Bryan Patterson (born 10 March 1909 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

; died 1 December 1979 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

) was an American

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

at the

Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Life and career

Bryan Patterson was the son of the soldier, engineer and author John Henry Patterson and Frances Gray Patterson, who was one of the first to receive a law degree granted to a woman in the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...

. He moved in 1926 to the Hyde Park area of Chicago, Illinois. Upon his arrival in Chicago, Bryan assumed a position as vertebrate preparator at the Field Museum of Natural History. He worked under the direction of

Elmer S. Riggs Elmer Samuel Riggs (January 23, 1869 – March 25, 1963) was an American paleontologist known for his work with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. Biography He was born in Trafalgar, Indiana, and moved with his fam ...

, who was at that time engaged in studies of South American

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

mammals. By self-education he rose rapidly in rank, and by 1937 became curator of paleontology. He became an American citizen in 1938. In 1934 he met and married Bernice Cain. He and Bernice had one son. He served in Europe with the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. During that time he was taken prisoner by the Germans. In 1942 he was promoted to curator of mammals, a position he held until 1955 when he left the Field Museum to become the Agassiz Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. In 1947 he was appointed lecturer in geology at the University of Chicago, in parallel to his work at the Museum. As a recipient of two

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

s he spent the years of 1952–1954 in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

studying the great collections amassed by the Ameghino brothers. In 1958 he returned to Argentina with Alfred S. Romer, but this time for field work in the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest per ...

formations in search of mammal-like reptiles. During 1976–1977, he went to São Paulo, Brazil where he worked with P. E. Vanzolini. In 1970 he was contracted by the Government of

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by Hon ...

to collect remains of extinct mammals at

Estanzuela Estanzuela () is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Zacapa Zacapa () is the departmental capital municipality of Zacapa Department, one of the 22 Departments of Guatemala. It is located approximately from Guatemala City Guat ...

near

Guatemala City Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...

. These were exhibited at a small museum, featuring the complete skeleton of a

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the ...

and duly named Museo de Paleontologia Bryan Patterson.

Publications

* Bryan Patterson: ''An adianthine litoptern from the Deseado formation of Patagonia. Results of the Marshall Field paleontological expeditions to Argentina and Bolivia, 1922-27.'' Field Museum of Natural History, 1940. * Bryan Patterson: ''Cranial characters of Homalodotherium.'' Chicago, Field Museum of Natural History, 1934. * Bryan Patterson: The internal structure of the ear in some notoungulates. Results of the first Marshall Field paleontological expedition to Argentina and Bolivia, 1922–24. Chicago, 1936 * Bryan Patterson: A new phororhacoid bird from the Deseado formation of Patagonia. Results of the Marshall Field paleontological expeditions to Argentina and Bolivia, 1922–27. Chicago :Field Museum of Natural History, 1941. * Bryan Patterson: Some notoungulate braincasts. Results of the Marshall Field paleontological expeditions to Argentina and Bolivia, 1922–27. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1937 * Bryan Patterson: Trachytherus, a typotherid from the Deseado beds of Patagonia. Results of the first Marshall Field paleontological expedition to Argentina and Bolivia, 1922–24. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1934 * Bryan Patterson: Upper premolar-molar structure in the notoungulata with notes on taxonomy. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1934.

Life and career

Publications

References

Further reading