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1952). Excavations revealed the layout of Greece’s most important and largest religious shrine, locating the temple of Hera, the great altar of Zeus, and the Olympic stadium. The only major surviving sculpture by Praxiteles, “Hermes carrying the infant Dionysus,” was also unearthed at the site. Model techniques of excavation and stratigraphy were employed at the site, and the amount of valuable sculptural, numismatic, and epigraphic material found was very great. The results were edited by Curtius in five volumes. While Curtius’s primary achievement was his organization and editing of the excavations at Olympia, he also inspired many scholars with his love of Greece and its past.
See also
(1857–1900)
Cushing was born in Pennsylvania and grew up near Albion in New York State. His poor health as a child resulted in a circumscribed but intense education in the fields and woods of his immediate environment. It was during his explorations that Cushing was to find the Indian arrowhead that stimulated his lifelong interest in ethnology. At eighteen he studied natural science at Cornell University and wrote an article about the natural history of his neighborhood in New York. This was published by the smithsonian institution, whose staff were so impressed that they offered him a job.
In 1879 Cushing was appointed to the new Bureau of American Ethnology, which was closely connected to the Smithsonian Institution. Under the directorship of geologist and explorer john wesley powell (1834–1902) the Bureau became the center for anthropological research in North America. While its mandate was to study the ethnography and linguistics of Native American people so as to better administer Indian affairs, the bureau also had a considerable impact on the development of North American archaeology.
The bureau maintained the view that there there was no real difference between indigenous American peoples in the nineteenth century and their prehistoric ancestors. In an environment that denied indigenous American peoples their histories, archaeologists gained insights into the past by working closely with ethnologists and modern native people. In this way prehistoric archaeology was defined as a branch of anthropology.
Cushing and his Bureau colleague J.W. Fewkes (1850–1930) pioneered this approach, known as the direct historical method. They used ethnographic parallels to interpret, by analogy, the activities of prehistoric people. Cushing was so interested in the processes by which the artifacts he found were made that he became a master of indigenous technologies, arts, and crafts.
His outstanding achievements include his studies of the Zuni Pueblo Indians, made over the five years that he lived with them, his explorations of ancient pueblos in the Salt River Valley in Arizona, and his investigations of the ancient inhabitants of Key Marco, Florida. His Zuni Creation Myths (1896) and Zuni Breadstuff (1920 republished) remain ethnological classics.
See also
United States of America, Prehistoric Archaeology
The history of archaeology on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus exemplifies issues common to many areas. Several intertwined themes are discussed in this entry—largely within a general chronicle of discovery and research with a concentration on the prehistoric periods—including issues of nationalism, colonialism, and gender alongside academic traditions in constructing local archaeological practice and styles. The impact of specific political events and other factors provides a significant background, structuring both attitudes and developments. The influence of individual researchers is also especially marked in the archaeology of so small an area.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, many foreign officials resident in Cyprus began
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