James Alfred Ford (February 12, 1911–February 25, 1968) was an American archaeologist. He was born in

Water Valley, Mississippi Water Valley is a city in Yalobusha County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 3,392 at the 2010 census. It is the larger of two county seats in the rural county, and at one time was the center of railroad shops. Geography According ...

, in February 1911. While growing up in the region, where ancient earthwork mounds are visible, he became interested in work on the ancient Native American cultures who built these works.

Archaeological career

In 1933 Ford developed a tentative chronology of the Native American cultures on the lower Mississippi River.Jon Gibson: ''The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point.'' University of Florida Press, Gainesville et al, 2000, , Chapter 2 Between 1933 and 1934, he worked at the

Ocmulgee National Monument Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park (formerly Ocmulgee National Monument) in Macon, Georgia, United States preserves traces of over ten millennia of culture from the Native Americans in the Southeastern Woodlands. Its chief remains are majo ...

in Macon, Georgia, under Arthur Randolph Kelly. Also in 1934, he investigated the Tabby Ruins at Elizafield Plantation near Brunswick, Georgia. From August 1 to September 1, 1934, he worked for the Georgia State Parks Service; and later that year, from September 2 to October 15, he worked for the Southeast Fair Association to develop an American Indian Exhibition in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

. In 1937, he became involved in a restoration project of an earthen lodge at Ocmulgee National Monument for the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

. In the winter of 1939-40, during the Great Depression, he excavated the

Medora site The Medora site ( 16WBR1) is an archaeological site that is a type site for the prehistoric Plaquemine culture period. The name for the culture is taken from the proximity of Medora to the town of Plaquemine, Louisiana. The site is in West Baton ...

for the

Louisiana State Archaeological Survey Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is border ...

, a joint project of

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

and the

Work Projects Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...

. These excavations were instrumental in defining the characteristics of the

Plaquemine culture The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture (circa 1200 to 1700 CE) centered on the Lower Mississippi River valley. It had a deep history in the area stretching back through the earlier Coles Creek (700-1200 CE) and Troyville culture ...

and period. In the early 1950s Ford led the first large-scale excavations at

Poverty Point Poverty Point State Historic Site/Poverty Point National Monument (french: Pointe de Pauvreté; 16 WC 5) is a prehistoric earthwork constructed by the Poverty Point culture, located in present-day northeastern Louisiana, though evidence of t ...

, Louisiana. He pursued this project, with breaks, until his death. He discovered the ridge structure of the pre-columbian earthworks as the unique features of that site. His experiments with loess soil, to find the purpose of the hundreds of thousands ''Poverty Point objects'', were the beginnings of

experimental archaeology Experimental archaeology (also called experiment archaeology) is a field of study which attempts to generate and test archaeological hypotheses, usually by replicating or approximating the feasibility of ancient cultures performing various tasks ...

in North America. But his theories about the origin of the

Poverty Point culture The Poverty Point culture is the archaeological culture of a prehistoric indigenous peoples who inhabited a portion of North America's lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast from about 1730 – 1350 BC. Archeologists have identified ...

were later made obsolete by new evidence. His samples and results of radiocarbon dating were inaccurate due to the very early stages of that technology. In 1958 he excavated the

Menard–Hodges site The Menard–Hodges site ( 3AR4) (also known as Menard-Hodges Mounds and Osotouy), is an archaeological site in Arkansas County, Arkansas. It includes two large platform mounds as well as several house mounds. It is the type site for the Menard ...

in southeastern

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

. James A. Ford died of cancer on February 25, 1968 in Gainesville, Florida.

Bibliography

*Ford, James Alfred 1954 "The History of the Peruvian Valley iru Valley, ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

''.--NY, v.191 no.2, .28-34. *Ford, James Alfred 1961 "In Favor of Simple Typology." ''

American Antiquity The professional journal ''American Antiquity'' is published by Cambridge University Press for the Society for American Archaeology, an organization of professional archaeologists of the Americas. The journal is considered to be the flagship jou ...

''.--Salt Lake City, v.27,no.1 p. 113-114 *Ford, James Alfred 1952 "Mound Builders of the Mississippi." ''Scientific American''.--NY, v.186, no.3, p. 22-27 *Ford, James Alfred 1954 "On the Concept of Types, an article by J.A. Ford with discussion by J.H. Steward." ''American Anthropologist''.--Menasha, Wis., n.s., v.56, p. 42-57 *Ford, James Alfred 1952 "Reply to 'The Viru Valley sequence: a critical review'." ''American Antiquity''.--Salt Lake City, v.XVII, p. 250

References

External links

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

November 2000 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, James A 1911 births 1968 deaths Pre-Columbian scholars People from Water Valley, Mississippi 20th-century American archaeologists

Archaeological career

Bibliography

References

Further reading

External links