Douglas W. Schwartz
Keynote Speaker, Senior Scholar, School of American Research

Biography

      Doug received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1955 after, what he remembers as, four memorable years. The first two years included classes from Ben Rouse, Wendell Bennett, Ralph Linton, George Peter Murdock, Floyd Lousbury, and Cornelius Osgood. Another high-light he remembers were the many evenings he spent studying for the comprehensive with his good buddies Leo Pospisil and Chuck Frake, while always ready to give us the real answers was our friend, who we also considered our better, Hal Conklin. His third year was spent doing archaeological research in the Grand Canyon. The next year he returned to write his dissertation, with Ben as his major advisor and Bill Sturtevant as a reader. Since Doug could not afford a typist, in those years before computers, he typed his own dissertation, along with the four required carbon copies, and Sturtevant said it had real distinction, that is, it contained more typographical errors than any he had ever read.

      Doug then spent ten years at the University of Kentucky as a Professor of Anthropology, Director of its Museum of Anthropology and in his last years there as Academic Assistant to the President, in charge of long range University planning. During those years his research included Southeastern archaeology, a continuation of his work in the Grand Canyon, an ethnographic field project on the volcanic island of Stromboli, north of Sicily, and work developing student creativity in the college classroom.

      In 1967 Doug moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to become President of the School of American Research and over the next thirty four years developed it into a well-funded, productive international center for advanced study in anthropology and Native American art, for which he created a unique campus. He developed a series of programs including advanced seminars, which produced over 60 volumes during his tenure; a community of resident scholar; an international book prize in anthropology; a broad program supporting and encouraging Native American artists; a publishing arm; and, a public membership series.

      While at the School Doug also directed the excavation of a 1000 room, fourteenth century pueblo in the northern Rio Grand Valley, and was the general editor of the nine monographs which came from that research.

      Over his years at the School Doug also was active nationally on many boards and panels including being President of the Society of American Archaeology, Chairman of the Jane Goodall African Wildlife Institute, Chairman of the Witter-Bynner Foundation for Poetry, Chairman of the Secretary of the Interior’s Advisory Board on National Parks and Monuments, and Chairman of the Harvard University Overseers Visiting Committee for the Peabody Museum.

      Doug has honorary doctorates from the University of Kentucky and the University of New Mexico and Distinguished Service awards from both the Society of American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association. He is an avid squash player and at one time ranked fourth in the nation in the seventies age group, but that was because there was no fifth. He feels it’s good to be the best of those who lose.

Abstract

On the Edge of Splendor: Remembering Grand Canyon Archaeology and Ben Rouse

      The prehistory of the Grand Canyon was essentially unknown when I was first introduced to it as a young undergraduate in 1949. Over the next twenty years, beginning with my doctoral research there as a graduate student at Yale, I conducted a number of pioneering archaeological surveys throughout the Canyon. Building on this work, and with major support from the National Science Foundation, in the 1960's I directed a series of excavations, the first major work of its kind in the Grand Canyon area. My work in the Canyon combined back-country exploration, river running, archaeological excavating, ecological research, climatology and ethnographic studies and it uncovered an unexpected and fascinating picture of prehistoric life in this unique environment.

      The first evidence of humans in the region came from remote caves high on Canyon cliffs where I found animal effigies that radio-carbon dated to some 3500 years ago. Later, from the tenth to the twelfth centuries A.D. the Canyon and the plateaus above it, were widely used by ancestral pueblo farmers, who at first delicately then frantically adjusted their lives to changes in climate. My lecture reviews the story of this research, and the struggles prehistoric people encountered in the beautiful but difficult Canyon region. Then thirty years after I completed this research and had moved on to be president f the School of American Research, and to other research efforts, I recently reexamined my earlier conclusions in the light of new findings in other disciplines and discovered a dramatically fresh insight into how and why prehistoric people lived and then abandoned the Grand Canyon country, while leaving behind, not only many archaeological remains, but a dramatic ceremonial marker that is still a sacred Hopi pilgrimage site.