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William Andrew McDonald


William Andrew McDonald (April 26, 1913 – January 11, 2000) was an American archaeologist born in Ontario, Canada. In 1935, he graduated from the University of Toronto (where he also played rugby union and hockey) with first class honors in classical studies. In 1936, McDonald received his Master's degree in ancient history from the same university. He studied classical archaeology at Johns Hopkins University and received his Ph.D in 1940. His dissertation entitled The Political Meeting Places of the Greeks is still regarded as an important fundamental study of Greek public architecture. From 1938 until 1939, McDonald was a student of the American Classical School in Athens and participated in excavations at Pylos and Olynthos. Under his supervision, the first Linear B tablets were discovered at Pylos on April 3, 1939. In 1953, McDonald continued excavating at Pylos until Carl Blegen convinced him to focus his efforts towards surveying the territory comprising the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Pylos. During this time, McDonald undertook his first of many interdisciplinary projects whereby he collected modern place-names across southwest Greece. In 1958, McDonald began to collaborate with Richard Hope Simpson who was conducting an archaeological survey of Laconia. In 1961, McDonald contributed to the establishment of the University of Minnesota Messenia Expedition, which emphasized the interdisciplinary rather than multidisciplinary collaboration between archaeologists, natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists. The expedition resulted in 1,400 square miles (3,600 km2) of territory being surveyed. The results of the overall expedition were published in preliminary reports in the American Journal of Archaeology and in a comprehensive volume entitled, The Minnesota Messenia Expedition: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Regional Environment.


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