Dr. William Rathje was born on July 1, 1945 in South Bend, Indiana where his father was stationed as an air traffic controller. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Wheaton, Illinois where he spent the next 18 years of his life. In a letter, Dr. Rathje commented that he had been interested in archeology since the age of eleven when his grandparents gave him the book, Wonderful World of Archaeology. From that point on, he has been "digging holes" in any number of different areas.
He attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona in 1963 studying archeology. He focused his study on Mayan archeology and decided that he wanted to attend Harvard University for graduate school. He received his Bachelors Degree from the University of Arizona in 1967 and left Tucson and his mother who was a high school teacher in a nearby town, to make his "pilgrimage to the heart of Maya archeology," Harvard.
He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971 where he said that the competitiveness of the program drove him to do his best. He was very pleased after having received his degree that his old school, the University of Arizona, offered him a teaching position, he eagerly accepted.
While teaching at the University of Arizona he continued to study Mayan culture by excavating burial sites in a number of places. He was able to draw a theory from his findings. This theory states that in the Late Classic Period, Mayan society became increasingly aristocratic and began to develop particular lineages or hereditary groups. He also continued to link treatment of the dead in prehistoric times to similar burial practices, which are still commonly used today.
He has also explored the use of trading by prehistoric societies and established a theory stating that regions gave up some of their local autonomy in order to be able to form trading bands with neighboring groups in order to obtain the products they desired. Dr. Rathje referred to the communities in the central area as the "Core Area" - this group desired goods from resource-rich outer regions called "Buffer Zones." This resulted in a centralized trading market within the "Core Area" to which all of the goods from the "Buffer Zones" were brought. As the trade network became more complex, the organization and social differences within the "Core Area" and the "Buffer Zones" increased. This increase in social organization lead to an ability of the "Buffer Zones" to begin to produce their own goods and the central markets within the "Core Area" began to dry up. This eventually lead to the collapse of the "Core Area" and a growth of power and job availability in the "Buffer Zones."
Dr. Rathje is probably best known for his development of the Garbage Project, which he established in 1973 at the University of Arizona. Through this project he was able to apply modern-day archeological techniques to the present day waste, that is, either in the form of fresh household discards or garbage that had been placed in a landfill. He used the information he gathered to explore waste management, dietary consumption behaviors and truly how much is wasted and how much is recycled. The Garbage Project explored fresh garbage and landfills across the United States and in Canada, Mexico City and Sydney, Australia.
William Rathje is currently an Instructor at the University of Arizona and continues to explore these areas as well as teach and speak at various functions concerning his areas of study. He has written a popular book titled Rubbish and has written a number of articles and contributed his theories to authors to be used in discussion on topics including trade and burial evidence.
University of Arizona Web Page: http://wacky.ccit.arizona.edu/~bara/gbg_in~1.htm
Leading Authorities, Inc.: http://leadingauthorities.com/William_Rathje.htm
2 Personal e-mails from Dr. William Rathje, University of Arizona.
Culbert, T. Patrick. The Classic Maya Collapse. 1973. School of American Research.
Leone, Mark. Contemporary Archaeology: An Introduction to Theory & Contributions. 1972. Southern Illinois University Press.
Renfrew, Colin. The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in Prehistory. 1973. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Written by Bryan Christianson
Edited by Marcy L. Voelker, 2007