Biography of a Pioneer

Dr. Betty J. Meggers

There are few people who have impacted the field of archaeology as fiercely as Dr. Betty Meggers. Her persistence, ingenuity, and great archaeological skills have earned her the respect of many colleagues, scholars, and students. She has broken many boundaries and helped pave the way for women in the field of archaeology.

 Dr. Meggers was a high school student in Washington, D.C., with the dream of becoming an archaeologist; however, she was also a realist, and knew that her dream had little chance of realization in the 1930s. She volunteered for the Smithsonian Institution expecting to have a career in a museum one day, and later graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an A.B. Over the years, Betty Meggers would also acquire both an M.A. from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in archaeology from Columbia University.

 At Columbia, Meggers met a fellow graduate student in archaeology by the name of Clifford Evans. He was to become not only her colleague, but her husband. Married in 1946, they soon came to be known as the Meggers-Evans team, one of the most respected archaeological teams in history.

 Surprisingly, the prejudices against women in the field of archaeology have only recently begun to fade. During the thirties, forties, and fifties, the germination period of Meggers' career, these prejudices were extremely solid barriers for women who were more than qualified to work alongside esteemed male archaeologists. Dr. Meggers was one of the first to overcome these obstacles; she triumphed over all those who discouraged her merely because of her sex, and proved to the world that the field of archaeology could learn much from women.

 Latin America was a point of great interest to the Meggers-Evans team, and so their research began with the island of Marajo, in the Amazon Basin. At this time, few archaeologists studied the area due to its level of difficulty. Due to its climate and terrain, artifacts are rarely found intact, and rely on the archaeologist to piece together the past.

 Focusing mainly on the countries of Brazil and Ecuador, Meggers and Evans co-developed a system by which pottery fragments could be analyzed. The team would collect soil from a number of areas, return to their laboratory with it, and carefully note all characteristics of each fragment. Data collecting and recording is a very important part of archaeology, and thankfully Meggers possesses remarkable skills in this area. Her books and articles are plentiful with detailed graphs, charts, and diagrams, which illustrate her findings in a way that words could not. Her most crucial discovery to date is the relationship between the people of Ecuador and the people of Japan. She noticed that fragments of pottery from Japan were appearing in Ecuador, and theorized that the Japanese had traded trans-Pacifically. This theory was revolutionary, for no evidence of contact between the two populations had previously been established. Meggers developed this theory, convinced her husband of it, and slowly proceeded to change the minds of thousands of archaeologists, many who initially scoffed at the idea of trans-Pacific contact between Japan and Ecuador.

There are numerous sources of information about Dr. Meggers; her name is easy to find on the internet, and she has written quite a few books on her research. In one of her books, entitled Amazonia, Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise, Dr. Meggers uses an ecological approach to demonstrate how the civilizations of the Amazon have learned to cope with an environment with scarce human resources. The book is based on research she accumulated over a period of twenty years spent in the Amazon Basin. Another book, called Profiles in Cultural Evolution, includes a chapter written by Dr. Meggers, about Cultural Evolution in Amazonia. This chapter, in extraordinary detail, conveys the relevance of evolutionary biology to cultural behavior. Through this theory, Meggers explains the formation of complex societies, and builds upon the idea Elman R. Service had, of a band-tribe-chiefdom-state hierarchy. Another book by Meggers, titled Prehistoric America, distinguishes eight parallel environments in the Americas, and gives a concise description of prehistoric America. Though general, it is ideal for the novice archaeologist because of the remarkably clear writing style. Dr. Meggers' contribution to archaeological literature is not limited to these sources; she has written nearly two-hundred articles, book reviews, translations and books.

 Dr. Meggers has received many awards, honoring her for her work, including the Washington Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Achievement, the Gold Medal of the 37th International Congress of Americanists, and the Order of Merit from the Government of Ecuador. Today, Dr. Meggers still studies pottery fragments from the Amazon Basin. Her talent for deciphering the past is what earned her the great respect of her audiences today. Her passion for her work has enabled her to change the face of archaeology; Dr. Betty Meggers is no doubt a pioneer.

References Cited

Meggers, Betty J., "Advances in Brazilian Archaeology, 1935-1985." American Antiquity, v. 50, no. 2, pp.364-373. Washington, D.C., 1985.

 Meggers, Betty J., "Cultural Evolution in Amazonia." Profiles in Cultural Evolution, Ann Arbor, Michigan Museum of Anthropology, pp. 191-216. University of Michigan, 1991.

 Meggers, Betty J., Ecuador. Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1966.

 Meggers, Betty J., Prehistoric America. Aldine, Atherton, Chicago, 1972.

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