George L. Cowgill (; December 19, 1929 – July 31, 2018) was an American

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

and

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 landsca ...

. He was a professor of anthropology at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

from 1990-2005, and research professor emeritus from 2005 until his death. He received his PhD from

Harvard 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 higher le ...

in 1963 with a dissertation on The Post-Classic Period in the Southern Maya Lowlands. Most of his career was devoted to research at the ancient Mexican city of

Teotihuacán Teotihuacan ( Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is known today as ...

. He taught at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , p ...

between 1960 and 1990. Cowgill made important contributions in a number of areas, including the archaeology of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

, the comparative study of early states and cities, and quantitative methods in archaeology.

Early life

George Cowgill and his twin brother, linguist

Warren Cowgill Warren Cowgill (; December 19, 1929 – June 20, 1985) was an American linguist. He was a professor of linguistics at Yale University and the Encyclopædia Britannica's authority on Indo-European linguistics. Cowgill was unusual among Indo-Europ ...

(d. 1985), were born near

Grangeville, Idaho Grangeville is the largest city in and the county seat of Idaho County, Idaho, United States, in the north central part of the state. Its population was 3,141 at the 2010 census, down from 3,228 in 2000. Geography According to the United Sta ...

in 1929. Along with his brother, George Cowgill graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

in 1952 with a degree in physics.

Career

Cowgill was selected as the 1992 Distinguished Lecturer in Archaeology by the

American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

. In 2004 he was awarded the Alfred Vincent Kidder Award of the American Anthropological Association for his contributions to the archaeology of the Americas. This is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of archaeology. Cowgill's major archaeological fieldwork and analysis was centered on Teotihuacán. With René Millon, Cowgill spent years systematically mapping the city of Teotihuacán in the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico w ...

near modern

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. In the 1960s he compiled an extensive database of the artifacts collected in the survey. This was one of the first large-scale archaeological databases, and it continues to be used for research today. In the late 1980s, Cowgill co-directed excavations at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at Teotihuacán with Saburo Sugiyama and Rubén Cabrera. Several of Cowgill's published articles on Teotihuacán are among the most important syntheses of archaeological information on this ancient city. George Cowgill was also a pioneering researcher in the use of computers, databases, and quantitative methods in archaeology. He published important methodological papers on seriation (a quantitative method for determining the chronology of sites and artifacts) and on artifact classification. He and his students produced innovative studies of the spatial organization of Teotihuacán as determined from his artifact database. They were able to measure the extent of the city and track its growth and decline through the centuries for the first time. Cowgill made a number of major contributions to the comparative study of ancient states and cities. His 1975 work on demography and population growth helped reorient archaeological studies of ancient population trends, and served to link the study of ancient demography to demographic trends in the modern world. He co-edited an influential 1988 book on the collapse of ancient states and empires. Cowgill also published important works on ancient cities around the world and their comparative analysis.

Selected publications

* Cowgill, George L. (2015) Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico. Cambridge University Press, New York. * Cowgill, George L. (2004) Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Approaches. Annual Review of Anthropology 33:525-549. * Cowgill, George L. (1997) State and Society at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:129-161. * Cowgill, George L. (1993) Distinguished Lecture in Archaeology: Beyond Criticizing New Archaeology. American Anthropologist 95:551-573. * Yoffee, Norman and George L. Cowgill (editors) (1988) The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. * Cowgill, George L. (1975) On Causes and Consequences of Ancient and Modern Population Changes. American Anthropologist 77:505-525.

References

External links

*
FAMSI report

George L. Cowgill
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowgill, George 1929 births 2018 deaths Harvard University alumni Brandeis University faculty Arizona State University faculty American anthropologists American archaeologists American male writers American Mesoamericanists Mesoamerican archaeologists Teotihuacan scholars 20th-century Mesoamericanists 21st-century Mesoamericanists People from Idaho County, Idaho