William T. Sanders (original) (raw)
William Timothy Sanders (1926–2008) was an American anthropologist who specialized in the archaeology of Mesoamerica. Sanders was born into a working-class family in Patchogue, New York. His interest in Mesoamerica was sparked by reading William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. During his high school years, he struck up a friendship with classmate and fellow future anthropologist Harold C. Conklin. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he undertook his undergraduate and postgraduate education at Harvard University under the G.I. Bill, completing his bachelor's degree in 1949, his master's degree in 1953 and a doctorate in 1957. His senior honours thesis, The Urban Revolution in Central Mexico, applied the cultural evolutionary model outlined by V. Gor
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| dbo:abstract | William Timothy Sanders (1926–2008) was an American anthropologist who specialized in the archaeology of Mesoamerica. Sanders was born into a working-class family in Patchogue, New York. His interest in Mesoamerica was sparked by reading William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. During his high school years, he struck up a friendship with classmate and fellow future anthropologist Harold C. Conklin. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he undertook his undergraduate and postgraduate education at Harvard University under the G.I. Bill, completing his bachelor's degree in 1949, his master's degree in 1953 and a doctorate in 1957. His senior honours thesis, The Urban Revolution in Central Mexico, applied the cultural evolutionary model outlined by V. Gordon Childe in his book What Happened in History to the study of Tenochtitlan. At Harvard he studied under Alfred Tozzer, Earnest Hooton, who inspired Sanders to apply to Harvard after he read Hooton's books as a teenager, Carleton S. Coon, who stimulated his interest in comparative ethnography, and Gordon Willey, who taught him about the regional settlement survey work he had led in the Viru Valley: Sanders would subsequently apply and refine Willey's methods in the course of his own work. In 1951 Sanders studied at the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City under Pedro Armillas, who also sought to apply Childe's thinking to Mesoamerica, and fostered Sanders' interest in landscape archaeology. Other significant intellectual influences included Julian Steward, Karl August Wittfogel and Leslie White. Sanders completed his doctoral dissertation, Tierra y Agua: a Study of Ecological Factors in the Development and Personality of Mesoamerican Civilizations after taking up a post as an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi in 1956, subsequently moving to Pennsylvania State University, where he would spend the rest of his academic career, three years later and becoming an Associate Professor in 1962. He undertook a survey of Teotihuacan from 1960 to 1964, the results of which were published in the 1965 book The Cultural Ecology of the Teotihuacan Valley. He was named a Professor in 1966. He subsequently shifted his attention southward to Kaminaljuyu in Guatemala, in part due to evidence of links between that Mayan site and Teotihuacan. In 1979 The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, a regional analysis synthesising multiple survey results spanning 3000 years which was co-authored by Sanders, was published: due to its bright green cover and influence, it has been nicknamed "The Green Bible". During the 1980s and 1990s he co-directed survey work at the Classic Maya site of Copán in Honduras. In 1985 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Outside of the US, he also served as a Visiting Professor at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico. Sanders' approach was influenced by cultural evolutionism, and laid particular stress on cultural ecology, emphasising the relationship between people and their surroundings, and seeking similarities in different cultures in their response to specific environmental conditions. As such, he saw the study of settlement patters in a society as key, and bound up the study of ecological and demographic developments. During his studies at Harvard, he developed the concept of the "central Mexican symbiotic region", referring to the network of symbiotic and mutually beneficial social and economic relationships that existed