32 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL

Remembering Emil Haury

Raymond H. Thompson Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Former Director of the School of Anthropology & Arizona State Museum University of Arizona

I am honored and pleased to Cave in the Arizona State Muse- have this opportunity to review um, and greatly facilitated my the life of Emil Haury, but first I pursuit of you know whom. At must conform to the ethical stan- the end of the following summer, dards of modern scholarship and Emil played a key role in getting disclose to you that I am an un- us married. He consoled her par- abashed great admirer of him. ents by assuring them that the im- Although I try to avoid using poverished graduate student who the perpendicular pronoun, a was taking their youngest daugh- brief explanation is in order. After ter Molly far away from the ranch a tour of duty in the north Pacific was somehow reliable. He bought with the U.S. Navy Seabees, I re- me a suit, a shirt, and a tie, drove turned to Tufts University to com- me to Tombstone to watch us get plete the education that had been married on this very day sixty-six interrupted by World War II. I ap- years ago, and then put us on the plied to Haury’s new archaeolog- train to Cambridge so that I could ical field school at Point of Pines complete my graduate studies at in Arizona. He accepted me as one Harvard University. Emil, who of the twenty lucky students and I continued to foster my career, spent the summer of 1947 happily soon hired me as an Assistant confirming my boyhood desire to Professor and within a few years be an archaeologist. It was there asked me to take on the task of that I found the rancher’s daugh- nurturing and expanding the fine ter who brightened my life for anthropological program Cum- three score and five years. mings and he had established at When I arrived at Point of Pines the University of Arizona. Clear- my GI Bill budget was down to ly, my great admiration for Emil the lonely buffalo nickel left in my Haury is honest and appropri- pocket. At the end of the field sea- ate. Now that I have completely son, Emil took me to Tucson, put absolved myself of any possible me up in his home, fed me, hired complaint about bias or conflict of me to build an exhibit on Ventana interest, I want to share with you

Arizona Anthropologist Centennial Edition: 32-47. ©2015 Arizona Anthropologist Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 33 some stories about this remark- Haury and Ruth families, moved able man. to east central Kansas where Gus- Emil Walter Haury, born in tav and Clara were married 11 Newton, Kansas at the beginning June 1891. Two years later, Gustav of the twentieth century on 2 May became one of the founding fac- 1904, was the youngest of the four ulty members of Bethel College, sons of Gustav Adolf Haury and the oldest Mennonite institution Clara Katharina Ruth. The story of higher learning in the country, of his life, however, has its be- along with Peter John Wedel, the ginnings in the terrible loss of life father of Waldo, who became an during the Thirty Years War in the authority on the archaeology of first half of the seventeenth centu- the Great Plains, and Heinrich ry. Some two hundred Mennonite Daniel Penner, who would later families, Haury’s among them, become Emil’s father-in-law. left the Aargau of north central Emil and his brothers grew up Switzerland to settle in the Palat- on the campus of Bethel College in inate in southwestern Germany. the modest, comfortable, orderly, At the beginning of the nineteenth and academic environment pro- century, many of them moved to vided by his liberal and support- Bavaria to farm undeveloped land ive parents. It was there that Emil on the Danube west of Ingolstadt. learned the traditional values of However, by the middle of the hard work and industriousness, nineteenth century, lack of land integrity and honesty, cleanliness for the expanding population, and simplicity of living, personal poor economic conditions, the loyalty and commitment, cooper- failure of Germany’s Revolution ation and community service, and of 1848, and the constant threat compassion and help for others of military service caused many – values to which he subscribed Mennonites to look to America. throughout his life. Emil and Emil’s paternal grandparents, Waldo roamed the nearby fields Jakob Haury and Maria Schmitt, and woods, exploring especially migrated to Iowa where Emil’s the prehistoric treasures of Sand father, Gustav, was born. His Creek, that legendary incubator mother, Clara Ruth, was born in of both of their archaeological ca- Illinois where her parents, John reers. If Emil were here, he would Ruth and Elise Strom, had settled. remind us that Bethel College Before long, many of the Iowa and and the University of Arizona Illinois Mennonites, including the produced a third archaeologist, 34 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL

