| 1 | Name: | Dr. Patty Jo Watson | |
| Institution: | Washington University; University of Montana | ||
| Year Elected: | 2000 | ||
| Class: | 4. Humanities | ||
| Subdivision: | 403. Cultural Anthropology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1932 | ||
Patty Jo Watson received a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1959. At Washington University since 1969, she is currently Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology. She is the recipient of the Fryxell Medal from the Society for American Archaeology, the Distinguished Service Award from the American Anthropological Association, and the Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement from the Archaeological Institute of America. Dr. Watson is the author of The Prehistory of Salts Cave, Kentucky (1969); Archaeological Ethnography in Western Iran (1979); (with others) Man and Nature (1969); Explanation in Archaeology (1971); Archaeological Explanation (1984); Girikihaciyan - A Halafian Site in Southeastern Turkey; and Archaeology of the Middle Green River Region, Kentucky (2005). She was the editor, and author in part, of Archaeology of the Mammoth Cave Area (1974); editor (with others) Prehistoric Archaeology Along the Zagros Flanks (1983); and co-editor of The Origins of Agriculture (1991) and Of Caves and Shell Mounds (1996). She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology (editor, American Antiquity, 1984-87), and she is an Honorary Life Member of the National Speleological Society. She has served on the governing board of the Archaeological Institute of America and the executive board of the Center for American Archeology, as well as on the editorial board of the Journal of Cave and Karst Sciences, and of Anthropology Today (Royal Anthropological Institute). In 2007 she received the Archaeological Institute of America's Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology. Patty Jo Watson has made major contributions in archaeological theory, archaeological method, and archaeological practice in North America, Western Asia, and China. Explanation in Archaeology is a landmark in the EuroAmerican theory debates of the 1970s and is still current in discussions of archaeological theory. Her pioneering work in ethnoarchaeology in Iran, and later on flotation techniques for recovering plant remains are extremely influential contributions to archaeological practice in the Americas, Europe, and China. Her 35 years of research in Kentucky caves has provided crucial evidence about the pre-maize, indigenous agricultural complex developed in Eastern North America. The wide scope and the depth of these contributions make Patty Jo Watson one of the most preeminent archaeologists of her generation. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. | |||