2004 2004John Howland Rowe is highly noted for his work "in the fields of archaeology, history, ethnography, linguistics, and intellectual history" (Hammel). He received an undergraduate degree in classical archaeology with an emphasis in classical language. He chose this particular major because he had a special love for the study of humanism. Rowe received a Ph.D. degree from Brown University. From there he pursued work in teaching and research in his "specialty of Peruvian archaeology".
Rowe has made important contributions to descriptive linguistics and to philology; especially "of the Andean area" (Hammel). His technique relied heavily on the use of historical documents. Rowe was more of a scholar of historical interpretation than a physical archaeologist. For example, "Rowe published an early paper on sound patterns in Inca dialects (1950), one of the earliest in the dialectography of the Andean area, and one which laid the groundwork for later philological efforts" (Hammel). In this case, history applied by an archaeologist created a work of social anthropology.
John Rowe's most famous work was published in 1946 about the Inca culture at the time of the Spanish conquest. His work was so exhaustively complete that "most descriptions of the Inca since 1946 simply paraphrase his work" (Hammel).
In 1948, Rowe joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then "he has chaired dissertation committees for 25 or more Berkeley Ph.D.'s who are now out in the professional world of Anthropology" (Hammel). His most important achievements at Berkeley were the foundation of the school's anthropological society and the department library. Of the latter he writes:
"When I came to Berkeley in 1948 there was no Anthropology Library. The anthropology books were in the Main Library, scattered by the call numbers of the Library of Congress. I drafted a proposal for a branch library...in July of 1950. I solicited gifts from colleagues and accumulated them in a box on the floor of my office...beginning in November, 1952. I also started a catalog, typing copies of the Library of Congress catalog cards used by the General Library, mainly on weekends. Donald Coney moved to accept the Anthropology Library as a branch of the library system, effective July 1, 1956, and appointed Rexford S. Beckham its Librarian." (Rowe)
John Rowe is first and foremost a teacher. Whether it be at Berkeley or in the mountains of Peru, Dr. Rowe has excelled at teaching his students without them knowing they were being taught. As E. Hammel, former Ph.D. student of Rowe's, puts it:
"In good teaching it is a carefully planned pedagogical fraud, resting on the giving of just enough inspiration, just enough direction, just enough criticism, and seeing how the student's mental specific gravity compares with that of the intellectual environment around him and of the demands of the discipline. It is not a technique unique to Rowe by any means, but he is a craftsman difficult to beat. A lot of us are grateful" (Hammel).
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Anthro/rowe/robio1.html
Hammel, E.H. "Peck's Archeologist." Eighth Emeritus Lecture Honoring John
Howland Rowe. 1998.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Anthro/rowe/interview.htm
Rowe, J.H. "Interview with John H. Rowe, Honoree of Anthropology's Eighth
Emeriti Lecture."
<http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/johnhowlandrowe.htm>
By Michael Fralish
Edited by Marcy L. Voelker, 2007