Alfred Tozzer

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Alfred Marston Tozzer
University professor
  • Scholar

    • Alfred Marston Tozzer (July 4, 1877 – October 5, 1954) was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, linguist, and educator. His principal area of interest was Mesoamerican, especially Maya, studies.[1][2] He was the husband of Margaret Castle Tozzer[3][4] and father of figure skating champion Joan Tozzer.[5]

    Early studies and career

    Alfred Tozzer was born in

    Navajos living near Pueblo Bonito in New Mexico. From these experiences he published his first paper, which he presented at the Thirteenth International Congress of Americanists
    held in New York in 1902.

    In December 1901, he won appointment as a traveling fellow for the

    Cenote Sagrado; at the end of another, he carried artifacts to the Peabody Museum in his luggage.[6]

    In 1903, Tozzer traveled to Campeche and Chiapas to conduct research among the Lacandon Maya, and lived for several weeks in a small settlement on Lake Pethá, witnessing and even participating in their ceremonies. He returned there during the 1904 season.[7][8][9] He wrote his PhD dissertation comparing the ceremonies of the Lacondone Maya with the Yucatecan Maya.[10]

    In the fall of 1904, he studied at Columbia University under Franz Boas and Adolph Bandelier. He spent one more season in Yucatán, Campeche and Chiapas, before settling at Harvard in the fall of 1905 as an assistant professor of anthropology.

    Transition to archaeologist

    Black vulture and snake from a Maya codex[11]

    From the beginning of his professional career, Tozzer began to shift more to archaeology and away from

    Alfred Kidder and Sylvanus Morley on a purely archaeological expedition to Rito de los Frijoles in New Mexico (today part of Bandelier National Monument
    ).

    In 1910 he took a leave of absence from Harvard to lead his first expedition to the ruins of Tikal and Nakum on behalf of the university's Peabody Museum.[12][13] On this trip Tozzer discovered the ruins of Holmul.

    In 1914 Tozzer took another leave of absence to succeed Boas as director of the International School of American Archeology and Ethnology in Mexico. He arrived in Veracruz in time to witness the US Navy shelling of the city. He oversaw excavation of the Toltec site at Santiago Ahuitzotla.[14] Once his term as director expired, he never ventured into the field again.[15]

    Tozzer eventually returned to Harvard where he would spend the remainder of his professional career, except for stints in the military. He served as a captain in the Air Service from 1917 to 1918. He served as a major in the Reserves from 1918 to 1929. During World War II, he served as director of the Honolulu office of the Office of Strategic Services from 1943 to 1945.

    Later career

    Tozzer returned from World War I to his post as associate professor at Harvard. Within three years he was a full professor and chairman of the Division of Anthropology.

    In 1922, Tozzer won appointment to the Academic Board at Radcliffe College, and later become a trustee in 1928. He served on Harvard's Administrative Board from 1928 until his retirement in 1948.

    Tozzer published several important works in Maya studies, among them, a grammar of the

    magnum opus, "Chichen Itza and its Cenote of Sacrifice" (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, 1957), was published after his death in 1954. A massive volume with hundreds of illustrations, "It covers every aspect of Chichen Itza: its history, religious cults, arts, and industries as well as contacts with other regions," noted Samuel Kirkland Lothrop in his obituary of Tozzer. "It concentrates in a single volume the learning acquired in half a century."[15]

    Tozzer was elected a member of the

    National Academy of Sciences.[20]

    He died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 5, 1954.[21]

    Honors

    Tozzer was the first person awarded the American Anthropological Association's Alfred Vincent Kidder Award for Eminence in the Field of American Archaeology (1950).

    In 1974 the Peabody Museum renamed its library the Tozzer Library, as Tozzer had been active in building its collection and in its management from 1935 to his retirement.

    Notes

    1. ^ Phillips, Philip (July 1955). "Alfred Marsten Tozzer 1877–1954". American Antiquity. 21 (1): 72–80.
    2. Peabody Museum Press
      : 302–305.
    3. ^ "Many Interesting Weddings and Engagements". The New York Times. February 2, 1913. p. X3. Retrieved May 2, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
    4. ^ "Dr. Alfred Tozzer, Anthropologist, 77". The New York Times. October 6, 1954: 25.
    5. ^ "Fine Figures". Time. January 30, 1939. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012. Retrieved June 6, 2008.
    6. ^ McVicker, Mary (2005). Adela Breton: A Victorian Artist Amid Mexico's Ruins. University of New Mexico Press.
    7. S2CID 245265149
      .
    8. S2CID 245275514
      .
    9. S2CID 163514688
      .
    10. ^ Tozzer, Alfred M. (1907). A Comparative Study in the Mayas and the Lacandones. New York: Archaeological Institute of America.
    11. ^ Tozzer, Alfred M. (1910). "Animal figures in the Maya codices". Papers of the Peabody Museum. 4 (3).
    12. ^ Tozzer, Alfred (1910). "Preliminary study of the prehistoric ruins of Tikal, Guatemala, Report of the Peabody Museum Expedition, 1909–1910". Cambridge, Massachusetts: Memoirs of the Peabody Museum. 5 (2): 93–135.
    13. ^ Tozzer, Alfred M. (1913). A Preliminary Study of the Prehistoric Ruins of Nakum, Guatemala: A Report of the Peabody Museum Expedition, 1909–1910. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 144–201.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
    14. ^ Tozzer, Alfred M. (1921). Excavation of a site at Santiago Ahuitzotla, D.F. Mexico. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 74. Washington: US Government Printing Office.
    15. ^ a b Lothrop, S. K. (1955). "Alfred Marston Tozzer 1876–1954". American Anthropologist. 57: 614–618.
    16. ^ Tozzer, Alfred M. (1921). "A Maya grammar: with bibliography and appraisement of the works noted". Papers of the Peabody Museum. 9. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
    17. ^ Tozzer, Alfred M. (1941). Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán: A Translation. Papers of the Peabody Museum. Cambridge, Massachusetts.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
    18. ^ "Alfred Marston Tozzer". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. February 9, 2023. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
    19. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
    20. ^ "Alfred Tozzer". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
    21. ^ "Alfred M. Tozzer: Ex-Harvard Professor Was Famed Archeologist". The Boston Globe. October 5, 1954. p. 52. Retrieved May 1, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.

    External links

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