Roland von Steen Richert, who fered to pay his son’s train fare to gave many years of public service Mexico if Cummings would allow to Southwestern archaeology in him to join the Cuicuilco project. the National Park Service. Cummings not only agreed, but In 1923 Emil began his freshman also offered to pay Emil’s fare from year at Bethel College, nurturing Mexico to Tucson and to give him his ambition to be an archaeolo- a student job in the Arizona State gist, but wondering how in the Museum so that he could complete world to make it happen. About his college education in archaeolo- that same time a former Beth- gy at the University of Arizona. el College faculty member, Emil In 1927 Emil and Clara Lee Fraps Richert Riesen, who was teaching earned the first BAs in archaeolo- philosophy at the University of gy at Arizona. Emil had planned Arizona, learned that pioneer Ar- to spend the following summer izona archaeologist, Byron Cum- furthering his romantic interest mings, was making a trip east to in Hulda Esther Penner, whom seek funding for his excavations he had known since elementa- at Cuicuilco in central Mexico. ry school. Her parents, Heinrich Riesen suggested that Cummings Penner and Katharina Dalke, were stop in Kansas and give a lecture among the many Mennonites who at Bethel College on his archaeo- migrated to Kansas in the 1870s logical work in Arizona. from the large Molotschna colony Emil attended that lecture in on the Black Sea when they lost early 1924 and asked Cummings the exemption from military ser- to let him take part in the fol- vice granted to their ancestors by lowing summer’s explorations Catherine the Great in 1786. in northern Arizona. Cummings Hulda was conveniently in Tuc- could not grant that request be- son visiting her oldest sister, Ra- cause he expected to be in Mexi- chel Rebecca, the wife of Profes- co, but he urged Emil to keep in sor Riesen. However, Cummings touch. The following year Emil sent Emil to northern Arizona to wrote to Cummings asking to collect archaeological material be considered for the summer of for the State Museum. The sum- 1925. When Cummings replied mer was not a total loss because that he would again be in Mex- Cummings invited three students, ico, which he considered one of Emil, Clara Lee and Florence the best places to be introduced Hawley, who had earned her BA to archaeology, Gustav Haury of- with a major in English, as well Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 35 as Hulda, to join him in attending from Andrew Ellicott Douglass, the conference on Southwestern an astronomer at the University archaeology hosted at Pecos, New of Arizona, who was interested Mexico by Alfred Vincent Kidder, in long term climatic change for the nation’s leading archaeologist. which he hoped to find evidence Cummings was President of the in the growth records of conifer- University in 1927, so they trav- ous trees. He had assembled a eled to Pecos in the president’s chronology of tree rings extending Lincoln touring car with Emil as from the present back to AD 1260 the driver. He remembered that and had a second older, but un- journey as much for its many flat connected sequence of 585 years tires as for its archaeological and based on archaeological collec- romantic benefits. He, Hulda, tions. Emil and Lyndon Hargrave and Clara Lee had a unique op- helped Douglass find archaeolog- portunity to observe the greats of ical specimens to connect these Southwestern archaeology. How- sequences. On 22 June 1929, a ever, poor Florence Hawley did small piece of charcoal was found not accompany them because her at the Show Low Ruin that closed mother did not think the group the gap between the two tree-ring was properly chaperoned. sequences, enabling Douglass to Cummings promised his three date many of the major prehistor- students teaching jobs if they ic sites in the Four Corners region would continue their studies at of the Southwest. the graduate level. They earned Emil was the first person Doug- the first MAs in archaeology at lass trained in dendrochronology Arizona in 1928 and began teach- and his year of work on the huge ing that year. This employment backlog of undated specimens allowed Emil to propose to Hul- provided the first independent da and they were married by her test of the Douglass method. He father on 7 June 1928. They had helped Douglass teach the first two sons, Allan Gene, an engineer class in tree ring dating, with born in 1934, and Loren Richard, a Waldo Wedel, Clara Lee Fraps, biological oceanographer, born in and Florence Hawley among the 1939. Emil’s first year of teaching students. Emil was one of the made him acutely aware that his key figures in the development education was incomplete and his of dendrochronology and in 1937 experience