Diamond Jenness

Diamond Jenness
University of Oxford Anthropology Diploma class of 1910-11. Jenness is in the center of the back row
Born	February 10, 1886 Wellington, New Zealand
Died	November 29, 1969 Chelsea, Quebec, Canada
Resting place	Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Education	University of New Zealand (from the constituent college in Wellington, then called Victoria University College) Balliol College, University of Oxford
Occupation	Anthropologist
Employer	National Museum of Canada
Known for	His comprehensive early studies of Canada's First Nation's people and the Copper Inuit.
Predecessor	Dr. Edward Sapir
Spouse(s)	Frances Eilleen Jenness
Children	John L. (Pete) Jenness, Stuart E. Jenness, Robert A. (Bob) Jenness

Diamond Jenness, CC, F.R.C.G.S. (February 10, 1886, Wellington, New Zealand – November 29, 1969, Chelsea, Quebec, Canada) was one of Canada's greatest early scientists and a pioneer of Canadian anthropology.

He graduated from the University of New Zealand (from the constituent college then called Victoria University College) (B.A. 1907; M.A. 1908), and Balliol College, University of Oxford (Diploma in Anthropology, 1910; B.A. 1911; M.A. 1916). From 1911 to 1912 he was Oxford Scholar on the D'Entrecasteaux Islands in eastern Papua New Guinea, studying a little-known group of aboriginal people. He then served as an ethnologist with the Canadian Arctic Expedition from 1913 to 1916 under the leadership of both Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Dr. Rudolph M. Anderson. His detailed studies of the Copper Inuit, sometimes called the Blond Eskimos, around Coronation Gulf, and of other Arctic native people, helped establish him. Although most of his time thereafter was devoted to Indian studies (and administrative duties), he soon identified two very important prehistoric Eskimo cultures: the Dorset culture in Canada (in 1925) and the Old Bering Sea culture in Alaska (in 1926), for which he later was named "Father of Eskimo Archaeology."