Patty Jo Watson papers
name: label: Creator
content: Watson, Patty Jo, 1932-
place: label: Place
content: Mammoth Cave National Park (Ky.)
label: Place
content: Salts Cave (Ky.)
label: Place
content: Iran
label: Place
content: Jarmo Site (Iraq)
label: Place
content: Girikihaciyan Site (Turkey)
label: Place
content: Green River (Ky.)
topic: label: Topic
content: Archaeology
label: Topic
content: Ethnoarchaeology
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Patty Jo Watson.
creator: label: Creator
content: Watson, Patty Jo, 1932-
culture: label: Culture
content: Kurds
label: Culture
content: Archaic Tradition (archaeological culture)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Patty Jo Watson papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: Patty Jo Watson is an American archaeologist and professor emerita of archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Though her early career focused on the archaeological study of the ancient Near East, Watson is most well-known for her work on Pre-Columbian Native Americans, particularly in Kentucky's Mammoth Cave area. This collection consists of her professional papers, including articles, correspondence, fieldnotes, illustrations, grant applications, and manuscripts. The materials document Watson's ethnographic research in Iran and her archaeological excavations in Iraq, Turkey, and Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.  Also included are her graduate student notes and papers from the University of Chicago and her teaching materials from Washington University in St. Louis.
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: Patty Jo Watson is a world-renowned archaeologist and professor emerita at Washington University who worked in both the Old and New World, focusing on the origins of agricultural cultivation. She has made major contributions in archaeological method, practice, and theory, developing a new technique in flotation which is both more efficient and more effective than other systems (Neuman, 15) and advocating for the use of ethnoarchaeology and the scientific method, in support of which she wrote Explanation in Archeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach with Steven LeBlanc and Charles Redman. She is known for interdisciplinary methods, working with paleoethnobotanists, geologists, zoologists, biological anthropologists, and agricultural experts. Her work in Mammoth Cave National Park helped to redefine our understanding of plant cultivation in the New World and turned her into a world-renowned expert in cave archaeology. She was also a pioneer in the study of plant remains, obtaining results in the 1960s in a field that was not popularized until the 1980s (B.).

Watson was born Patty Jo Andersen in Superior, Nebraska, in 1932 and grew up in Sheffield, Iowa. She developed an interest in archaeology after reading Agatha Christie's Come Tell Me How You Live (1946) but did not immediately pursue it. She attended Iowa State College as a premed student majoring in zoology (1950-1952). In her second year, she decided that she did not want to practice medicine and chose instead to attend a premaster's program in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. As a result, she never received a Bachelor's degree but was awarded Master's and Doctoral degrees (in 1956 and 1959 respectively). She married her high school sweetheart, Richard "Red" Watson, in 1955. He gave her caving gear as a wedding present, which led to her career in cave archaeology.

While at the University of Chicago, Watson studied under Robert Braidwood. Her first fieldwork (other than her field school at Point of Pines) was on his Iraq-Jarmo project, where Braidwood put her in charge of the soundings at Banahilk, accompanied by some experienced local workers who helped her to gain her footing (Zagros Flanks, 545). The Iraq-Jarmo project focused on the origins of food production, both the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals. In addition to inspiring her lifelong interest in the development of plant cultivation, Braidwood's methods taught Watson the value of interdisciplinary teams, ethnological work in the archaeological discipline, and a scientific approach (Constantin, 16-17). Her second trip to the Near East (1959-1960) was to Iran, where undertook an ethnoarchaeological study. Watson continued her association with the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago through the 1960s, conducting her final Near Eastern fieldwork in 1968 and 1970 at Girikihaciyan, a Halfian village in Turkey, as part of the Joint Prehistoric Project, Istanbul-Chicago, under the direction of Braidwood and Halet Çambel of the University of Istanbul.

Watson had already begun the transition to New World archaeology at this point. In 1963 she became the director of the Cave Research Foundation Archeological Project. She conducted extensive fieldwork in Salts Cave as well as other caves in Mammoth Cave National Park and at shell mounds on the nearby Green River over the course of the next forty years. She fully transitioned to work in the United States because it was becoming increasingly difficult to work in southwestern Asia. Despite the shift in the location of her work, Watson maintained her interest in the development of agricultural cultivation, adding the study of prehistoric mining. Her work in the caves of the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave system and in the Shell Mound Archaeological Project resulted in the discovery that prehistoric Eastern Woodlands peoples had begun cultivating plants before the methods made their way into the southwestern United States from Mexico.

Watson also did a small amount of research in the Southwest, codirecting the Cibola Archaeological Research Project (1972-1974), which focused on a pueblo site connected to the Zuni Nation, studying pottery production. This work has been continued by Arizona State University under the name Cibola Prehistory Project.