limited. An opportu- was one of the cofounders of the nity to expand his horizons came Laboratory of Tree Ring Research 36 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL at the University of Arizona, to- Harvard University which he re- day a world leader in the study ceived in 1934. Kidder continued of climate change. The lab now to advise Gladwin and often visit- occupies a new building made ed Gila Pueblo which was a boon possible by a gift from Emil’s sec- to Emil for he had looked upon ond wife, Agnese, and named for Kidder as his role model ever Bryant Bannister , one of Haury since the 1927 Pecos Conference. students who directed the lab in While at Harvard, Emil was con- the critical years following World fronted with the power of a South War II. American Indian medicine man. In 1931, Emil, who was still in The Peabody Museum there had search of ways to expand his ar- an exhibition of Lowland South chaeological experience, joined American ethnographic material Harold Sterling Gladwin at the that included the ceremonial par- new Gila Pueblo Archaeological aphernalia of that medicine man. Foundation that Gladwin had Among the many ritual items established in Globe, Arizona. involved was a medium-sized No longer challenged by his suc- basket that was suspended on an cessful career in finance, Gladwin almost invisible wire. This bas- had sold his seat on the New York ket, which hung innocently mo- Stock Exchange and moved to tionless during the day, was said Santa Barbara, California, where to become quite active in the late he met Kidder and became fasci- evening hours. nated with Southwestern archae- This activity, though unknown ology. He began an ambitious to museum officials, was regular- program of archaeological survey ly observed by the members of the and excavation, defined problems janitorial staff. Every night, shortly of regional scope, and challenged before midnight the basket would established views, but needed a begin to rotate first in one direc- trained archaeologist to help him. tion and then the other and would Emil was the obvious choice and continue its rotation until about as assistant director of Gila Pueb- five am when it would abruptly lo he had an unparalleled oppor- stop. At first the cleaning crew tunity to do field research with- was intrigued and amused by the out the distractions of academy moving basket and mentioned it or museum. Moreover Gladwin to their supervisors as a curiosity. supported Emil’s desire to obtain After a while though, they began a doctorate in anthropology at to be disturbed by the spookiness Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 37 of it. When one of them chanced the uniform glacial deposits that to read the label of the exhibit and underlie much of the Boston ba- discovered that the basket had be- sin. The basket only turned at longed to a powerful Indian med- night because the competing vi- icine man, their attitude changed. brations from cars, trucks, and sub- They convinced themselves that way trains interrupted the weaker the rotating basket was an evil vibration from the electrical plant omen of the wrath of that medi- during the daytime working hours. cine man and they demanded that Museum officials accepted Emil’s steps be taken to combat its baleful explanation and his recommenda- influence. The academic staff- ab tion that the basket be suspended solutely refused to believe any of on two wires. So the basket ceased these concerns, which they consid- to rotate and the janitors happily ered to be superstitious nonsense. returned to their duties. The janitorial staff responded to While at Gila Pueblo Emil car- this insult to them and to their ob- ried out field research in every re- servational powers by threatening gion and time period in the South- a work stoppage. west, surveyed many largely In order to avoid such a crisis, unknown areas, excavated many museum officials agreed to have sites, contributed to the further de- someone with scientific training velopment of tree ring dating, and spend a night in the South Amer- helped systematize the ceramic ican exhibit gallery. Emil was in- taxonomy, all of which he was trigued by the whole thing and able to share with his colleagues volunteered to accept that respon- because Gladwin insisted on and sibility. He, of course, observed supported prompt publication of exactly what the janitors had re- field research. The years that Emil ported. He also noted that there spent at Gila Pueblo have been la- was a weak but constant vibration belled “seven years that reshaped that could be felt throughout the Southwest prehistory.” entire building. Emil determined However Gladwin had a pen- that the basket turned only in chant for floating ideas based on response to that weak vibration vague and far flung similarities which was produced by an electri- that contrasted with Emil’s