William Duncan Strong (1899–1962) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist noted for his application of the direct historical approach to the study of indigenous peoples of North and South America.
Gordon Randolph Willey was an American archaeologist who was described by colleagues as the "dean" of New World archaeology. Willey performed fieldwork at excavations in South America, Central America and the Southeastern United States; and pioneered the development and methodology for settlement patterns theories. He worked as an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution and as a professor at Harvard University.
Jane Ellen Buikstra is an American anthropologist and bioarchaeologist. Her 1977 article on the biological dimensions of archaeology coined and defined the field of bioarchaeology in the US as the application of biological anthropological methods to the study of archaeological problems. Throughout her career, she has authored over 20 books and 150 articles. Buikstra's current research focuses on an analysis of the Phaleron cemetery near Athens, Greece.
Arthur Andrew Demarest is an American anthropologist and archaeologist, known for his studies of the Maya civilization.
Michael Douglas Coe was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher, and author. He is known for his research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, particularly the Maya, and was among the foremost Mayanists of the late twentieth century. He specialised in comparative studies of ancient tropical forest civilizations, such as those of Central America and Southeast Asia. He held the chair of Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Yale University, and was curator emeritus of the Anthropology collection in the Peabody Museum of Natural History, where he had been curator from 1968 to 1994.
Kwang-chih Chang, commonly known as K. C. Chang, was a Chinese / Taiwanese-American archaeologist and sinologist. He was the John E. Hudson Professor of archaeology at Harvard University, Vice-President of the Academia Sinica, and a curator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He helped to bring modern, western methods of archaeology to the study of ancient Chinese history. He also introduced new discoveries in Chinese archaeology to western audiences by translating works from Chinese to English. He pioneered the study of Taiwanese archaeology, encouraged multi-disciplinal anthropological archaeological research, and urged archaeologists to conceive of East Asian prehistory as a pluralistic whole.
Stephen Douglas Houston is an American anthropologist, archaeologist, epigrapher, and Mayanist scholar, who is particularly renowned for his research into the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. He is the author of a number of papers and books concerning topics such as the Maya script, the history, kingships and dynastic politics of the pre-Columbian Maya, and archaeological reports on several Maya archaeological sites, particularly Dos Pilas and El Zotz. In 2021, National Geographic noted that he participated in the correct cultural association assigned to a half-size replica discovered at the Tikal site of the six-story pyramid of the mighty Teotihuacan culture, which replicated its Citadel that includes the original Feathered Serpent Pyramid.
Stuart McKee Struever is an American archaeologist and anthropologist best known for his contributions to the archaeology of the Woodland Period in the US midwest and for his leadership of archaeology research & education foundations. He was a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University.
Joyce Marcus is a Latin American archaeologist and professor in the Department of Anthropology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also holds the position of Curator of Latin American Archaeology, University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. Marcus has published extensively in the field of Latin American archaeological research. Her focus has been primarily on the Zapotec, Maya, and coastal Andean civilizations of Central and South America. Much of her fieldwork has been concentrated in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. She is known for her "Dynamic model", four-tiered hierarchy, and her use of interdisciplinary study.
Robert J. Sharer was an American archaeologist, academic and Mayanist researcher. He was known for his archaeological investigations at a number of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sites conducted over a career spanning four decades, and for his archaeological reports, theorizing, and writings in his field of specialty, the ancient Maya civilization. Sharer was a lecturer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Anthropology for more than 30 years, and as of 2008 occupied the endowed chair of Sally and Alvin V. Shoemaker Professor in Anthropology, an appointment which he held beginning in 1995. He also had an extensive association with Penn's University Museum of archaeology and anthropology, where from 1987 to 2009 he was the curator-in-charge of the Museum's American collection and research section. He died on September 20, 2012.
Vernon Lee Scarborough is an American academic anthropologist and archaeologist, known for his research and publications on settlement, land use and water management practices of archaic and Pre-industrial society.
Anthony Francis Aveni is an American academic anthropologist, astronomer, and author, noted in particular for his extensive publications and contributions to the field of archaeoastronomy. With an academic career spanning over four decades, Aveni is recognized for his influence on the development of archaeoastronomy as a discipline in the latter 20th century. He has specialized in the study of ancient astronomical practices in the Americas, and is one of the founders of research into the historical astronomy of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. He held an endowed chair as the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology and Native American Studies at Colgate University, in Hamilton, New York, where he is now an emeritus professor.
Susan D. Gillespie is an American academic anthropologist and archaeologist, noted for her contributions to archaeological and ethnohistorical research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, in particular the Aztec, Maya and Olmec. As of 2009 Gillespie holds a position as professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of Florida, Gainesville, USA, having also been associate chair of the department from 2003 until 2009.
Diane Zaino Chase is an American anthropologist and archaeologist who specializes in the study of the Ancient Maya. She currently serves as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University of Houston and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University of Houston System.
Wendy Ann Ashmore was an American professor of Maya archaeology at the University of California, Riverside. She was involved in excavations in Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. Her research focused on the implications that spaces, settlement patterns, and gender can have on social organization. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1970 and her Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation analyzed the results of the site periphery program that took place between 1975 and 1979 at Quirigua, Guatemala. In her dissertation, she discusses the use of random sampling in the Maya region and offers suggestions for how research might be carried out in that region in the future. In the 1980s she taught archaeology at Rutgers University. She left for a position at the University of Pennsylvania. Ashmore died in 2019 at her home in Riverside, California.
Arlen F. Chase is a Mesoamerican archaeologist and a faculty member in the anthropology department at Pomona College, Claremont CA. Previously, he was a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and served a variety of administrative roles at the University of Central Florida over the course of his 32 year stay at that institution. He is noted for his long-term research at the ancient Maya city of Caracol, Belize and for exploring landscape traces of Maya civilization using lidar.
Albert Clanton Spaulding was an American anthropologist and processual archaeologist who encouraged the application of quantitative statistics in archaeological research and the legitimacy of anthropology as a science. His push for thorough statistical analysis in the field triggered a series of academic debates with archaeologist James Ford in which the nature of archaeological typologies was meticulously investigated—a dynamic discourse now known as the Ford-Spaulding Debate. He was also instrumental in increasing funding for archaeology through the National Science Foundation.
William Timothy Sanders (1926–2008) was an American anthropologist who specialized in the archaeology of Mesoamerica.
Marta Weigle was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
Linda Sue Cordell was an American archaeologist and anthropologist. She was a leading researcher of the archaeology of the Southwest United States and Ancestral Pueblo communities. She authored a number of notable books familiar to both the general public and scholars, including the Prehistory of the Southwest. Cordell was well recognized for her mentorship and leadership in the field; she received many awards and honors throughout her career, including being elected to the National Academies of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an endowed Peabody Award was named in honor of her in 2014.
