The Life of Gordon Randolph Willey, 1913–
Ancient Mesoamerica, 14 (2003), 169–177 Copyright © 2003 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the U.S.A. DOI: 10.1017/S0956536103142058 IN MEMORIAM SPRINTER, WORDSMITH, MENTOR, AND SAGE The life of Gordon Randolph Willey, 1913–2002 William L. Fash Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Peabody Museum, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA On April 27, 2002, while walking in the garden of his home in quest of Peru, he decided to study archaeology. His Latin Ameri- Cambridge, one of the premier American archaeologists of the can history teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School persuaded twentieth century was taken from us suddenly, by massive heart him to study under Byron Cummings, a renowned field archaeol- failure, at the age of 89. Gordon R. Willey was appointed the first ogist and teacher of Southwest U.S. archaeology. Cummings was Charles P. Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican a revered faculty member at the University of Arizona, where he Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University in 1950 at the was not only the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, Arts, and Letters tender age of 37, without ever having set foot in Mesoamerica. In but also an athletic booster. In his memoirs (Portraits in American later years Willey happily introduced himself to people as a “Maya Archaeology: Remembrances of Some Distinguished American- archaeologist,” but his importance transcends his long and distin- ists, 1988), Willey wrote that, at their first meeting, Cummings guished career in that area. seemed a bit disappointed at the youthfulness and slimness of his In the early part of his life Willey made vital contributions to the new charge.
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