LEGENDS OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Revolutionizing American Archaeology American Museum of Natural History
Nels C. Nelson’s development of stratigraphic excavation methods radically changed archaeological fieldwork in America. By Tamara Stewart
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n 2004, Congress passed the Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act to preserve and interpret the nationally significant archaeological resources of the Galisteo Basin of north-central New Mexico, a fitting legacy for the region where, in the early 20th century, Nels Christian Nelson revolutionized the way archaeology is conducted in America. Born in 1875 on a farm in Denmark, Nelson, the oldest of many children, moved to Minnesota in 1892 to work on a relative’s farm. It was in America that Nelson began his education, graduating from high school in 1901 at the age of 26, and then riding a cattle car to California, where he worked as a laborer to save money to attend Stanford University. After two years at Stanford, Nelson transferred to the University of California, where he finished his undergraduate studies in 1907. Nelson was introduced to archaeology the previous year when, at the invitation of paleontologist and geologist John Campbell Merriam, he assisted in the survey of shell mounds along the northern California coast. San Francisco Bay was encircled by deep middens— large mounds of shells, artifacts, and cultural debris deposited over hundreds of years by native peoples. Nelson spent most of his summers over the next four years identifying and excavating shell mounds around the bay and nearby waterways while teaching courses and working at the University of California’s Anthropological Museum during the fall and
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This photograph of Nels Nelson was taken in 1930.
winter. Merriam, a meticulous scientist who insisted on careful observation and recording, worked alongside Nelson on some of the shell mound excavations. Nelson was also influenced by German archaeologist Max Uhle, whose 1902 report on the excavation of the Emeryville Shellmound in California emphasized stratigraphic relationships, in which younger deposits overlay older ones, revealing a chronology of deposition. While working at the Ellis Landing site, Nelson cut a straight, clean profile at one side of his trench and charted the details and location of all artifacts as his excavation proceeded, an innovative technique for the time. Deciding to pursue graduate studies in archaeology rather than the seminary, as he had originally planned, Nelson received his Master of Letters in 1908, writing his thesis on the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay area. He had located about 400 mounds in the course of surveying countless miles of coastline. The following year, Nelson accepted the position of assistant curator in the Anthropological Museum of the University of California, Berkley where he became an instructor in anthropology in 1910. Meanwhile, ethnologist Clark Wissler, the curator of anthropology at the American Museum (subsequently renamed the American Museum of Natural History) in New York, was rebuilding the anthropology department and negotiating with philanthropist Archer Huntington to fund a
summer • 2009