The final region in which Watson did fieldwork was China. Her work there was as a consultant to the Xiaolangdi Dam Salvage Archaeology Project at Bancun village between 1991 and 1994. Her expertise in flotation techniques was valuable there as China did not, at the time, have a tradition of excavating the remains of flora and fauna (Peavy, 1).
Watson taught briefly at Los Angeles State College, the University of Southern California, the University of California – Los Angeles, and the University of Michigan. Her husband began teaching at Washington University in 1964, but the University did not have an anthropology program until 1968; she began teaching there in 1969. Both she and Red remained at Washington University until 2004.

Watson has supported increasing the role of women in the field of archaeology and chaired the American Anthropological Society's Committee to Study the Academic Employment of Women in Anthropology from 1983 to 1994. She has also advocated for the expansion of the field in other ways, working to enroll Native American students and to include foreign students in the program at Washington University and fostering ties with international programs (PJW reconstructs the past, 3).
Watson has received recognition for her work from numerous professional organizations including Washington University in St. Louis, the Society for American Archaeology, the American Anthropological Association, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Speleological Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Public Broadcasting System, the American Philosophical Society, Discover magazine, the Academy of Science of St. Louis, and the Karst Waters Institute.

Sources Consulted

American Anthropological Association. "Honoring Service and Achievement." Anthropology Newsletter, November 20-24, 1996.

American Philosophical Society. Autumn General Meeting, November 10-11, 2000: Biographical Essays of the Moderators, Speakers, Inductees, and Award Recipients, 2000.

Aronson, Debby. "Patty Jo Watson reconstructs the past."  Record, Washington University in St. Louis 18, no. 11 (November 4, 1993): 3.

B., A. "About Alumni." University of Chicago Magazine 95, issue 5 (June 2003). https://magazine.uchicago.edu/0306/alumni/vitae.shtml

Baker, Martha K. "Paying Tribute: A Marriage of Art and Science." Arts and Sciences Washington University in St. Louis, January 2004.

Bertelson, Christine. "Woman of Science: Patty Jo Watson traces her career back to an Agatha Christie book." St. Louis Post Dispatch, July 19, 1988.

Constantin, M. M. "She Tells Us How They Lived." Washington University Magazine, Spring 1990.

Dalton, Blair. "Archaeological digs uncover pottery, politics." Student Life, October 9, 1973.

"Early and Watson are inducted as AAAS fellows." Record, Washington University in St. Louis 22, no. 6 (October 2, 1997): 1, 7.

Eavy, Tara. "Patty Jo Watson." Accessed November 29, 2023. https://msu-anthropology.github.io/deoa-ss16/watson/watson.html

"Interview with Pat and Red Watson." Cave Research Foundation 18, no. 1 (February 1990): 12-14.

Madrigal, T. Cregg. "Patty Jo Watson," Trowelblazers. Accessed November 28, 2023. https://trowelblazers.com/2015/09/23/patty-jo-watson/

McGinn, Susan Killenberg. "Watson among 'The 50 Most Important Women in Science." Record, Washington University in St. Louis 27, no. 14 (December 6, 2002): 1, 5.

Neuman, Marcia. "History: Handle with Care." Washington University Magazine, December 1980.

Nicholson, Ann, and Linda Sage. "Honors: Frieden, Watson to receive faculty achievement awards." Record, Washington University in St. Louis 24, no. 28 (April 20, 2000): 1-2.

Peavy, Linda. "The Modern West Links with the Ancient East." Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, Arts & Sciences 6, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 1.

Sage, Linda. "Passageways to the Past." Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, Arts & Sciences 2, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 3.

Svitil, Kathy A. "50 Most Important Women in Science." Discover 23 no. 11 (November 2002): 52-57.

Voices: Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences. "Patty Jo Watson: Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor," Fall 1996.

Washington University in St. Louis. "Patty Jo Watson: Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Archaeology." Department of Anthropology. Accessed December 18, 2023. https://anthropology.wustl.edu/people/patty-jo-watson

Washington University Magazine. "Lasting Lessons: Patty Jo Watson, The Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor, Department of Anthropology," Summer 1996.

