Charles Sidney Spencer (born 12 June 1950) is an American curator, researcher, and anthropologist. He serves as the Curator of Mexican and Central American Archaeology in the Division of

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He has over 110 publications to date, including books, chapters, and articles.

Biography

Charles Sidney Spencer was born on 12 June 1950 in Ancon, Panama, which was then part of the

Panama Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terr ...

. He attended local U.S.-operated schools in the Canal Zone before leaving Panama to attend

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

, where he received his BA degree in Anthropology in 1972. He completed his graduate training at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where he received his Ph.D. in

in 1981. His dissertation, "The Cuicatlán Cañada and

Monte Albán Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (17.043° N, 96.767°W). The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the ...

: Interregional Processes and Primary State Formation in Central Oaxaca," was published in 1982 by Academic Press. Since the 1970s, Spencer has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. He has trained a generation of graduate students in methodologies of field research, and he also has served on doctoral committees as primary advisor and as a reader. Prior to his appointment at the AMNH in 1991, Spencer was Associate Professor of Anthropology at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

. In 2007, Spencer was elected to membership in the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, one of the highest honors a scientist can receive from a U.S.-based organization. At his induction ceremony in April 2008, NAS President Ralph Cicerone lauded Spencer as "the leading evolutionary archaeologist of his generation." The citation continues: "His fieldwork has documented the rise of entrepreneurial rank societies, the origin of the stratified militaristic state, and the strategies of imperial colonization. His work combines empirical data with evolutionary concepts like tempo, mode, biased transmission, and adaptive peaks."National Academy of Sciences:
/ref> Spencer is also a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, along with his wife and research collaborator, Elsa M. Redmond. They reside in the Connecticut suburbs of New York City.

References

External links

Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural HistoryAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryPrimary State Formation in Mesoamerica
article by Charles S. Spencer {{DEFAULTSORT:Spencer, Charles S. 1950 births Living people American anthropologists American archaeologists 20th-century Mesoamericanists 21st-century Mesoamericanists American Mesoamericanists Mesoamerican archaeologists Zapotec scholars University of Michigan alumni Rice University alumni Columbia University faculty University of Connecticut faculty People associated with the American Museum of Natural History Zonians Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences