"For a calculated 1,400 years, Snaketown was a viable village, but unlike so many tells in the Near East, the people remained the same while their culture changed. The smoothly graded typological sequences for most attributes suggest to me that the ethnic identity of the inhabitants was not interrupted, that they were one and the same people experiencing normal internal evolutionary cultural modifications with occasional boosts of features and ideas newly arrived from the outside." —Emil W. Haury

 

Emil W. Haury, a past President of the Society for American Archaeology and of the American Anthropological Association, has received the Viking Fund Medal in Anthropology an appointment as the Fred A. Riecker Distinguished Professor in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, he received his early training in archaeology from Byron Cummings at the University of Arizona.

Among Haury's notable archaeological activities are his excavations at Mogollon Village and the Harris Site, multidisciplinary research at Ventana Cave, and work at the Naco and Lehner sites. In 1930 he began active field research with Gila Pueblo. His excavations at Roosevelt 9:6 and Snaketown, and his analysis of Cushing's early work at Los Muertos, made him a key figure in defining the culture of the Hohokam. Included among his book publications are The Stratigraphy and Archaeology of Ventana Cave, Arizona (with other authors) and Excavations at Snaketown, Material Culture (with other authors), as well as a multitude of professional articles.

In 1937, at the University of Arizona, Haury became head of the department whose name subsequently was changed from Archaeology to Anthropology. A year later he became Director of the State Museum at the University of Arizona. He held both positions until 1964. During this time, under Haury's direction, field schools at Forestdale and Point of Pines converted countless students into professional archaeologists.