Betty Meggers

Betty Jane Meggers (December 5, 1921 – July 2, 2012) was an American archaeologist best known for her work in South America. She was considered influential at the Smithsonian Institution, where she was long associated in research, and she wrote extensively about environmental determinism as a shaper of human cultures.

Betty Jane Meggers was born in Washington, D.C., to Dr. William Frederick Meggers and Edith R. Meggers. Her father was an internationally recognized spectroscopist as well as an archaeology enthusiast. He often took the family to visit Native American sites.

Betty Meggers graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in 1943 and a year later earned a master's degree from the University of Michigan. After obtaining her master's degree, Meggers attended Columbia University to complete her Ph.D. Meggers's dissertation, entitled The Archaeological Sequence on Marajo Island, Brazil with Special Reference to the Marajoara Culture.

While at Columbia, Meggers met Clifford Evans, another archaeology graduate student. On September 13, 1946, the two were married.

After a long career, Meggers died on July 2, 2012.

Most of Meggers's research was concentrated in South America, particularly in Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, and Guyana. She also conducted research in the Lesser Antilles and Micronesia.

She first worked in anthropology at the age of 16, volunteering at the Smithsonian Institution and helping to reconstruct pots excavated from Pueblo Bonito, an Ancestral Pueblo village in New Mexico.

At the University of Michigan, Meggers was introduced to ancient ceramics from Marajó Island, in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. She published her first scientific article on the Marajoara culture in 1945. Meggers was also among those who believed that early cultures did not develop in the Amazon basin, believing it inhospitable to human settlement. She thought settlements were established by migrants from highland areas. In the early 21st century, new archeological finds have begun to overturn her conclusions.

...
Wikipedia