in- cal generating plant about a mile sistence that every hypothesis away on the banks of the Charles had to be rooted in at least some River. The vibrations were trans- empirical evidence. Consequent- mitted to the Museum through ly, problems began to emerge in 38 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL the Gladwin-Haury relationship. become the Dean of the College Once again Cummings present- of Liberal Arts. We might even ed Emil with an opportunity for speculate that the close relation- change and advancement. During ship between the Riesen, Penner, the Depression the legislation had and Haury families must have reduced the University of Arizona been a factor in the recruitment budget so much that half a dozen of Emil as Cummings’ successor. or so of the oldest professors were In any event, Dean Riesen urged forced into retirement. Cummings, that Emil not waste the advantage therefore, was retiring as Head of being a new comer for whom of the Department of Archaeolo- many had high expectations. De- gy and had anointed Emil as his spite the fact that the University successor. In 1937 Emil replaced was suffering from those massive Cummings as Head of the Depart- Depression era budget cuts, Emil ment and the following year as Di- took Riesen’s advice and began rector of the State Museum. a vigorous and ultimately suc- Cummings found it difficult to cessful campaign to increase the give up the powerful role in uni- budget, the size of the faculty, the versity and state affairs that he library holdings, student support, had enjoyed for almost a quarter and research activity. During his of a century. On the very first day forty-three years of active service of Emil’s tenure as Director of the to the University of Arizona he Museum, Cummings explained developed opportunities for field to him in great detail exactly how training, carried out significant things were to be done. Emil told research projects, created a na- me that then and there he prom- tionally ranked doctoral program, ised himself that when he retired professionalized and modernized he “would not hover around look- the State Museum, and co-found- ing over his successor’s shoulder.” ed the Laboratory for Tree Ring He kept that promise when he Research, the Bureau of Ethnic turned the reins over to me in 1964, Research (now the Bureau of Ap- although he was always available plied Research in Anthroopology), whenever I sought his advice. the Radiocarbon Age Determina- Cummings favored a fiscally tion Laboratory, the Arid Lands conservative approach that con- Program, and the University of trasted sharply with the advice Arizona Press. Emil received from his broth- The task of professionalizing er-in-law, Emil Riesen, who had the Museum was much more Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 39 difficult than the expansion of Emil’s former colleagues at Gila the program in anthropology. Pueblo, became the first full time Cummings was quite modern in staff member. Although most of his thinking about the nature of the teaching faculty was employed anthropology, but his concept of full-time, Museum staff members, a museum was typical of the an- including both Cummings and tiquarian approach of the nine- Haury, were all part time prior to teenth century. Haury started by the appointment of Sayles. I was trying to clean some of the items a grateful beneficiary of that staff hanging on the walls. Photos in expansion, for the second of those the Museum taken in the thir- full time staff members was that ties show Navajo blankets on the rancher’s daughter who began walls with a flat basket attached her museum employment in 1947, to the middle of each one. Emil the year that I showed up at Point told me that when he tried to re- of Pines. move them from the wall many of Haury recognized and took ad- the textiles simply disintegrated. vantage of the uniqueness of the They had been largely consumed Arizona State Museum. Although by colonies of insects residing be- it was established in 1893 as a state hind the baskets and were only museum, it was also an institution still in one piece because they in Arizona’s land grant universi- were semi-attached to the wall by ty with its three-fold mandate of the secretions of the insects. teaching, research, and service. Emil constructed special storage The mutually reinforcing respon- facilities and established guide- sibilities and opportunities in this lines for future collecting. He situation were skillfully exploited shifted attention from objects to by Haury. the ideas they represent and pro- He provided archaeological vided explanatory and interpre- services in Arizona instead of try- tive labels for the new exhibits. He ing to control the State’s archaeol- introduced a modern cataloguing ogy as Cummings had done. He system and began to improve the continued Cumming’s efforts to care