Chronology

1932 April 26 -- Born in Superior, Nebraska

1950-1952 -- Attended Iowa State College

1954-1955 -- Archaeological field assistant, Iraq-Jarmo Project of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

1956 -- MA from the University of Chicago in Anthropology

1958 Summer -- Field research in plant ecology in the Chuska Mountains, New Mexico, geological and palynological expedition directed by H. E. Wright, University of Minnesota

1959 -- PhD from the University of Chicago in Anthropology

1959-1960 -- Archaeologist and ethnographer, Iranian Prehistoric Project, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

1961 -- Instructor in Anthropology at Los Angeles State College Instructor in Anthropology at the University of Southern California Instructor in Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles

1962-1963 -- Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Michigan

1963-2004 -- Director of the Cave Research Foundation Archeological Project

1964 -- Research Associate, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

1965-1967 -- Project Associate and Unit Director, Anthropology Curriculum Study Project, American Anthropological Association

1967 -- Research Associate, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

1968 and 1970 -- Archaeologist, Turkish Prehistoric Project, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago and Istanbul University

1969-1970 -- Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis

1970-1973 -- Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis

1971-1972 -- Acting Chair of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis

1972-1974 -- Co-Director (with Steven A. LeBlanc and Charles L. Redman) of the Cibola Archeological Research Project

1972-2005 -- Co-Director (with William H. Marquardt) of the Shell Mound Archeological Project

1973-1976 -- Editor for Western Asia, Current Research, American Antiquity

1973-1977 -- Editor for archaeology, American Anthropologist

1973-1985 -- Member of the Scientific Board, Association Paleorient

1973-1993 -- Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis

1974 -- Member of the National Academy of Sciences Review Panel for National Science Foundation graduate study grants in Anthropology

1974-1976 -- Member of the Executive Committee, Society for American Archaeology Member of the National Science Advisory Panel in Anthropology

1974-1977 -- Associate editor for archaeology, American Anthropologist

1975 -- Chair, Nominations Committee, Society of American Archaeology

1975-1977 -- Member of the Committee for the Recovery of Archaeological Remains

1975-1979 -- Member of the Program Committee, Archaeological Institute of America

1977-1980 -- Member of the National Endowment for the Humanities Advisory Panel for General Research Grants in Archaeology

1978 -- Chair of the Nominating Committee, Southeastern Archaeological Conference

1978-1980 -- Member of the Executive Committee, Association for Field Archaeology

1979-2007 -- Editor for Anthropology, National Speleological Society Bulletin

1980-1983 -- Member of the Editorial Board, Association for Field Archaeology

1981 July -- Member of the Scientific Committee, VIIIth International Speleological Conference, Bowling Green, Kentucky

1982-1984 -- Chair of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis Member of the Executive Committee, Society for American Archaeology

1982-1985 -- Representative from the Society for American Archaeology to the American Association for the Advancement of Science

1983-1994 -- Chair of the Committee to Study the Academic Employment of Women in Anthropology, American Anthropological Association

1983-before 2014 -- Member of the Governing Board for Savage Cave, Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky

1984-1987 -- Editor, American Antiquity

1984-2004 -- Member of the Board of Directors, Center for American Archaeology, Kampsville, Illinois

1989-1990 -- President, Kentucky Organization of Professional Archaeologists

1990 -- Awarded the Fryxell Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Interdisciplinary Research in Archaeology by the Society for American Archaeology Chair of the Nominations Committee, Society of American Archaeology

1991 March 13-16 -- Chair of the Program and Local Arrangements, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Society of Ethnobiology, St. Louis

1991-1992 -- Chair of Section H, American Association for the Advancement of Science

1991-1995 -- Chair of the Publications Committee, Society for American Archaeology

1993-1994 -- Member of the Fryxell Award Committee, Society for American Archaeology

1993-2004 -- Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis

1994 -- Named Distinguished Lecturer by the American Anthropological Association

1994-1995 -- Chair of the Fryxell Award Committee, Society for American Archaeology

1996 -- Awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the American Anthropological Association

1998-2001 -- Member of the Book Award Committee, Society for American Archaeology

1999 -- Awarded the Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement by the Archaeological Institute of America

1999-2001 -- Chair of the Fund Raising Committee, Society for American Archaeology

1999-2005 -- Academic Trustee, Governing Board, Archaeological Institute of America

2000 -- Awarded the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award by Washington University, St. Louis

2002 -- Awarded the Peter Raven Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Academy of Science of St. Louis

2003 -- Awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Karst Sciences Award by the Karst Waters Institute

2003-circa 2018 -- Affiliate of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Montana, Missoula

2004 -- Awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Southeastern Archaeological Conference

2004-current -- Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology Emerita at Washington University, St. Louis

2007 -- Awarded the Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology by the Archaeological Institute of America

2009 -- Granted an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Washington University, St. Louis

