Jonathan
Ogden Davis was an anthropologist and research professor at the Desert
Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada.Most of his work was done in the Great Basin region in chronology and
stratigraphy. He provided valuable information to future researchers of the
Great Basin.He is known for keeping a
large collection of his professional and personal documents, among other
things.Most of this collection is now
located in the Special Collections Department of the DRI.Davis and his second wife Sandra L. Powers
lived in Silver City, Nevada.He was
killed by a drunk driver in a car accident near Virginia City on December 14,
1990 at the age of forty-two.He was
survived by his mother, father, wife, and brother, Hugh Davis.
Jonathan
Davis was born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 15, 1948 to E. Mott and Beth
Ogden Davis.His family moved to
Austin, Texas in 1956 where is father became a professor at the
University.Davis followed after many
of his family members in the fields of archeology and earth science.Jonathan’s great grandfather was
William Morris Davis, the father of geomorphology.His mother was an anthropologist, and his
father and his aunt, Hester A. Davis, were archaeologists.Jonathan Davis received his B.A. in
anthropology and geological sciences from the University of Texas, Austin in
1969 and continued on to receive his M.S. and Ph.D. in geology at University
of Idaho in 1974 and 1977, respectively.Before graduate school, Davis took a job at Washington State University (WSU) as an assistant to Ronald Fryxell.In 1969 and 1971, he served on the
Cariguela (Mousterian) Project in Spain.He was a lecturer in anthropology at WSU between 1971 and 1974.His Ph.D. dissertation was on Quaternary
Tephrochronology of Lake Lahontan, Nevada and California.This document remains an important research
tool in archaeology and Quaternary studies.After receiving his Ph.D. he became a geoarcheologist and research
professor at the Quaternary Sciences Center of the Desert Research
Institute.He also taught geology at
the University of Nevada and was a consultant for the United States
Geological Survey.
Many
of his research works are valuable to archeology.Davis suggested an extended mid-Holocene
drought with his work on the Tahoe shoreline geomorphology.He was a principal investigator on all
major Nevada Archeological Survey (NAS) projects in the 1970s.Some of his most influential work with the
NAS included stratigraphy and geomorphology in Gatecliff Shelter and Hidden
Cave in Nevada.In 1982, he published
the first modern synthesis of lacustrine and paleoclimatic history of the
entire Lahonton system.
During
his time in Nevada, Davis was most concerned with topics in
tephrostratigraphy, tephrochronology, and the environmental history of the
Great Basin region.Tephrostratigraphy
deals with the origin, composition, distribution, and succession of strata
based on volcanic ash. Tephrochronology deals with measuring time based on
volcanic ash.He also was a member of
a field research team at Mount St. Helens after it erupted in 1980.
Jonathan
Davis was involved in many organizations as a student and throughout his
life.He co-founded the Nevada
Archeological Survey which consists of archeologists who contract to evaluate
cultural sites. As a student he was
highly involved in the Students for a Democratic Society and participated in
the Vietnam March on Washington in 1965.Davis was a member of organizations such as the Geological Society of
America, American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Friends of
the Pleistocene, Nevada Archaeological Association, Nevada Am-Arcs, Northwest
Scientific Association, Society for American Archaeology, and the Society of
Professional Archaeologists.
Jonathan
Davis kept a collection of documents of professional and personal records
which amounts to thirteen cubic feet.These documents date form 1908 to 1990, but mostly are from
1961-1990.Records include research
projects and articles, professional associations, field notes, professional
and personal correspondence, anti-Vietnam War movement documents, files for
work at the Great Basin, his students grades, exams, and papers, and legal
documents such as his birth certificate, diplomas, marriage, divorce, and
annulment papers.
He
and his first wife, Gail Townsend, were only married for a short time and
were divorced.Davis kept records of
all of his correspondence to and from her including the information about
their divorce and annulment.Those
provided good examples of the attitudes and morals of the institutions in the
1960s and 70s.Records of
correspondence between him and his close friends also indicate the attitudes
and culture at the time and included topics such as, war, drugs, drinking,
and politics.
Jonathan
Davis and his wife Sandy liked to take field trips, ski, and ride bikes.They were both active participants in
community life and he volunteered many hours to keep open-pit mining out of
Silver City.He was an adult 4-H
leader of the Junior Ski program and served on the town board.He also had a strong interest in cave
exploration and frequently went caving in Mexico as a student in Texas and in
his later years.
Since
his death, many scholarships and grants have been established in his
name.One of these is to support field
research projects for graduate students working in the Quaternary geology of
the Great Basin or surrounding areas.