and conservation of the col- protect archaeological resources lections. He also set out to expand from looting and indiscriminate the almost nonexistent staff. It digging, obtaining new legisla- was not until 1943, fully fifty years tion that not only protected those after the founding of the Museum, resources on State Land, but also that Edwin Booth Sayles, one of made them available to all qual- 40 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL ified researchers. He modified chaeology, which Emil especially Gladwin’s archaeological site sur- prized because of his admiration vey to create a more comprehen- for Kidder. No small wonder then sive system that continues today to that President Richard Harvill, serve researchers through the AZ who admired Emil very much, Sites program. Instead of compet- chose Anthropology as one of the ing and battling with eastern col- two disciplines—the other was leagues, as Cummings and Hewitt Astronomy—on which to base his in New Mexico had done, he joined efforts to establish the University forces with them to establish na- of Arizona as a nationally ranked tional and international standards. research institution. Emil Haury was clearly a mas- Emil was a consummate field ter teacher and like his father, a archaeologist who gained an in- dedicated institution builder, but timate knowledge of all regions more than anything else, he was and time periods of Southwestern one of the preeminent archaeol- archaeology that no one else be- ogists of the twentieth century. fore or since has enjoyed. Because He received many honors, among he was a skilled observer with an them the Viking Fund Medal for excellent memory, he was able to Archaeology; election to the Na- use that knowledge to great ad- tional Academy of Sciences, the vantage. While still a graduate first faculty member in Arizona student he observed details that to be so honored; election to the proved the so-called Roman lead American Philosophical Society, artifacts found near Tucson had which appealed to Emil’s practi- been planted as a hoax. He re- cal sense because it was founded membered a potsherd his parents in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for had picked up at Walnut Canyon the “promotion of useful knowl- in 1908 and enshrined in the cab- edge;” appointment as the first inet of curiosities in their parlor, Riecker Distinguished Professor well enough to place it in the ce- of Anthropology, the University’s ramic taxonomic system of South- first endowed chair; the Conser- western archaeology. vation Service Award of the De- His store of knowledge about partment of the Interior, one of the prehistoric pottery in the South- highest awards given to a civilian west was legendary. He had what by the federal government; and many enviously called a “feel” for the Alfred Vincent Kidder Award ceramic identification. Long af- for Eminence in American Ar- ter his retirement, his colleagues Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 41 continued to come to him bear- chaeology precise chronological ing some nondescript potsherd controls that all other regions of in the hope that he would be able the country lacked until the ad- to help them. They were seldom vent of radiocarbon dating after disappointed. His use of region- World War II. al distribution, stylistic seriation, Shortly after the war, Walter stratigraphic control, dendrochro- Taylor published a scathing re- nology, and ceramic cross-dat- view of the work of six of the ing, to establish the Hohokam country’s most productive ar- chronology at Snaketown is a chaeologists, including Kidder classic example of the kind of in- and Haury, accusing them of em- terpretation that was possible be- phasizing chronological concerns cause of his great store of detailed instead of cultural interpretation. information witnessed first hand. Taylor generated a great deal of ill Emil understood that until some will that delayed the acceptance reasonable semblance of chronol- of his own more positive ideas ogy was achieved, it was very about the processes of cultural difficult to undertake cultural in- development. Emil had, of course, terpretations. For example, before suffered criticism before, for ex- the advent of tree-ring dating, ar- ample, when he proposed the chaeologists working in the Four Mogollon culture for the central Corners region of the Southwest mountainous region of the South- were fully convinced of a great an- west. He tried to treat criticism in a tiquity for the Basketmaker-Pueb- professional manner preferring to lo sequence developed at that first respond to it by obtaining new ev- Pecos Conference in 1927. Kidder idence rather than by citing theo- even talked about the cherished retical or ideological positions. He but never discovered BC, that is made every effort to avoid having Before Christ, dates. Dendrochro- professional