Henry F. Dobyns
| Henry F. Dobyns | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Henry Farmer Dobyns, Jr. July 3, 1925 Tucson, Arizona, USA |
| Died | June 21, 2009 |
| Residence | Phoenix, Arizona |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | PhD in anthropology (1960), Cornell University |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Occupation | Anthropology, Ethnohistory and Demography |
| Employer | University of Kentucky; University of Oklahoma |
| Title | Chairman of the Department of Anthropology; Vice-president for Academic Affairs |
| Spouse(s) | Zipporah Pottenger; Cara Richards; Mary Faith Patterson |
Henry Farmer Dobyns, Jr. (July 3, 1925-June 21, 2009) was an anthropologist, author and researcher specializing in the ethnohistory and demography of native peoples in the American hemisphere. He is most well known for his groundbreaking demographic research on the size of indigenous American populations before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
Dobyns was born in Tucson, Arizona on July 3, 1925 to Henry F. and Susie Kell Dobyns, and spent his childhood in Casa Grande, Arizona. He graduated from Casa Grande Union High School and then immediately entered the U.S. Army in 1943. Following his service, he attended the University of Arizona where he received a B.A. in Anthropology in 1949 as well as a M.A. in Anthropology in 1956.
Dobyns received his Doctorate degree in Anthropology from Cornell University in 1960.
Dobyns worked with Native American tribes on land claims and a water rights case while he was a graduate student at the University of Arizona in 1952. He continued this work over the next 50 years with various tribes. From 1952 to 1956, he gathered ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence for the Hualapai Tribal Nation’s land claims case and acted as an expert witness before the U.S. Supreme Court with much of the information in his M.A. thesis being used in the Indian Claims Commission hearings. He also spent three decades working as a consultant for the Gila River Indian Community in their litigation over water rights.
He joined the Cornell Peru Project in 1960 after earning his Ph.D. There he worked as a research coordinator from 1960 to 1962, and as a Peace Corps coordinator from 1962 to 1964, and coordinator of the Comparative Studies of Cultural Change program. He was also the Coordinator of the Andean Indian Community Research and Development project from 1963 to 1966, and the Associate Director of the Cornell Peru Project. Dobyns was made Director of the project in 1966 after the death of the former director, Allan R. Holmberg.
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