James Giddings was born in Caldwell, Texas. He attended school at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his Ph.D. He later taught at Brown University between 1956 and 1964 where he was director of the Haffenreffer Museum. Giddings was a naturalist and explorer turned archaeologist. Several times he left his home with only a bed roll, a few bags of rice and raisins and his .22. He lived this way for months at a time and returned elated with a bag full of tree borings. From these trips, he successfully developed tree-ring chronology of the later Eskimo culture.
His introduction to archaeology occurred at Point Hope, Alaska in 1939. He helped by pointing out the nearly invisible house depressions in the Arctic. He later made a series of discoveries in Arctic Alaska and Canada. Three of the largest were the Denbigh Flint Complex, the discovering of a series of cultures at Cape Krusenstern and that of a very deep and stratified site at Onion Portage on the Kobuk River in north Alaska. A senseless motor accident in Rhode Island took his life.
This picture reprinted by permission of the American Anthropological Association from American Anthropologist vol 67 1965 Not for Reprint.
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Anthropologist vol 67 1965 American Anthropological Association.
Written by: Nikki Akins