Claude Nelson Warren
Encyclopedia
Claude Nelson Warren is a California Desert anthropologist and specialist in early man in the Far West and has been instrumental in defining the San Dieguito and La Jolla
cultural complexes. He also has an interest in the history of anthropology
.
He is a distinguished professor emeritus in Anthropology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
.
He is married to Elizabeth von Till Warren
. They have four children Claude Jr., Susan, Louis
, and Jonathan.
, on March 18, 1932 to Hubert Samuel Warren and Dorthy Hope Rodgers Warren, he was the last of four children who included historian James Ronald Warren
. He attended Kitsap Jr. High School in Poulsbo, Washington
. In 1947 he moved with his mother and sister to Tenino
where he attended high school, graduating in 1950. While at Tenino he played football and basketball. During his junior year he reported on Tenino High School sports for the Thurston County Independent. He was editor of the school paper and yearbook and was named to all-conference football and basketball teams his senior year. He graduated 3rd in his class of 21 students.
From 1950-1952 Warren attended Centralia Junior College. While the Korean War
was under way he wrote an editorial entitled “Weapons Against War” which was reprinted by the Centralia Daily newspaper, despite the fact that he took a position that young men should not interrupt their college careers to enlist in military service.
Warren received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Washington in 1954 and in the fall of that year began graduate work in anthropology at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
, as a Carnegie Follow in the African Studies Program. While at Northwestern he studied under Melville J. Herskovits
. Warren's later work would be influenced by Herskovits' concept of cultural relativism
. While at Northwestern Warren met and, in December, 1955, married Elizabeth von Till
who was also attending Northwestern as Carnegie Follow in the African Studies
Program.
In the summer of 1955 Warren conducted a brief archaeological survey on the lower Columbia River
, under the direction of Doug Osborne, for Washington State Museum.
In the winter of 1955 Warren returned to Washington where he continued his studies at the University of Washington
, Seattle, and earned his Masters of Arts in 1959. In the summer of 1956 Warren supervised excavations a the Goldendale site in Washington and the Wenas Creek site on the Yakima River
. This work, as well as the 1955 survey, provided the material for Warren's first professional papers. Of these, The View from Wenas: A Study in Plateau Prehistory has proven to be the most important, as it described a series of deep, stratified deposits that are part of the Plateau cultural sequence and contributed to the synthesis of the region's prehistory.
In 1957 Warren served as an assistant field director at the Fort Okanogon
excavations under the supervision of Earl H. Swanson.
Warren and True
's (1961) The San Dieguito Complex and Its Place in California Prehistory has been cited in many syntheses of early man in the Far West. Warren et al.'s (1961) Early Gathering Cultures on the San Diego Coast: Results and Interpretations of an Archaeological Survey contains the first descriptive typology for the La Jolla artifact assemblage and has been instrumental in the chronological placement of the La Jolla assemblage.
In 1962 Warren was appointed to as the State of Idaho's first highway archaeologist. This half time appointment was held concurrently with a half time teaching position at Idaho State University in Pocatello.
During this time Warren's report on CA-SDi-603 on Batiquitos Lagoon
(Warren and Pavesic 1963) evidences his growing interest in environmental archaeology
.
Warren's Doctoral dissertation (1964), Cultural Change and Continuity on the San Diego Coast, has been important in establishing the chronology of culture on the San Diego coast, and reflects the influence of Herskovits on Warren's model of culture change. Upon completion of his Ph.D. In 1964, he accept an appointment as a full time Assistant Professor at Idaho State. While at Idaho State University, Warren conducted research at sites in Idaho and California, including work in Hell's Canyon (Warren, Sims and Pavesic 1968) and sites excavated as part of the “highway salvage” program in Idaho (Warren et al. 1971).
In 1967 the University of California, Santa Barbara
(UCSB) offered Warren an Assistant Professorship in Anthropology. While At UCSB Warren conducted research in the Mojave Desert
and taught archaeological field schools on the Santa Barbara coast.