across a diversity of ecological zones in central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. He argued that this area saw earlier and more acute urban development and state formation than other areas of Mexico, which he believed was the result of its physical geography: a semiarid climate which facilitated land clearance, variations in altitude meaning that it contained conditions suitable for growing maize, cotton and agave, and unpredictable levels of rainfall which spurred the development of irrigation and intensive agriculture. This in turn led to high population densities which could support more sophisticated agricultural techniques He died on July 2, 2008 in State College, Pennsylvania following a fall. (en) |
| dbo:wikiPageID | 49994784 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageLength | 7302 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger) |
| dbo:wikiPageRevisionID | 1122360221 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbr:Carleton_S._Coon dbr:Mesoamerica dbr:Anthropologist dbr:Honduras dbr:Julian_Steward dbr:Patchogue,_New_York dbr:Pennsylvania_State_University dbc:Pennsylvania_State_University_staff dbr:Cultural_ecology dbr:Cultural_evolution dbr:United_States_Navy dbr:University_of_Mississippi dbr:V._Gordon_Childe dbr:Instituto_Nacional_de_Antropología_e_Historia dbr:Pedro_Armillas dbc:2008_deaths dbr:Copán dbr:Maya_civilization dbr:G.I._Bill dbr:Gordon_Willey dbr:Archaeology dbr:Leslie_White dbr:State_College,_Pennsylvania dbc:1926_births dbc:Harvard_University_alumni dbc:Members_of_the_United_States_National_Academy_of_Sciences dbc:United_States_Navy_personnel_of_World_War_II dbr:William_H._Prescott dbr:Doctor_of_Philosophy dbr:Landscape_archaeology dbr:National_School_of_Anthropology_and_History dbr:Alfred_Tozzer dbr:Earnest_Hooton dbr:Ethnography dbr:Kaminaljuyu dbr:Master's_degree dbr:Guatemala dbr:Harold_C._Conklin dbr:Harvard_University dbr:Bachelor's_degree dbr:Tenochtitlan dbr:Teotihuacan dbc:20th-century_American_anthropologists dbc:Historians_of_Mesoamerica dbr:Karl_August_Wittfogel dbc:People_from_Patchogue,_New_York dbr:Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_Empire dbr:Mexico_City dbr:National_Academy_of_Sciences dbr:National_Autonomous_University_of_Mexico dbr:World_War_II dbr:Viru_Valley |
| dbp:wikiPageUsesTemplate | dbt:Authority_control dbt:Reflist dbt:Short_description |
| dct:subject | dbc:Pennsylvania_State_University_staff dbc:2008_deaths dbc:1926_births dbc:Harvard_University_alumni dbc:Members_of_the_United_States_National_Academy_of_Sciences dbc:United_States_Navy_personnel_of_World_War_II dbc:20th-century_American_anthropologists dbc:Historians_of_Mesoamerica dbc:People_from_Patchogue,_New_York |
| schema:sameAs | http://viaf.org/viaf/72667911 |
| rdf:type | owl:Thing |
| rdfs:comment | William Timothy Sanders (1926–2008) was an American anthropologist who specialized in the archaeology of Mesoamerica. Sanders was born into a working-class family in Patchogue, New York. His interest in Mesoamerica was sparked by reading William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. During his high school years, he struck up a friendship with classmate and fellow future anthropologist Harold C. Conklin. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he undertook his undergraduate and postgraduate education at Harvard University under the G.I. Bill, completing his bachelor's degree in 1949, his master's degree in 1953 and a doctorate in 1957. His senior honours thesis, The Urban Revolution in Central Mexico, applied the cultural evolutionary model outlined by V. Gor (en) |
| rdfs:label | William T. Sanders (en) |
| owl:sameAs | http://viaf.org/viaf/72667911 yago-res:William T. Sanders http://d-nb.info/gnd/1056663340 wikidata:William T. Sanders http://data.bibliotheken.nl/id/thes/p068161840 https://global.dbpedia.org/id/2EZ31 |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:William_T._Sanders?oldid=1122360221&ns=0 |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:William_T._Sanders |
| is dbo:wikiPageRedirects of | dbr:William_Timothy_Sanders |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:Patchogue,_New_York dbr:Handbook_of_Middle_American_Indians dbr:Kaminaljuyu dbr:List_of_Equinox_episodes dbr:Richard_Diehl dbr:William_Sanders dbr:Tepetlaoztoc dbr:Teresa_Rojas_Rabiela dbr:William_Timothy_Sanders |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:William_T._Sanders |