Alfred Tozzer
Encyclopedia
Alfred Marston Tozzer was an American
anthropologist
, archaeologist
, linguist
, and educator. His principal area of interest was Mesoamerica
n, especially Maya
, studies. He was the father of figure skating champion Joan Tozzer
.
, Massachusetts
, and graduated in Anthropology from Harvard University
in 1900. That summer he entered field as an assistant to Harvard’s Roland Dixon to study American Indian languages of California. The following year he collected linguistic and anthropologic data on the Navajo
s living near Pueblo Bonito
in New Mexico. From these experiences he published his first paper, which he 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 Archeological Institute of America. He spent several seasons in Yucatán conducting fieldwork among the Maya. He began at the Hacienda Chichen, owned by U.S. Consul to Yucatán Edward H. Thompson
, a large plantation that included the ancient city of Chichen Itza
. There he studied the Maya language and traveled the countryside collecting folk tales and oral histories. During one of his seasons at Chichen Itza he helped Thompson dredge the Cenote Sagrado; at the end of another, he carried artifacts to the Peabody Museum in his luggage.
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, and wrote his PhD dissertation comparing the ceremonies of the Lacondone Maya with the Yucatecan Maya.
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.
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
. 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 Archaeology in Mexico. He arrived in Veracruz
in time to witness the US Navy shelling of the city. He oversaw excavation of Santiago Ahuitzotla. Once his term as director expired, he never ventured into the field again.
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.
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 Maya language (Cambridge, Mass.: Papers of the Peabody Museum , 1921), and an annotated translation of Bishop Diego de Landa’s (Cambridge, Mass.: Papers of the Peabody Museum, 1941). His magnum opus, Chichen Itza and its Cenote of Sacrifice (Cambridge, Mass.: 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 S.K. Lothrop in his obituary of Tozzer. “It concentrates in a single volume the learning acquired in half a century.”
Among his peers, Tozzer was elected to two consecutive terms as president of the American Anthropological Association
beginning in 1928. In 1942 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
.
In 1974, Harvard renamed the Peabody Museum Library after Tozzer, who was affiliated with the library from 1935 to his retirement.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, archaeologist
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, and educator. His principal area of interest was Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n, especially Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
, studies. He was the father of figure skating champion Joan Tozzer
Joan Tozzer
Joan Tozzer was an American figure skater who competed in single skating and pair skating. Her pairs partner was Bernard Fox. She won the United States Figure Skating Championships in both singles and pairs in 1938, 1939, and 1940. Tozzer was the U.S...
.
Early studies and career
Tozzer was born in LynnLynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An old industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park and is about north of downtown Boston.-17th century:...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and graduated in Anthropology from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1900. That summer he entered field as an assistant to Harvard’s Roland Dixon to study American Indian languages of California. The following year he collected linguistic and anthropologic data on the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
s living near Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126....
in New Mexico. From these experiences he published his first paper, which he at the Thirteenth International Congress of Americanists
International Congress of Americanists
The International Congress of Americanists is an international academic conference for research in multidisciplinary studies of the American Continent. Established August 25, 1875 in Nancy, France, the scholars' forum has met regularly since its inception, presently in three year increments. Its...
held in New York in 1902.
In December 1901, he won appointment as a Traveling Fellow for the Archeological Institute of America. He spent several seasons in Yucatán conducting fieldwork among the Maya. He began at the Hacienda Chichen, owned by U.S. Consul to Yucatán Edward H. Thompson
Edward Herbert Thompson
Edward Herbert Thompson was an American-born archaeologist and diplomat.-Biography:Edward H. Thompson was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Initially inspired by the books of John Lloyd Stephens, Thompson devoted much of his career to study of the Maya civilization...
, a large plantation that included the ancient city of Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
. There he studied the Maya language and traveled the countryside collecting folk tales and oral histories. During one of his seasons at Chichen Itza he helped Thompson dredge the Cenote Sagrado; at the end of another, he carried artifacts to the Peabody Museum in his luggage.
In 1903, Tozzer traveled to Campeche
Campeche
Campeche is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in Southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the states of Yucatán to the north east, Quintana Roo to the east, and Tabasco to the south west...
and Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
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, and wrote his PhD dissertation comparing the ceremonies of the Lacondone Maya with the Yucatecan Maya.
In the fall of 1904, he studied at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
under Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
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
From the beginning of his professional career, Tozzer began to shift more to Archaeology and away from Anthropology. During his seasons at Chichen, he assisted Adela Breton with her copies of reliefs, and Thompson who was making paper molds. During his time with the Lacandons he discovered and explored ruins that today share the name of the Rio Tzendales. In the summer of 1907, he joined Dixon, Alfred Kidder and Sylvanus MorleySylvanus Morley
Sylvanus Griswold Morley was an American archaeologist, epigrapher, and Mayanist scholar who made significant contributions toward the study of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in the early twentieth century....
on a purely archaeological expedition to Rito de los Frijoles in New Mexico (today part of Bandelier National Monument
Bandelier National Monument
Bandelier National Monument is a National Monument preserving the homes of the Ancestral Pueblo People. It is named after Swiss anthropologist Adolph Bandelier, who researched the cultures of the area. Bandelier was designated a National Monument on February 11, 1916, and most of its backcountry...
).
In 1910 he took a leave of absence from Harvard to lead his first expedition to the ruins of Tikal
Tikal
Tikal is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centres of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the archaeological region of the Petén Basin in what is now northern Guatemala...
and Nakum
Nakum
Nakum is a Mesoamerican archaeological site, and a former ceremonial center and city of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the northeastern portion of the Petén Basin region, in the modern-day Guatemalan department of Petén...
on behalf of the university’s Peabody Museum
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, and is particularly strong in New World ethnography and...
. On this trip Tozzer discovered the ruins of Holmul
Holmul
Holmul may refer to:* Holmul, Guatemala, archaeological site of the Maya civilization* Holmul River in Romania...
.
In 1914 Tozzer took another leave of absence to succeed Boas as director of the International School of American Archaeology in Mexico. He arrived in Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
in time to witness the US Navy shelling of the city. He oversaw excavation of Santiago Ahuitzotla. Once his term as director expired, he never ventured into the field again.
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
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
, 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 Maya language (Cambridge, Mass.: Papers of the Peabody Museum , 1921), and an annotated translation of Bishop Diego de Landa’s (Cambridge, Mass.: Papers of the Peabody Museum, 1941). His magnum opus, Chichen Itza and its Cenote of Sacrifice (Cambridge, Mass.: 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 S.K. Lothrop in his obituary of Tozzer. “It concentrates in a single volume the learning acquired in half a century.”
Among his peers, Tozzer was elected to two consecutive terms as president of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
beginning in 1928. In 1942 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
.
In 1974, Harvard renamed the Peabody Museum Library after Tozzer, who was affiliated with the library from 1935 to his retirement.