Harold S. Gladwin

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Harold S. Gladwin was an American archaeologist, anthropologist and stockbroker born in New York City. From 1908-1922 he worked in New York making his fortune as a stockbroker.

However Gladwin had an enormous amount of enthusiasm for New World archaeology and anthropology. In 1927 Gladwin arrived at Casa Grande National Monument in Arizona. At this time he began the excavation of archaeological material that he would provisionally labeled the “red-on-buff-culture” after their distinctive decorated pottery (Haury 195). The goal of his research was to “conduct stratigraphic tests in some one locality." With this he hoped to define a sequence of culture.

On the basis of his work, Gladwin was able to discriminate basic divisions in the ceramic sequence that would serve as the base line for future research. Gladwin proposed several interesting hypotheses about Casa Grande. He was sure that the big house had been constructed without the use of forms. This conclusion was later supported by Wilcox and Shenks analysis (196). Although, Gladwins’ hypothesis that the Casa Grande was built as a specialized storage facility: protecting food from flooding; did not receive their support.

In 1928 Harold and his wife founded a research institution near Globe, Arizona and called it Gila Pueblo (Martin 6). This building resembled a three story pueblo with terraces or step backs and ladders for access to upper stories. It was built over the top of an actual Indian pueblo that the Gladwins had excavated. Harold wanted to establish the boundaries of the various ancient subcultures. He especially was interested in the Hohokam and how much intermingling, trading and migrating had occurred. The search for the origins of various subcultures, what had become of the Indians responsible for the subcultures and why they abandoned their homelands became the most extensive and intensive archaeological survey ever accomplished. The number of sites discovered, accurately recorded on comprehensive forms, and from which a representative collection of sherds was taken, numbered well over five thousand.

At Gila Pueblo, Gladwin proposed a system of classification. It was an arrangement of roots, stems, branches and phases. They cumulative from smallest to largest categories and most clearly show the affinities and derivations of any portion of the Southwest at various periods (McGregor 66). His system included the three necessary elements to all archaeological work: culture, time and place. The roots are the largest groupings from which several stems are usually indicated as diverging. The stems are still major cultural groupings which split into a number of geographic branches. the phases are the smallest units included in the classification, and generally consist of several individual sites or portions of sites (67). Although Harold made some serious contributions to his practice, he became best known for promoting such questionable theories as that of "multitudinous migrations" into the Americas. Another questionable topic was related to the concept of cultural diffusions. That included the certainty that the New World was inhabited by a succession of people. These people included the Pygmies from Africa, Australoids from Australia, and Greeks and Middle Easterners stranded on the Persian Gulf by Alexander the Great. All of these people introduced their cultures into the New World. They did this by promoting such views in articles and books. Through this media, Gladwin lost the respect of many professional Americanists.