disagreements affect nology reduced that presumed his personal relationships. great antiquity more than in half I remember being on the edge of and placed the first Basketmakers a conversation between Emil and in the early centuries of the Chris- Walt Taylor when Emil suggested tian era instead of around 2,000 that Walt might want to consult BC, causing major shifts in the with Dick Woodbury on whatever interpretation of cultural change it was they were discussing. Walt and development. Dendrochro- responded that he would never nology gave Southwestern ar- talk to Woodbury. When Emil 42 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL asked why, Walt explained that lowed and his work at Matty Can- Woodbury had said some unkind yon showed that agriculture was things about him in a review of introduced before pottery. He Taylor’s monograph. Emil chuck- provided most of the evidence for led and pointed out that Walt had Gladwin’s Hohokam culture and said some unkind things about he forced researchers of the Ana- him in that very monograph, but sazi or Ancestral Pueblo culture to that it did not prevent him from refine their ideas by introducing talking to Walt. the concept of the Mogollon as a The most telling of Woodbury’s separate and competing culture. criticisms was that Taylor ignored The chronological framework the fundamental requirement of of Southwestern Archaeology archaeology that a firm and fine was constructed of several shorter grained chronology was a prereq- segments of the regional chronol- uisite to all further interpretation. ogy that overlapped to create the There was, of course, some merit whole. It was not until Emil dug in Taylor’s criticisms and several Ventana Cave that the entire se- approaches were introduced in quence was found in undisturbed the 1960s to facilitate broader cul- stratigraphic order in one place. tural interpretations. It is not sur- Ventana cave contained evidence prising that when practitioners of of the entire cultural sequence of the so-called New Archaeology, southern Arizona from the time and their processual and behav- of the Ice Age hunters to the brief ioral successors, wanted to test visits of recent tourists who dis- their ideas they turned to the carded flash bulbs on the surface. rich body of chronologically con- It has, therefore, an iconic place in trolled data that had been creat- American archaeology. ed by Kidder, Haury, and many Emil contributed a great deal to others in the Southwest, the only Southwestern archaeology, but he place in the country where such fully understood that his legacy data were available. would depend not on his work, Emil worked in all periods of but that of his students and oth- Southwestern prehistory. He ers. They would be the ones to dug mammoth kill sites that doc- refine, connect and expand his umented the hunting activities conception of the Southwestern of Early Man at the end of the past. And they have, for example, Ice Age. He helped to define the by discovering huge villages of Archaic Cochise culture that fol- preceramic farmers near Tucson; Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 43 by showing that his belief in con- er, though somewhat surprised, siderable antiquity for the early agreed to prepare some. Within Hohokam was as erroneous as a few days she served them some Kidder’s view of the antiquity of smell bits of tough and rubbery the Basketmakers; by reassessing protein in a cream sauce. The the role of warfare in the prehis- American woman had meant to toric Southwest; and by exploring ask for calf brains or rather sesos the influence of climate change de ternera. Sesos are brain and senos in the Hohokam irrigation sys- are breasts, which in the case of a tem through the reconstruction calf is an udder. of stream flow from tree-ring re- Emil’s successes in Southwest- cords. The last of the thirty doc- ern archaeology are substantial toral students whose disserta- and widely recognized, but less- tions he chaired has shown that well known are his contributions the unique cylindrical vessels to national policy. Because his from Chaco canyon were used for archaeological interpretations drinking the foaming chocolate were well-grounded in empirical from the civilizations of Meso- evidence untainted by narrow america to the south. theoretical bias or ideological con- Except for two Latin American straints, it was expected that he projects, all of Emil’s archaeolog- would apply similarly rigorous ical work was carried out in the standards when offering advice Southwest. In 1925 he was with on policy matters. Of equal im- Cummings at Cuicuilco in Central portance was Emil’s realization Mexico, his very first archaeologi- that government officials have to cal experience, and in 1949-50 he cope with many difficult issues, excavated sites of the little known such as historical conditions, bu- Chibcha