Roland Burrage Dixon (November 6, 1875 – December 19, 1934) was an American anthropologist.

Early life and education

Born at

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

, in 1897 he graduated from

Harvard University 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 high ...

, where he remained as an assistant in anthropology, taking the degree of Ph. D. in 1900 and then serving as instructor and after 1906 as an assistant professor, rising to professor in 1915. Dixon spent his entire career at Harvard.

Peabody Museum

In 1904, Dixon became Librarian of Harvard's Peabody Museum and has been credited for creating one of the most "comprehensive and functional anthropological libraries in the world". In 1909 he became the Peabody Museum's Secretary and in 1912 its Curator of Ethnology.

Influence of Franz Boas

Dixon studied linguistics and ethnology under Franz Boas after working with Fredric Ward Putnam to obtain his PhD at Harvard. Dixon worked as a member of Boas's Jesup North Pacific Expedition, more specifically with the Huntington Expedition during the 1899-1905 field seasons with Native American groups in northeastern California. Dixon's early papers represent some of the earliest work inspired by Boas' views on culture. However, Boas did not fully articulate his views on culture until 1911, thus Dixon's work is less influenced by Boasian views than that of many of Boas' later students. Indeed, Boas and Dixon's views of culture clashed in numerous instances, in particular, over whether modern 'Stone Age' cultures could be used as analogs for prehistoric archaeological cultures. Boas was strongly opposed to this view. Dixon's approach towards cultures was geographic in orientation, and generally viewed cultures as static entities, with change primarily being induced by migration. Dixon's geographical-historical approach was not taken up by any later anthropologists.

Collaboration

Dixon was fellow Boas student

Alfred Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

's closest professional colleague from 1897 until about 1906. They coordinated closely, published a number of papers jointly, and had an explicit agreement not to duplicate one another's work, Dixon working on languages and cultures in northeastern California and the northern Sierra Nevada, Kroeber in the remainder of the state.

Travel and field work

Dixon later travelled to . He also carried out ethnographic research in Siberia and Mongolia (1901); New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, and Fuji (1909); Mexico (1910); Himalayas, Assam and Upper Burma, the Malay Peninsula and Java, China and Japan (1912-13).

Ideas on race

Dixon was influenced in his ideas about race by his mentor, Putnam, who had been trained by Louis Agassiz and both of these 19th century anthropologists handed down a tradition of viewing the races as separate species. In his 1923 book,
The Racial History of Man
', Dixon disavowed earlier creationist

polygenism Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...

while embracing a new evolutionary view of the races as coming from different fossil ancestors giving rise to different species of humans.

Recognition

Dixon was vice president 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, a ...

in 1910–1911 and president of the American Folklore Society from 1907 to 1908. He was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

at Harvard after 1916 and member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace (1916–1918) in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. Professor Dixon was a contributor to

anthropological 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 behav ...

and

ethnological Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...

journals.

Reputation

Obituaries by fellow anthropologists ascribed to Dixon an icy and demanding personality, with an attitude of "unsympathetic impartiality, of ruthless condemnation, or of detached approval."

Selected works

* ''Maidu Myths'' (1902) * ''The Chimariko Indians and Language'' (1910) * ''Maidu Texts'' (1912) * ''Oceanic Mythology'' (myths of the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...

n, Australian region, published in 1916) * ''Racial History of Man'' (1923)

References

External links

* http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1936.38.2.02a00100/pdf * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Roland Burrage Harvard University alumni People from Worcester, Massachusetts American people of World War I American anthropologists American science writers Harvard University faculty 1875 births 1934 deaths Linguists of Algic languages Linguists of Hokan languages Linguists of Penutian languages Linguists of Maiduan languages Linguists of Chimariko Paleolinguists Presidents of the American Folklore Society