Warren had been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation, Faculty Research Grants at Idaho State University and Faculty Research Grants at UCSB, to study further the San Dieguito and Lake Mojave complexes, and for excavations at Pleistocene
Lake Mojave. Research conducted with John Decosta and H. T. Ore at Lake Mojave, along with excavations a the C. W. Harris site in the mid-1960s defined Warren's career as a California Desert archaeologist (Warren and True, 1961; Warren and Decosta 1964; Warren 1966, 1967; Decosta and Warren 1967; Ore and Warren 1971; Warren and Ore 1978).
Warren moved to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) in 1969 as an Associate Professor. He was elected Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology (1970–1972) during his first academic year there,.
During this time he was instrumental in developing the M.A. Program in Anthropology and establishing the Ethnic Studies Program. From 1991 to 1994, Warren again served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies. It was during his latter tenure as chair that he initiated the Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, which was approved in the Spring of 1998.
Between 1969 and 1981, Warren taught the UNLV Lost City Field School (1970, 1972–1980). in 1971 he taught the joint UNLV-UCLA field school at Santa Barbara. It was during the 1969 and 1971 field schools that Warren developed an interest in the analysis of California Mission records. Other obligations kept him from delving deeply into this area of study but he did publish two papers (Warren, 1976; Warren and Hodge 1980) that proved the potential for this type of research and laid out some methodological guidelines.
In the summer of 1970, after teaching at Lost City, Warren was hired to direct a program to teach archaeological field methods to Shoshoni-Bannock Indian youths at Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho.
From 1981 to 1984, Warren directed the Fort Irwin Archaeological Project under contract from Dames and Moore.
In addition to summer field schools, Warren taught Saturday field classes nearly every year of the 28 years he was a faculty member at UNLV.
Warren was named the Barrick Distinguished Scholar by UNLV in 1988 and the Regents' Outstanding Teacher in 1998. In 1994 the Southwestern Anthropological Association named him a Distinguished Lecturer. He was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for California Archaeology in 1996.
in 1970. His Time and Topography, Elizabeth Crozer Campbell's Approach to The Prehistory of California Deserts was followed by his authoring the chapter California in Fitting's (1973) The Development of North American Archaeology. Warren has written histories of the archaeology of the San Diego coast and the Mojave Desert.
In 1989 Warren began archival research on the works of William Pengelly
which resulted in a small monograph on Pengelly's excavation methods and techniques (Warren and Rose 1994). As an outgrowth of the research, Warren presented a paper entitled The Empirical Evidence for the Antiquity of Mankind at Brixham Cave at the 1998 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology.
La Jolla Complex
The archaeological La Jolla Complex represents a prehistoric culture oriented toward coastal resources that prevailed during the middle Holocene period between c...
cultural complexes. He also has an interest in the history of anthropology
History of anthropology
This article mainly discusses 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. For more information on modern social and cultural anthropology as they have developed in Britain, France, and North America since approximately 1900, see the relevant sections under Anthropology.-Overview:The...
.
He is a distinguished professor emeritus in Anthropology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
University of Nevada-Las Vegas is a public, coeducational university located in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada, USA. The campus is located approximately east of the Las Vegas Strip. The institution includes a Shadow Lane Campus, located just east of the University Medical Center of...
.
He is married to Elizabeth von Till Warren
Elizabeth von Till Warren
Elizabeth von Till Warren is an historian and preservationist. She has expertise in the history of water development in the Mojave Desert and the Las Vegas valley in particular. She also has expertise in the historical route of the Old Spanish Trail in Southern Nevada.She is married to Claude...
. They have four children Claude Jr., Susan, Louis
Louis S. Warren
Louis S Warren is an American historian, and W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at the University of California, Davis, where he teaches environmental history, the history of the American West, and U.S...
, and Jonathan.
Early life
Born in Goldendale, WashingtonGoldendale, Washington
Goldendale is a rural agricultural town in and the county seat of Klickitat County, Washington, United States, near the Columbia River Gorge. The population within city limits was 3,760 at the 2000 census and 3,407, a 9.4% decrease at the 2010 census. A nationally known point of interest is north...