culture of Colombia in reaucratic problems, personal northern South America. Whlie ambitions, political interference, there the Haury family stayed in competing agendas, and pressure a pension in Bogota where they groups. He understood that the had an amusing culinary experi- role of outsiders like himself was ence. Also at the pension was an to identify problems and demand American researcher whose wife solutions, but that lobbying for responded to a request from the specific solutions developed with- owner of the pension for favorite out concern for the circumstances dishes with a comment that she of the affected government agen- enjoyed senos de ternera. The own- cy was counter-productive. This 44 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL was the kind of useful and prac- litical and bureaucratic processes tical knowledge for which Emil to make the Arizona State Muse- admired Benjamin Franklin. um a national leader in cultural Agency heads and political resource management.For exam- leaders came to him for advice ple, Haury developed one of the for they knew that he would of- nation’s first successful programs fer well-reasoned arguments in highway salvage archaeology, for what he thought would best something that he accomplished serve the needs of the nation. As with the accidental but critical help a key member of the indepen- of a famous Mexican revolution- dent Committee for the Recovery ary, Doroteo Arango, otherwise of Archaeological Remains he known as Pancho Villa. When was in a position to pressure for President Woodrow Wilson rec- action to protect the nation’s ar- ognized Villa’s rival, Venustiano chaeological heritage. He played Carranza, as the legal president of an important role in paving the Mexico, Villa began to attack and way for the gradual adoption of kill Americans and even raided the environmental and historical Columbus, New Mexico in 1916. legislation that now provides the Wilson responded by sending protection he requested. He was General John Pershing and the US especially helpful to the Depart- Army on a punitive expedition ment of the Interior when it be- to capture Pancho Villa, but he came necessary to restructure the hampered Pershing by ordering role of the National Park Service him not to commandeer Mexican as the lead agency for archaeo- railroads to transport troops and logical and historic preservation. equipment. As a result, Persh- Emil contributed significantly to ing was terribly frustrated by the development of our national the desperate conditions of the program in compliance archaeol- roads, when they were any, on ogy that now involves all relevant both sides of the border. Though federal agencies, many Indian unable to capture Villa, Pershing tribes, most state agencies, many escaped public embarrassment cities and counties, and a large only because he left Mexico early number of private companies in in 1917 to lead American forces in the field of cultural resource man- Europe in World War I. agement. As these changes began When Pershing returned to to produce results, Emil applied Washington after the War, he his deep understanding of the po- decided to address the transpor- Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 45 tation problems that he and his grams, found it hard to change, so mules had encountered in Mexico Emil and his supporters there had and the Southwest. He assigned to wait until the Navajo tribe and the task of designing a national the Forest Service created a crisis system of military highways to for them to resolve by refusing to a young lieutenant fresh out of grant rights-of-way across their West Point. As a part of that proj- lands without compliance with ect, that young officer traveled the federal requirement for sal- across the country from Maryland vage archaeology. to California with a contingent of Emil was ready and willing troops. It took them three months to take care of the crisis if mod- to accomplish. When that young est funds could be found to help officer, whose name was Dwight him. Although there were meet- Eisenhower, became the thir- ings and memos thoughout these ty-fourth President of the United negotiations, most of the activity States, he dusted off the report was unofficial, informal, and un- and sent it to Congress where it recorded. After a meeting to deal became the Federal-Aid High- with the Navajo-Forest Service way and Highway Revenue Act of crisis, the manager of advanced 1956. We are all familiar with the planning for the Highway De- main result of the legislation, the partment wrote to Emil thank- Interstate Highway system, but ing him for the meeting without perhaps less aware that it autho- mentioning the subject matter and rized the use of federal funds for commenting that an unspecified archaeological salvage on federal “this” appeared to be the opening highway projects. they