2010 -- Awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for American Archaeology
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 20.83 Linear feet (31 document boxes, 3 shoeboxes, 1 oversize box, 3 map folders, 1 map roll, and 1 restricted box)
label: Extent
content: 1 Videocassettes (VHS)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1948-2010
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.2004-26
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Videocassettes (vhs)
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: This collection is arranged in 3 series: (1) Research, 1954-2002; (2) Professional Activities, 1955-2010; and (3) Education, 1948-1963.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Watson's papers were rehoused in acid free folders and boxes. Reprints and photocopies of printed materials were removed unless they were annotated by Watson. Post-it notes were photocopied onto acid free paper and then removed. Paper clips and staples were removed; if the relationship between the newly separated papers was not clear, they were grouped together within a folded sheet of acid free paper. Loose papers were grouped into folders by the archivist based on content. Titles in square brackets were supplied by the archivist; the contents of these folders may have been loose in a box or may have been in unlabeled folders. Abbreviations in titled folders have been expanded for clarity.

Processed and encoded by Katherine Christensen, January 2024.
bibliography: label: Selected Bibliography
content: 1956. "New Material from Northern Iraq: the Halaf 'Period' Reconsidered." MA thesis, University of Chicago.

1959. "Early Village Farming in the Levant and its Environment." PhD diss., University of Chicago.

1969.  -- The Prehistory of Salts Cave, Kentucky -- .  Springfield: Illinois State Museum.

1971. with Steven A. LeBlanc and Charles L. Redman.  -- Explanation in Archeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach -- . New York: Columbia University Press.

1974. (ed.)  -- Archeology of the Mammoth Cave Area -- . New York: Academic Press.

1979.  -- Archaeological Ethnology in Western Iran -- . Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 57. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

1983. (eds.) with Linda S. Braidwood, Robert J. Braidwood, Bruce Howe, and Charles A. Reed.  -- Prehistoric Archaeology Along the Zagros Flanks -- . Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

1990. with Steven A. LeBlanc.  -- Girikihaciyan: A Halafian Site in Southeastern Turkey -- . Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.

1992. (eds.) with C. Wesley Cowan.  -- The Origins of Agriculture: An International Perspective -- . Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

1995. "Explaining the Transition to Agriculture." In  -- Last Hunters-First Farmers -- , edited by D. Price and A. Gebauer, 21-37. Santa Fe: School of American Research.

1995. "Archaeology, Anthropology, and the Culture Concept."  -- American Anthropologist --  97: 683-694.

1996. (eds.) with Kenneth Carstens.  -- Of Caves and Shell Mounds -- . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

1999. "From the Hilly Flanks of the Fertile Crescent to the Eastern Woodlands of North America." In  -- Grit-Tempered: Early Women Archaeologists in the Southeastern United States -- , edited by N. M. White, L. P. Sullivan, and R. A. Marrinan, 286-297. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

1999. "Ethnographic Analogy and Ethnoarchaeology." In  -- Archaeology, History and Culture in Palestine and the Near East: Essays in Memory of Albert E. Glock -- , edited by T. Kapitan, 47-65. American Schools of Oriental Research, ASOR Books 3. Atlanta: Scholar's Press

2001. "Origins of Food Production." In  -- International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences -- , edited by N. Smelser and P. Baltes. Amsterdam: Pergamon (Elsevier Science).

2005. (eds.) with William Marquardt.  -- Archaeology of the Middle Green River Region, Kentucky -- . Gainesville: Institute of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies, University of Florida.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection consists of the professional papers of archaeologist Patty Jo Watson.  The collection is comprised of articles, correspondence, fieldnotes, illustrations, grant applications, and manuscripts documenting Watson's ethnographic research in Iran in three Kurdish villages, as well as her archaeological work in Iraq, Turkey, and Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. There is little information included regarding her work in the Cibola Archaeological Research Project, as these materials are housed at Arizona State University. Also included are her graduate student notes and papers from the University of Chicago and her teaching materials from Washington University in St. Louis. The materials related to her education, teaching, writings, and professional organizations are incomplete as some of these materials are housed at Washington University in St. Louis. Of particular interest are letters which she wrote to her then fiancé Red Watson during her first field season (1954-1955) at Banahilk in Iraq, which contain observations on the people of the region as well as the work she conducted there; her logbooks, which contain an account of her work in the southeastern United States; and the "Patty Jo Watson doll" given to Watson by students at Flinders University in Australia when she gave a lecture there.
label: Sensitivity Statement
content: Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: The Mammoth Cave National Park holds artifacts from Salts Cave.

Arizona State University holds research, faunal specimens, and ceramic artifacts from the Cibola Archaeological Research Project (CARP).

Materials from CARP can also be found in the Digital Archaeological Record.

Washington University in St. Louis holds The Patty Jo Watson papers.

The National Anthropological Archives holds the Carol Kramer papers, the Maxine R. Kleindienst papers, and the 
Patty Jo Watson collection on Walter Taylor.