Robert Wauchope

Robert Wauchope (December 10, 1909 – January 20, 1979) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist, whose academic research specialized in the prehistory and archaeology of Latin America, Mesoamerica, and the Southwestern United States.

Personal life Wauchope was born to George Armstrong Wauchope and Elizabeth Bostedo Wauchope in Columbia, South Carolina on December 10, 1909. In 1941, he married Elizabeth (Betty) B Brown. Betty and Robert were married until his death. They later had two children, Kenneth (deceased) and Betsy. After his passing, his body was donated to Tulane University to help further their research. Wauchope is also an uncle of underwater archaeologist George F. Bass.

Education

Wauchope attended high school in South Carolina where he took an early interest in archaeology while on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout. . In 1948, Wauchope received an honorary degree of doctor of laws from the University of South Carolina while he was working for Tulane University. However, once World War II began, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) started to hire many Harvard graduates. Wauchope happened to be one of these graduates and he served with the OSS in the Mediterranean area until the end of the war.

Field work

Wauchope's field work began shortly after graduating high school when he wrote Alfred V. Kidder and asked to join him on excavations at Pecos, New Mexico. Kidder accepted Robert's request and invited him to be an assistant at the Forked Lightning Ruin site. Wauchope is noted for his extensive work on house mounds here. The study of these sites is one of the most extensive of its kind, pertaining to household archaeology of the Maya area and modern Maya houses. 31 of these published volumes were either edited or written by Wauchope. During the 1950s, Wauchope was asked to be the general editor of Handbook of Middle American Indians. The Handbook was assembled at Tulane. The last four of which were guides to sources on Middle American (more currently called Mesoamerican) ethnohistory. It was published by the University of Texas Press from 1964 to 1976 with Margaret Harrison and Howard F. Cline both doing additional edits to the Handbook. These 16 volumes were amongst the M.A.R.I program's most notable pieces. Many of his works come directly from his fieldwork and other research he had done over his time as an archaeologist or professor. His research done in Guatemala was amongst some of his first publications. His work was and is a part of the basis for anthropology and archaeology academia.

Some of Wauchope's most well-known works include: House Mounds of Uaxactun, Guatemala; Published 1934, Modern Maya Houses: A Study of Their Archaeological Significance; Published in 1938 and Republished in 2007, Excavations at Zacualpa, Guatemala; Published in 1949, Implications of Radiocarbon Dates from Middle and South America; Published in 1954, Ten Years of Middle American Archaeology Annotated Bibliography and News Summary. 1948-1957; Published in 1961, They Found Buried Cities: Exploration and Excavation in the American Tropics; Published in 1965, Archaeological Survey of Northern Georgia with a Test of Some Cultural Hypotheses; Published in 1966, The Indian Background of Latin American History; Published in 1970, and Lost Tribes and Sunken Continents: Myth and Method in the Study of American Indians; Published in 1975.

With all other publications, Wauchope's total number of papers, books, editor titles, and publishing director titles total up to over 200. This includes multiple pieces that were published posthumously. Many of his works were published by universities such as University of Chicago, Tulane University, and Cambridge University.