Theodoor de Booy

Theodoor Hendrik Nikolaas de Booy (December 5, 1882 – February 18, 1919) was a Dutch-born American archaeologist.

Biography De Booy was born as son of a vice admiral in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands. He was educated at the Royal Naval Institute. At the age of 23, he migrated to the United States where he married Elizabeth Hamilton Smith on March 29, 1909.They had two children.

In 1916 he became an American citizen. In 1911 he went to the Bahamas with his wife. During their archaeological fieldwork in the caves and middens they made remarkable discoveries (e.g. a paddle or pottery) from the Pre-Columbian culture of the Lucayan. In the following years he worked for the Heye Museum in New York City.

He died from influenza in his home in Yonkers, New York, on February 18, 1919.

Alexander Wetmore named the extinct Antillean cave rail (Nesotrochis debooyi) after de Booy.

Selected works 1913: Lucayan Artifacts from the Bahamas 1915: Pottery from Certain Caves in Eastern Santo Domingo, West Indies 1915: Certain West-Indian Superstitions Pertaining to Celts 1916: Notes on the Archaeology of Margarita Island, Venezuela 1918: Certain Archaeological Investigations in Trinidad, British West Indies 1918: The Virgin Islands Our New Possessions and the British Islands 1919: Indian Notes and Monographs Volume 1, No. 2: Santo Domingo Kitchen-Midden and Burial Ground 1920: Indian Notes and Monographs Vol. X, No. 3: An Illinois Quilled Necklace 1926: Onder de Motilone's van de Sierre de Perija (Venezuela)