were looking for. “This”, of Emil, who had been pressuring course, was the right-of-way cri- the Arizona Highway Depart- sis. The Highway Commission al- ment (now Arizona Department located twenty-five thousand dis- of Transportation), for the adop- cretionary dollars to “prospect for tion of a similar policy in Arizona archaeological artifacts in advance since 1938, immediately request- of construction” without making ed state funding under the new any reference to Emil’s longstand- legislation. However, the High- ing request, to the new federal way Department bureaucracy, law, or to the right-of-way matter, accustomed to solving problems nothing that might be politically related to highway construction, embarrassing later on. The first but not developing new pro- Highway Salvage Archaeologist 46 ARIZONA ANTHROPOLOGIST CENTENNIAL was employed and within weeks words of others. For example, the Highway Department found Peter Wedel, the father of Emil’s itself in full compliance with the boyhood friend Waldo, described law, no longer under pressure Emil’s father, Gustav, in a brief from Haury, free of any right-of- statement that, with the change way crisis with a clear precedent only of Arizona for Bethel, de- for justifying future state funding scribes Emil Haury as well. for salvage archaeology, all at no A keen intellect, sound judg- great expense and without having ment, a strong but pleasing to suffer any traumatic breaking personality, firm convictions of comfortable and cherished old positively but not dogmatical- bureaucratic habits. ly expressed, wide reading and intelligent observation gave him Emil devoted his long and a breadth of outlook and a sym- productive career to the goal of pathetic attitude that made him achieving a better understanding one of the chief molders of edu- of Southwestern prehistory. He cational policy, not only during recognized the unity, diversity, his early years at Bethel/Arizona and regional context of its de- but throughout his busy life- veloment, employed meticulous time. A fine sense of humor and and systematic field methods and the ability to tell as well as ap- techniques, accumulated pro- preciate a good story made him fessionally recovered empirical an almost ideal companion. data, set high standards of per- However, for a final statement formance, nurtured and trained about Emil, I turn to an old Plains students within a broad insti- Indian, Waldo Wedel, told me tutional framework, and estab- about some years ago. Waldo was lished both relative and absolute a student at a summer program chronologies. The result is the ra- in anthropological field train- tional, evidence based, data rich, ing sponsored by the Rockefeller chronologically controlled, envi- Foundation during the thirties at ronmentally sound, and anthro- the Museum of New Mexico in pologically grounded concept of Santa Fe. He was one of a small the Southwestern past that guides group of students who were be- our own efforts to meet his high ing introduced to ethnographic expectations. field work by practicing inter- In attempting to give you an viewing a blind old Plains Indi- overall assessment of Emil Hau- an. The student began by asking ry I find it helpful to turn to the about the rules of kinship and Thompson - Remembering Emil Haury 47 marriage. Waldo, noting that the company. So, Waldo spoke up: old man was not entirely hap- “Sir, did you ever lift a tipi cov- py with the situation, thought it er?” The blind old man turned to would be better to ask questions face the sound of Waldo’s voice, about behavior rather than the raised his cane in the air as if he rules for behavior. Well informed were going to strike Waldo, and on Plains ethnography, he de- exclaimed, “Thank God, there’s a cided to ask about the common real human being here!” courtship practice known as lift- So, I could summarize by ing the tipi cover. In addition to describing Emil as a promising the familiar slanting exterior hide young man, a loving husband, a cover, a tipi has a kind of curtain supportive father, a dependable hung on the inside like the walls friend, a talented artist and drafts- in upper story rooms or attics that man, a master teacher, a skilled cut off that awkward space under administrator, a successful insti- the eaves. Each occupant of a tipi tution builder, a dedicated public had a sleeping area next to that servant, and above all, a preemi- curtain. A young man in pursuit nent archaeologist, but, following of a young woman would note Cicero, I will save all those words the location of her sleeping area, for another time and instead, lift the tipi cover there, after dark, following that wise old Indian, and slip into the space between simply tell you that Emil Walter the cover and the curtain, hoping Haury was, in every sense of the to spend some quality time in her phrase, one real human being!