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Kate Blankenship
Principles of Archaeology
September 20, 2010
Gordon Randolph Willey and the Development of Settlement Pattern
Archaeology
The 20th century saw the development of revolutionary new
methodologies and theories in the field of archaeology. One of the
most significant new approaches was that of settlement pattern
studies, which sought to understand the development of a culture by
examining the way its settlements are distributed across the
landscape, and how this changes over time. The pioneer of settlement
pattern analysis in archaeology was Gordon Randolph Willey, an
archaeologist who worked at sites throughout the Americas. This paper
will briefly review Willey’s early academic career, then focus on his
application of the settlement pattern approach in archaeology and how
his work had an impact on the field of modern archaeology.
Willey was born in Iowa, in 1913. As a young man, he attended
the University of Arizona, where he received both his B.A. and M.A. in
Anthropology under the supervision of Byron Cummings, with a
regional focus in the Southwestern United States (Figure 1). After his
Masters degree, he began work in the Southeastern United States for
the Works Progress Administration under the supervision of Arthur
Kelly; this experience introduced him to the challenges of coordinating
large archaeological excavations. In 1938, he moved to New Orleans to
work with James Ford on the Federal Relief Project. Through working
with Ford, Willey developed a strong interest in chronology and
ceramics, and how they could reflect culture change through time. He
was admitted to Columbia University’s Ph.D. program in Anthropology
in 1939 and carried out excavations on the Gulf Coast of Florida
(which led to the publication of the book Archaeology of the Florida
Gulf Coast in 1949). For his dissertation, Willey conducted excavations
in Peru, where he would eventually carry out his monumental Virú
Valley project.
After receiving his doctorate, Willey began work at the
Smithsonian Institution with Julian Steward on The Handbook of South
American Indians. In 1946, as Willey was preparing to carry out
excavations in Peru’s Virú Valley, Steward, an ethnologist (Figure 2),
suggested that Willey apply a “settlement pattern” approach, and
examine how the people of the Virú Valley had situated their
settlements across the ancient landscape, and what this implied about
their cultural development (Willey 1974). While other members of the
project dug test pits and tried to establish ceramic chronologies, Willey
surveyed the numerous human settlements in the valley, focusing on
their size, distribution, density, and architectural styles (Figure 3).
Although the other members of the project found it difficult to
synthesize their data (a comprehensive monograph documenting the
project was never published [Willey 1974: 154]), Willey’s settlement
pattern work led to the publication of his book Prehistoric Settlement
Patterns in the Virú Valley, Peru (Willey 1953).
Although Willey was initially skeptical of Steward’s suggestion,
the settlement pattern survey that he carried out during the Virú Valley
project demonstrated the utility of the approach to the archaeological
community. Settlement pattern analysis was established as a vital
technique for understanding not only ecological adaptations, but how
political, economical and cultural change also influenced the way
ancient people arranged themselves on the landscape (Trigger 1996:
377). This method also helped archaeologists to move beyond the
simple classificatory and descriptive approaches which had dominated
the field at the time of Willey’s project, and begin to look at how
artifacts and architecture actually functioned in ancient societies
(Sabloff 2004: 408).
After his groundbreaking Virú Valley project, the quality of
Willey’s work brought him to the attention of Alfred Tozzer, who
appointed him to the position of Bowditch Professor at Harvard in
1949. Because of this, Willey’s research shifted to the Maya area,
where he supervised a number of excavations, such as the Belize
Valley settlement patterns project (Figure 4), as well as organizing
projects at the sites of Altar de Sacrificios, Seibal, and Copan. He was
also known for thoroughly publishing the results of his investigations,
as well as his ability to synthesize large amounts of data in a coherent
and unbiased way (Fash 2003: 174). Despite his significant
methodological contributions to archaeology, Willey avoided
substantive teaching, administrative and field work responsibilities
after his appointment to the Bowditch professorship, although he
continued to publish extensively (see Willey 1966, 1971, 1974, 1988;
Willey and Phillips 1958; and Willey and Sabloff 1974).
During his tenure as the Bowditch professor (Figure 5), Willey
collaborated with and influenced many of the important Mesoamerican
archaeologists of the latter half of the 20th century, including Michael
Coe, Jeremy Sabloff, William Sanders and William Fash. His settlement
pattern approach also directly led to numerous archaeological
investigations and publications on Mesoamerica, such as Lowland
Maya Settlement Patterns (Ashmore 1981), as well as other
archaeological work throughout the world, in such places as China
(Chang 1963), India (Lal 1984), and Egypt (Butzer 1976).
Although he always humbly gave credit to Julian Steward for the
settlement pattern approach which he so innovatively applied (Fash
2003: 171), Gordon Willey can truly be called the founder of settlement
pattern studies in archaeology. Though he organized a number of
notable archaeological projects in the years after the Virú Valley
project, as well as writing numerous books and papers, it is his
methodological approach that has had the most significant long-term
impact on the modern field of archaeology.
Figure 1: Willey on the right in black, at University of Arizona’s Kinishba
project
Figure 2: Julian Steward
Figure 3: One of the maps produced by Willey during his Virú Valley
Project
Figure 4: Willey (in pit) excavating in the Belize Valley
Figure 5: Gordon Willey’s official Harvard portrait
Works Cited
Ashmore, Wendy, ed. Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1981. Print.
Butzer, Karl. Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1976. Print.
Chang, K.C. The Archaeology of Ancient China. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1963. Print.
Fash, William L. “Sprinter, Wordsmith, Mentor, and Sage: The life of
Gordon Randolph Willey, 1913-2002.” Ancient Mesoamerica 14
(2003): 169-177. Print.
Lal, Makkhan. Settlement History and Rise of Civilization in Ganga-
Yamuna Doab. Delhi: B.R. Publishing, 1984. Print.
Sabloff, Jeremy A. “Gordon Randolph Willey, 7 March 1913 - 28 April
2002.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 148.3
(2004): 405-410. Print.
Trigger, Bruce G. A History of Archaeological Thought. 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print.
Willey, Gordon R. Archaeology of the Florida Gulf Coast. Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1949. Print.
- - -. Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Virú Valley, Peru.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American
Ethnology, 1953. Print.
- - -. An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 1, North and Middle
America. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Print.
- - -. An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2, South America.
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Print.
- - -. “The Virú Valley Settlement Pattern Study.” Archaeological
Researches in Retrospect. Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers,
1974. 149-176. Print.
- - -. Portraits in American Archaeology: Remembrances of Some
Distinguished Americanists. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1988. Print.
Willey, Gordon R., ed. Archaeological Researches in Retrospect.
Cambridge: Winthrop, 1974. Print.
Willey, Gordon R., and P. Phillips. Method and Theory in American
Archaeology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Print.
Willey, Gordon R., and Jeremy A. Sabloff. A History of American
Archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974. Print.
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