May 11, 2006

Dr. James B. Richardson, III retires from Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Dr. Richardson to remain active as curator emeritus

Pittsburgh ... Dr. James B. Richardson III, curator of Anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, has been digging in the sands of ancient seashores long before he ever thought of becoming an archaeologist. Almost 70 years later, and after an illustrious career, Dr. Richardson is retiring from the museum effective May 30. He will remain on staff with as Curator Emeritus.

Dr. Richardson arranged a formal agreement between the University of Pittsburgh Department of Anthropology and the Section of Anthropology of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and joined the museum as a Research Associate in 1970. He became a part-time curator in the museum in 1978. At the museum, he has been the chair of the Section of Anthropology and in 1996 he served as the museum's interim director. He has served on numerous museum committees and directed or assisted in the creation of three permanent exhibit halls.

Dr. Richardson is an archaeologist whose interests include the rise of complex societies, the impact of natural catastrophes on cultural development, cultural responses to changing environments, maritime adaptations, trans-Pacific contact and historic archaeology, His research focus stretches from Western Pennsylvania to Peru and Martha's Vineyard.

His most notable discoveries or research projects include:

· In 1965 he discovered the 8,000 year old Siches site near Talara, Peru where he found evidence of dramatic climate change over a 4,000 year period. After extensive archaeological research on the coast of Peru, this led him and his colleague Dr. Daniel H. Sandweiss of the University of Maine, to propose in 1986 that El Nino, the world-wide weather catastrophe that severely impacts Peru, was only 5,000 years old. In 1996 they and colleagues refined their Origins of El Nino hypothesis, which was published in Science. Many oceanographers, geologists and paleo-climatologists were not convinced by their conclusion that El Nino was a recent weather phenomena, but with the discovery of 19 El Nino flood deposits at the site of Tacahuay (a site that Richardson did the stone tool analysis) proved that there was a hiatus in El Nino from 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, demonstrating that Richardson and his colleagues were right. It is now evident that El Nino was a major factor in the collapse of states and empires in the Central Andes.

· His research, with his colleagues, on the earliest evidence for the use of marine resources on the coast of Peru since 1965, has demonstrated that people were using boats as early as 11,000 years ago, leading many to speculate that the first Americans entered North America by a sea route via the north Pacific rather than across the Bering land bridge. In 1998, he was part of the team that unearthed ancient fragments of sea shells, cutting tools, and the bones of butchered seabirds at the archaeological site of Quebrada Tacahuay, in southern Peru. These fragments are believed to be among the oldest evidence of maritime-based societies in the New World.

· In 2002, an article written by Dr. Richardson and colleagues David Anderson and Edward Cook and published in the journal Archaeology of Eastern North America explained why the once thriving Monongahela Indian culture disappeared from southwestern Pennsylvania by 1635-well in advance of European settlement. They proposed that two massive droughts, one from 1587-1589 and a second from 1607-1612, drove them from southwestern Pennsylvania. Because the Monongahela relied heavily on maize-based agriculture for subsistence, the two droughts put incredible stresses on their food supply. It has been proposed that these droughts also caused the disappearance of the famed "Lost Colony" of Roanoke.

· He is continuing his archival research on the circumstances of the destruction of Hannastown, near Greensburg, PA. Hannastown was the first county seat west of the Allegheny Mountains and in July of 1782, several months after General Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, a force of 300 Seneca Indians and British Rangers attacked and burned the town to the ground. This event was one of the last major battles of the American Revolution. Dr. Richardson is trying to determine why this force attacked Hannastown and who participated in the attack.

· He also contributed to the theory of Pre-Columbian contact between the Central Andes and Polynesia (particularly Easter Island) and worked closely with explorer and scientist, Thor Heyerdhal of Kon Tiki fame.

· In the 1960's and again the in 1980's he assisted or directed archaeological excavations along the coast and interior of Martha's Vineyard to reconstruct Native American adaptations to changing resources and environments over the last 10,500 years.

Originally from Longmeadow, MA, a small town outside Springfield, Dr. Richardson always wanted to be an archaeologist. Some of his earliest memories are digging "for buried treasure" in the sands by his family's vacation home on Martha's Vineyard.

"I remember reading National Geographic as a boy and knowing what I wanted to be," he said. "And my parents were very supportive. The earliest advice Dr. Richardson received was from Dr. J. O Brew who was the head of archaeology at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Dr. Brew would later become its director.

"My father arranged a meeting with Dr. O'Brew when I was 11 or 12," he recalls. "My father was a lawyer and I remember two questions he asked Dr. O'Brew: 1) What are the most important skills needed to be an archaeologist? 2) And can you make a living?"

Dr. O'Brew's responses are still recalled vividly by Dr. Richardson.

He said, "you need to be a great automobile mechanic because if you break down in the desert, there is no one to help you. And whether you can make a living in this field. He responded 'it's better if you are independently wealthy.'"

Dr. Richardson would get his first taste of fieldwork when he was 16, working as and Archaeological Field Assistant doing excavation of Fort William Henry of the Last of Mohegan's fame. The fort was a colonial period site at Lake George, in the Adirondack Mountains of upper state New York. His passion for historical archaeology continues to this day.

As a 18-year-old, he wrote a letter to the Smithsonian to see if he could go on an excavation. A couple of weeks later he got a letter back with several forms to fill out. Within a few weeks of returning the forms, Dr. Richardson was in Lincoln, NE on his way to South Dakota to excavate historic and late prehistoric sites along the Missouri River.

Dr. Richardson graduated in 1960 from St. Lawrence University with B.A. in Sociology. He received his master's degree from Syracuse University in 1963 and his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1969 in Anthropology. He came to Pittsburgh as a member of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Anthropology in 1967 and the museum in 1970.

At the University of Pittsburgh, he has been the Chair of the Department, has overseen 20 PhD candidates, and teaches several classes a semester. He will continue to teach for "at least a few more years."

In addition to his research and administrative contributions to Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Dr. Richardson has directed or has been involved in three major permanent exhibit halls: Polar World: The Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life (1983), Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt (1990), and Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians (1998). He is currently completing the work of anthropologist Dale Mudge in developing an exhibit on the Inuit of the Belcher Islands using expedition photos from 1938 and photos taken in 2004. The exhibit, Needle to the North, is planned to open in September of 2006. He has also been involved in numerous temporary exhibits such as Spirits of the Rainforest: The Yanomami of Brazil, Machu Picchu, Mr. Carnegie's Museum, and Carnegie Museum Centennial.

Dr. Richardson is a board member and chairs the exhibit committee of the Martha's Vineyard Museum. The museum is currently constructing a new building and he is working with the museum staff in the development of the permanent exhibits for the new museum. He is also associated with the Heinz History Center and is on the Collection Committee. He is a Visiting Committee member of the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA

He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Judy and has a Summer residence on Martha's Vineyard. He is the father of Heather R. Charron and James B. Richardson IV and has two grandchildren: Alexander and Aidan Charron.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, welcomes 350,000 visitors a year and reaches another 150,000 through educational outreach programs. It is the third largest repository of dinosaur fossils in the world, and its total collections exceed 21 million objects, specimens, and artifacts.

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