While regarded as of the leading American archaeologist of his time, Alfred Kidder was also the recipient of harsh criticism by fellow colleagues for being too conservative in his research as well as for conclusions that seemed to lack significance.  His contributions to archaeology, though, are undeniably important; Kidder developed the first comprehensive, systematic approach to American prehistory.  He first began his work in the southwest while a student at Harvard and later excavated the Pecos ruins of New Mexico and the Maya temples of Mesoamerica, two of the largest and most important undertakings of their time.

     Alfred Kidder spent most of his years growing up in New England.  In 1904 he entered Harvard as a pre-med student, but found the required science classes tedious and boring.  While looking for an alternate subject, Kidder enrolled for an introductory anthropology class and found a great interest in archaeology.  It was in 1907 that he decided on archaeology as a profession after spending the summer in Arizona and Utah performing his first field work.  He continued his fieldwork in the southwest over the next few years and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1914 after writing a thesis entitled Southern Ceramics (Kidder, 1914, unpublished).

     Kidder continued his southwest expeditions under the Peabody Museum of Harvard University until he was appointed director of excavations at  the Pecos ruins for the Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass. in 1915, a position he held until 1929.  This was the first large-scale systematic stratigraphic archaeological excavation in North America as well as the largest undertaking of its kind.  It was here that Kidder made use of the stratigraphic method on a large scale and extended it into a regional strategy of cultural chronological steps (Willey, 1974).  The method consisted of 5 steps: (1) reconnaissance; (2) selection of criteria for ranking the remains of sites chronologically; (3) seriation into a probable sequence; (4) stratigraphic excavation to elucidate specific problems; followed by (5) more detailed regional survey and dating (Bahn, 1996).  It was this introduction to a field previously unsystemized that led Kidder to write An Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology (Kidder, 1924), now a classic in American archaeology.  This book also provided the basis for the "Pecos Classification" that was derived during the first Pecos Conference held in 1927.  The classification served as a chronology of the cultures in the southwest, starting with the early Basketmakers and extending to the Pueblo cultures of later historical times.  One such culture is the Anasazi of Mesa Verde, Colorado, thought to be modern ancestors of the Pueblo Indians.

     By the late 1920's, Alfred Kidder had become involved with other archaeological interests; he had considerable knowledge of Mesoamerica.  In 1929 he became head of the Division of Historical Research at the Carnegie Institution at Washington  and conducted his long anticipated plans for investigations in Mesoamerica.  Until his retirement in 1950, Kidder directed intensive and extensive excavations at the sites of Chichen Itza and Uaxactun in the Yucatan and Kaminaljuya in Guatemala. Kidder had a goal for this project,  he "wanted to keep in mind that the course of human history in this one particular area was but a part of the much more embracing story of man and society at large" (Willey, 1988).  He was looking not only at excavating but at putting together these various sites in order to span the chronological range of the Maya culture and gain a new perspective as to their origins.

     Again this was a major undertaking  for Kidder.  It included a "pan-scientific",  or multidisciplinary, approach and was one of the first archaeological excavations to use a team of specialists to help analyze artifacts and human remains.  Kidder opened up investigations into physical  and social anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, environmental studies, geology and geography, just to name a few.  It was this conception of an overall approach to Maya culture history that was his most significant contribution to anthropology (Willey, 1988).  Carnegie staff members and colleagues of other universities became involved with the Maya, living or dead, as well as with their environmental habitats during these investigations.

     In 1950 Alfred Kidder retired from the Peabody Museum and Carnegie Institution although he remained active in the field of archaeology up until his death in 1963.  During his career, Kidder suffered much criticism at the hand of archaeologist Walter Taylor (1946); it was a personal attack that plagued Kidder into retirement.  He was criticized for not appearing to be concerned with the "how" or "why" questions in his research and for being too general in his understanding of how civilizations developed.

     All in all, though, Alfred Kidder was revered for the advancements he made in New World archaeology.  He was given this distinction by serving on various museum boards as well as being the recipient of many honors; he was elected to and belonged to many academic societies.  Perhaps the most outstanding of these honors are the programs and awards that bear his name.  The American Anthropological Society awards its AV Kidder Award for eminence in the field of American archaeology every 3 years.  The Universidad del Valle de Guatemala Department of Archaeology was established in 1986 with funds from the Alfred V. and Madeleine Kidder Chair in honor of Dr. Kidder .  It is obvious that Alfred Kidder has left a lasting impression on the field of archaeology; he created a method of excavation that has not only provided the basis for conducting modern archaeological digs, but he developed a modern thinking that has lasted through the decades.
 

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 created 3/98 by Alissa Krochenski, University of Texas at Austin