Walter Bryan Jones, Ph.D. (1895–1977) was an American geologist and archaeologist. He served as Alabama State Geologist for 34 years and was director of the

Alabama Museum of Natural History __NOTOC__ The Alabama Museum of Natural History is the state's natural history museum, located in Smith Hall at the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa. The oldest museum in the state, it was founded in 1831. The exhibits depict the natur ...

. Jones undertook the first large-scale, scientific excavation of the

Moundville Archaeological Site Moundville Archaeological Site, also known as the Moundville Archaeological Park, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site on the Black Warrior River in Hale County, near the modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Extensive archaeological inve ...

, and he founded the Jones Museum at Moundville Archaeological Park. Born in

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...

, Jones earned his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree from the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the publi ...

and his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. Jones and his three brothers, Howard, Edwin, and Raymond, served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

; a fourth brother Carl served in World War II. During World War II, he was stationed in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and sent anthropological collections back to the

. Jones's oldest son, Nelson Bolling Jones, was killed in Germany, April 2, 1945, fighting the German Army, but he lived to see another son, Douglas Epps Jones, become a professor of geology at the University of Alabama. His other son, Warren Phelps Jones, managed an electro-chemical manufacturing plant in Huntsville, until his retirement in 1994. Jones excavated the Moundville Archaeological Site in

Central Alabama Central Alabama is a region in the state of Alabama. It is sometimes considered part of North Alabama because both regions are mountainous, but in some definitions they are different regions. The Valley and Ridge Province of the Appalachians con ...

, establishing an important

Native America The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...

n burial site and shedding light on its culture. Jones accepted the position of Assistant State Geologist under

Eugene Allen Smith Eugene Allen Smith (October 27, 1841 – September 7, 1927) was an American geologist. He was born in the (now former) town of Washington, Alabama, in 1841, the son of Samuel Parrish Smith and his wife Adelaide Julia Allen. After an education in ...

in 1924,UA Museum to Host Symposium and Exhibit on the Life and Work of Walter B. Jones.
University of Alabama News. August 16, 2006. Retrieved on 2 June 2007. and served as State Geologist of Alabama and Director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History from 1927 to 1961.
Retrieved on 2 June 2007. He served as Secretary of Conservation, as well as Professor Emeritus, at the University of Alabama, till his death in 1977 in

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

. Jones was an avid conservationist, hunter, explorer, collector, and photographer, especially of the state of Alabama and the

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

. As State Geologist of Alabama, Walter B. Jones directed research on many topics including economic minerals, surface and groundwater, petroleum, geologic mapping, fossils, caves, and archaeology. He was the first director of the State Oil and Gas Board of Alabama, putting wise regulations into place before the first large discoveries of petroleum were made. He was instrumental in passing the Alabama Antiquities Act, which protects archaeological artifacts from casual excavation. The collections of the Alabama Museum of Natural History (until 1961 an arm of the Geological Survey) were greatly increased under his direction. Walter B. Jones Hall still houses the

Geological Survey of Alabama Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

on the University of Alabama campus.

Notes

References

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External links

Walter Bryan Jones photographs
University Libraries Division of Special Collections, The University of Alabama 1895 births 1977 deaths 20th-century American geologists People from Huntsville, Alabama 20th-century American archaeologists American military personnel of World War II Johns Hopkins University alumni University of Alabama alumni {{US-archaeologist-stub