapters of his book.
Several illuminating passages point out the
philosophical differences between these
men and Willey with his anthropological
outlook. In effect, he was serving as a bridge
between the heavily aesthetic archaeologic'al
past and the heavily social-science
archaeological future.
This is a personal narrative about
people. Broader interests within archaeology,
or outside it, are only seen as background.
The Depression, World War II,
and the great postwar rise in governmentsupported
science receive only incidental
mention, where they are mentioned at all.
The intellectual excitement in archaeology
in the late 1960s and 1970s is scarcely
noted. To Gordon Willey such matters
were not relevant to the task of creating a
fond memorial to his old comrades and
teachers.
The book represents an archaeologist
writing for archaeologists. It is a fascinating
and unusual chronicle. Its place in the
library of this archaeologist-reviewer is at
home on the favorite-books shelf, within
easy reach.Dr. E. Mott Davis is professor emeritus of
anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.HERITAGE * FALL 1990 27
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 1990, periodical, Autumn 1990; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45429/m1/27/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.