Richard Stockton MacNeish (1918-2001)

Abstract

In the 1940S, before the extensive surveys and excavations of archaeologist Richard S. (“Scotty”) MacNeish, little was known about the origins of agriculture and the transition from hunting and gathering to sedentary life in the New World. Over a period of six decades, MacNeish supplied us with enormous quantities of data and developed new ways of thinking about how Native Americans lived during thousands of years of nomadic foraging. He eventually extended his work to places as diverse as the Yukon, New Mexico, Mexico, Belize, Peru, and China.