Theodoor Hendrik Nikolaas de Booy (December 5, 1882 – February 18, 1919) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

-born American

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Biography

De Booy was born as son of a vice admiral in

Hellevoetsluis Hellevoetsluis () is a small city and municipality in the western Netherlands. It is located in Voorne-Putten, South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water and it includes the population centres Nieuw-Helvoet, Nieuwenhoorn ...

, Netherlands. He was educated at the

Royal Naval Institute The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

. At the age of 23, he migrated to the United States where he married Elizabeth Hamilton Smith on March 29, 1909.They had two children. In 1916 he became an American citizen. In 1911 he went to the Bahamas with his wife. During their archaeological fieldwork in the

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

s and

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

s they made remarkable discoveries (e.g. a

paddle A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened distal end (i.e. the ''blade''), used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered wa ...

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

) from the

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

culture of the Lucayan. In the following years he worked for the Heye Museum in

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 ...

. His fieldwork in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

and in

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 ...

made him a prolific expert for the history of the Pre-Columbian

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

culture. He died from

influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...

in his home in

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

on February 18, 1919.

Alexander Wetmore Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Early life and education The son of a Country Physician, Frank Al ...

named the extinct Antillean cave rail (''Nesotrochis debooyi'') after de Booy.

Selected works

*1913: ''Lucayan Artifacts from the Bahamas'' *1915: ''Pottery from Certain Caves in Eastern Santo Domingo, West Indies'' *1915: ''Certain West-Indian Superstitions Pertaining to Celts'' *1916: ''Notes on the Archaeology of Margarita Island, Venezuela'' *1918: ''Certain Archaeological Investigations in Trinidad, British West Indies'' *1918: ''The Virgin Islands Our New Possessions and the British Islands'' *1919: ''Indian Notes and Monographs Volume 1, No. 2: ''Santo Domingo Kitchen-Midden and Burial Ground'' *1920: ''Indian Notes and Monographs Vol. X, No. 3: ''An Illinois Quilled Necklace'' *1926: ''Onder de Motilone's van de Sierre de Perija (Venezuela)''

References

External links

* 1882 births 1919 deaths People from Yonkers, New York Dutch emigrants to the United States People from Hellevoetsluis 20th-century American archaeologists 20th-century American anthropologists Historians from New York (state) Deaths from Spanish flu {{US-archaeologist-stub