Hannah Marie Wormington

Hannah Marie Wormington (September 5, 1914 – May 31, 1994) was an American archaeologist known for her writings and fieldwork on southwestern and Paleo-Indians archaeology over a long career that lasted almost sixty years.

Background Marie Wormington was born in Denver, Colorado, to Charles Watkin Wormington and Adrienne Roucolle. As a young child Wormington spent much of her time with her mother and her maternal grandmother who had come to the United States from France. Being fluent in both English and French proved to be a useful asset the summer she went to France to start her archaeology career. Before obtaining her Ph.D., Wormington already had an accomplished career in anthropology, which began in 1935 after she graduated with her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Denver. Her initial areas of interest were medicine and zoology, but changed to archaeology after taking a few classes taught by E. B. Renaud, whose focus was on the French Paleolithic. He supported the idea of Paleolithic stone tool technologies in the New World that were identical to other parts of the world. Renaud suggested to Wormington traveling to France to do research. Beyond her professional and academic career, Wormington was married to geologist Peter Volk from 1940 until his death in 1980.

Education Wormington graduated high school in 1931 from East High School in Denver.

Early career Wormington jump-started her career through the connections she made by contacting Dorothy Garrod when she was in London. She traveled to Europe with her mother in 1935, after presenting a proposal to the Museum that she would photograph and document Folsom artifacts in the Museum's collection and present them to European museums. Because of her background as one of the foremost authorities on the subject of Paleo Indian studies, the museum was able to establish a formidable reputation. While working at the museum and before obtaining her MA and Ph.D., Wormington wrote Ancient Man in North America and Prehistoric Indians of the South West.

In her first year at the Museum, in 1936, Wormington supervised and contributed scientific material to the program providing tours to children of the exhibits at the Museum.

After working at the museum until 1968, Wormington was a popular visiting professor and lecturer at a number of universities starting at Arizona State University where she taught from 1968 to 1969. From ASU, she returned to Colorado and taught at Colorado College (1969–1970). Following a three-year break, Wormington taught in 1973 at the University of Minnesota while acting as an adjunct professor at Colorado College, a position she held until 1986. In 1988 she was once again awarded honorary doctor of letters degree from Colorado College, the same year she was appointed the curator emeritus of the Denver Museum of Natural History.

Death Wormington died in her home in Denver on May 31, 1994 due to smoke inhalation after a fire that had started in the living room where she was sleeping. She had fallen asleep on the couch after lighting a cigarette; that cigarette then lit the couch on fire.

Legacy The material components of Hannah Marie Wormington's life are documented and stored by the National Anthropological Archives (NAA) at the Smithsonian. These papers, films, notes, manuscripts, publications, proposals, and more were published and generated between 1930 and 1993, and include aspects of both her professional publications and more private correspondences.

Not only was Wormington the first woman to serve as president for the Society for American Archaeology, but she is also the first woman to receive a PhD from Harvard (Radcliffe) in Anthropology.

Selected books and papers Wormington, H. M.

1939- Ancient Man in North America 1947- Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest 1955- A Reappraisal of the Freemont Culture, with a Summary of the Archaeology of the Northern Periphery. Denver Museum of Natural History, Proceedings No. 1 1977- Archeology of the Late and Post-Pliocene from a New World perspective. In Paleoanthropology in the People's Republic of China. W. W. Howells and Patricia Jones Tsuchitani, eds. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences. 1979- (Obituary) William Thomas Malloy, 1917–1978. American Antiquity 44(3) 1983 Early Man in the New World: 1970–1980. In Early Man in the New World. Richard Shutler, Jr., ed. Berkeley: Sage Publications.

Wormington H. M. and Betty Holmes 1937- The differentiation of Yuma Points 1937-A comparison of Folsom and Yuma Flaking Techniques

Wormington, H.M. and Robert Lister 1956- Archaeological Investigations of the Uncomphgre Plateau. Denver Museum of Natural History, Proceedings No. 2

Wormington, H.M and Richard Forbis 1965- An Introduction to the Archaeology of Alberta, Canada, Denver Museum of Natural History Proceedings No. 11

Wormington, H. M. and D. Ellis (editors) 1967- Pleistocene Studies in Southern Nevada. Nevada State Museum, Anthropological Papers No. 13, Carson City 1948- A proposed Revision of the Yuma Point Terminology; Proceedings, Colorado Museum of Natural History, Vol. 18, No. 2 1962- A Survey of Early American Prehistory. American Scientist 50(1): 230-42.