Denis Williams

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For the Welsh neurologist and epileptologist, see Denis John Williams. For people with a similar name, see Dennis Williams.

Denis Williams
Camberwell School of Art

Denis Williams (1 February 1923 – 28 June 1998)

archaeologist
.

Biography

Dr. Denis Joseph Ivan Williams, C.C.H., Hon. D. Lit., M.A., called by his friends "Sonny" Williams, was born on 1 February 1923 in

University of Ife.[3]

In 1980 he began intensive archaeological and

radiocarbon dates, and other pitfalls, and some of his efforts to detect them were detailed in Early Pottery on the Amazon: A Correction.[4]

Evidence for a correlation between the declining productivity of

manioc offers a reasonable explanation for the origin of this remarkable technology.[6]
A monograph detailing his evidence and interpretations of the interaction between environmental change and Guyana prehistory was in press at the time of his death.

He recognised the importance of publication and in 1978 founded Archaeology and Anthropology, the journal of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology in Georgetown. Among other journals Williams edited were Odu (the University of Ife Journal of African studies) and Lagos Notes and Records, and he contributed numerous essays on art to books and journals. His skill as a writer is documented not only in his scientific papers, but in two novels and numerous short stories.[3]

In 1986, Williams and his assistant, Jennifer Wishart, initiated a programme for junior archaeologists in Guyanese secondary schools.

Williams died from cancer, aged 75, on 28 June 1998 at his home in Georgetown.[7][8]

The Art of Denis Williams, a book by his daughter Evelyn A. Williams about his life and work, was published inn 2012.[9]


Awards and recognition

His accomplishments were recognised in several national awards, including the Golden Arrow of Achievement Award from the government of Guyana in 1973, and the Cacique Crown of Honour in 1989, the same year that he received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies.[1]

Selected works

Fiction

  • Other Leopards. London: New Authors Ltd, 1963. Reprinted Peepal Tree Press, 2009.
  • The Third Temptation. London: Calder and Boyars, 1968. Reprinted Peepal Tree Press, 2010.

Non-fiction

  • Image and Idea in the Arts of Guyana (1969)
  • Giglioli in Guyana, 1922–1972 (1973)
  • Icon and Image: A Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art (1974)
  • Contemporary Art in Guyana (1976)
  • Guyana, Colonial Art to Revolutionary Art, 1966–1976
  • Habitat and Culture in Ancient Guyana (1984)
  • Pages in Guyanese Prehistory (1995)
  • Prehistoric Guyana (2003)

References

  1. ^ a b c Petamber Persaud, "The Life and Work of Denis Williams (1923–1998)| The Shaping of Guyanese Literature", Guyana Times International, 23 November 2012.
  2. ^ Author information at Peepal Tree Press.
  3. ^ a b c Hughes, Michael. "Williams, Denis". A Companion to West Indian Literature. pp. 133–134.
  4. ^ 1997, American Antiquity 62: 342.
  5. ^ 1982, Archaeology and Anthropology.
  6. ^ 1992, "El Arcaico en el Noroeste de Guyana y los Comienzos de la Horticultura". In B. J. Meggers (ed.), Prehistoria Sudamericana, pp. 233–51.
  7. ^ McPherson, Akima (23 July 2023). "Denis Williams – London to Issano to Georgetown". Stabroek News. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
  8. ^ Reece, Maggie (1 February 2011). "Denis J. I. Williams: 1923–1998 – Painter, Author & Archaeologist – by Betty J. Meggers". Guyana Graphic.
  9. ^ "The Art of Denis Williams". Peepal Tree Press.

Further reading

  • Charlotte Williams and Evelyn A. Williams (eds), Denis Williams, a Life in Works: New and Collected Essays, Editions Rodopi B.V., 2010.
  • Victor J. Ramraj, "Denis Williams (1923–)", in Daryl Cumber Dance, Fifty Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986, pp. 483–92.

External links

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