James Louis Giddings (1909-1964)

• Published in: ARCTIC
• Main Author: Collins, Henry B.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: The Arctic Institute of North America 1965
• Subjects: Arctic; Caldwell; Flint; Giddings; Pacific; eskimo*; The Arctic Institute; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic3452; http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/viewFile/3452/3427

In the tragic death of Dr. J. L. Giddings on December 9, 1964 from a heart attack following an automobile accident, Arctic archaeology has lost one of its ablest, most brilliant and most productive workers. Born in Caldwell, Texas, April 10, 1909, Louis Giddings studied at Rice University, received his B.S. degree at the University of Alaska in 1932, M.A. at the University of Arizona, 1941, and Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1951. From 1932 to 1937 he worked as an engineer for the U.S. Smelting and Refining Company. From 1938 to 1950 he was on the staff of the University of Alaska, progressing from Research Associate to Associate Professor of Anthropology. Between 1943 and 1946, however, he was on active duty as a Navy Lieutenant in the Pacific Area. In 1950 he became Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Assistant Curator of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. In 1956 he was appointed Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Haffenreffer Museum, Brown University, becoming Professor in 1959. Louis Giddings was one of the first Associates of the Arctic Institute elected to Fellowship, and he received one of the Institute's first research grants. The Arctic Institute may well take pride in the fact that it was able to support Giddings' 1948 and 1949 excavations at Cape Denbigh, Alaska, which opened entirely new vistas in Arctic archaeology, and that it contributed to the support of his later and equally important work on the Arctic coast. An expert in dendrochronology, Giddings was the first to apply this technique in the Arctic. Working with samples from living trees and driftwood from old Eskimo village sites on the Kobuk, he established a tree-ring chronology for the last 1,000 years of Eskimo culture. Giddings' work at Cape Denbigh was in the opposite direction - it uncovered the roots of Eskimo culture. His 4,500 to 5,000 year old Denbigh Flint Complex was unlike anything previously known in the Arctic. It was a microlithic assemblage with close affinities with the ...