Archaeological retrospect 6

Gordon Willey is very properly regarded as the doyen of scholars working in American archaeology: his two-volume work, 'An introduction to American archaeology ' (1966-71) was a signifcant landmark in the history of American archaeological research.He retired from the Bowditch Professorship ofArchaeology at Haruard, which he held for33 years, in 1982 and is now a Senior Professor there.For many years he has been a valued friend and advisor to this journal.Here he describes his varied archaeological career which has embracedfieldwork and excavations in North America, Peru, Panama, and Central America.Without optimism archaeology would be impossible' he writes, 'we address the remote past with the confidence that eventually, by some means or other, we will come to understand it.'Here is prospect, as well as retrospect.Although I am not altogether sure just how one's genealogy relates to one's career, let me begin that way.The history of my particular branch of the Willey family, at least on this side of the Atlantic, begins with three brothers, soldiers in the army of Lord Cornwallis who surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown.After a brief internment as prisoners of war, they chose to become citizens of the new republic in exchange for lands on its western frontiers.There was a generation-to-generation westerly movement, first Pennsylvania, then Ohio, and then Iowa.My grandfather, William Willey, settled in Iowa in 1855, with a large farm holding in the Mississippi bottomlands.My father was born there in 1876, the twelfth of 13 children.Apparently, the farm property was not large enough to share among so many, so after two years at the agricultural school at Iowa State University, he decided to go into pharmacy.T o continue with this genealogical sketch, his mother was of Scots descent; and on my mother's side my grandfather came direct from Scotland while my grandmother was from Amsterdam.T o come to me, I was born on 7 March 1913, in Chariton, a small county-seat town in southern Iowa, where my father was the moderately prosperous owner of a drug store.All this places me, I would assume, as a middle class 'wasp' from the middle of the middle class and the middle of the Middle West.