, on March 18, 1932 to Hubert Samuel Warren and Dorthy Hope Rodgers Warren, he was the last of four children who included historian James Ronald Warren
James Ronald Warren
James Ronald Warren is a Seattle historian instrumental in rediscovering the source of the Seattle fire of 1889. He also fought as a member of the 242nd Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry "Rainbow" Division at the Battle of the Bulge and was a German POW.He is an Emeritus Director of the...
. He attended Kitsap Jr. High School in Poulsbo, Washington
Poulsbo, Washington
Poulsbo is a city on Liberty Bay in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is the fourth largest city in Kitsap County and one of the main suburbs of Seattle in the Kitsap area. The population was 9,200 at the 2010 census....
. In 1947 he moved with his mother and sister to Tenino
Tenino, Washington
Tenino is a city in Thurston County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,695 at the 2010 census.-History:Tenino was officially incorporated on July 24, 1906, though it existed as a rural community since the mid-19th century...
where he attended high school, graduating in 1950. While at Tenino he played football and basketball. During his junior year he reported on Tenino High School sports for the Thurston County Independent. He was editor of the school paper and yearbook and was named to all-conference football and basketball teams his senior year. He graduated 3rd in his class of 21 students.
From 1950-1952 Warren attended Centralia Junior College. While the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
was under way he wrote an editorial entitled “Weapons Against War” which was reprinted by the Centralia Daily newspaper, despite the fact that he took a position that young men should not interrupt their college careers to enlist in military service.
Early Archeology
In 1953 Warren attended an archaeological summer field school near Vantage Washington. where he met Earl H. Swanson, Jr. and Robert H. Crabtree, both of whom became lifelong friends. This field school introduced Warren to archaeological field work and the archaeology of the Columbia Plateau.Warren received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Washington in 1954 and in the fall of that year began graduate work in anthropology at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, as a Carnegie Follow in the African Studies Program. While at Northwestern he studied under Melville J. Herskovits
Melville J. Herskovits
Melville Jean Herskovits was an American anthropologist who firmly established African and African American studies in American academia. The son of Jewish immigrants, he obtained a Bachelor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago in 1923 and obtained his Master's and Ph.D...
. Warren's later work would be influenced by Herskovits' concept of cultural relativism
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and...
. While at Northwestern Warren met and, in December, 1955, married Elizabeth von Till
Elizabeth von Till Warren
Elizabeth von Till Warren is an historian and preservationist. She has expertise in the history of water development in the Mojave Desert and the Las Vegas valley in particular. She also has expertise in the historical route of the Old Spanish Trail in Southern Nevada.She is married to Claude...
who was also attending Northwestern as Carnegie Follow in the African Studies
African studies
African studies is the study of Africa, especially the cultures and societies of Africa .The field includes the study of:Culture of Africa, History of Africa , Anthropology of Africa , Politics of Africa, Economy of Africa African studies is the study of Africa, especially the cultures and...
Program.
In the summer of 1955 Warren conducted a brief archaeological survey on the lower Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
, under the direction of Doug Osborne, for Washington State Museum.
In the winter of 1955 Warren returned to Washington where he continued his studies at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
, Seattle, and earned his Masters of Arts in 1959. In the summer of 1956 Warren supervised excavations a the Goldendale site in Washington and the Wenas Creek site on the Yakima River
Yakima River
The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River in south central and eastern Washington State, named for the indigenous Yakama people. The length of the river from headwaters to mouth is , with an average drop of .-Course:...
. This work, as well as the 1955 survey, provided the material for Warren's first professional papers. Of these, The View from Wenas: A Study in Plateau Prehistory has proven to be the most important, as it described a series of deep, stratified deposits that are part of the Plateau cultural sequence and contributed to the synthesis of the region's prehistory.
In 1957 Warren served as an assistant field director at the Fort Okanogon
Fort Okanogan
Fort Okanogan was founded as a fur trade outpost by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company in 1811. It was built at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers, in what is now Okanogan County, Washington...
excavations under the supervision of Earl H. Swanson.
Professional career
In 1958, while completing his Master's thesis at UCLA, Warren took a position as the junior Research Archaeologist with the University of California Archaeological Survey in Los Angeles. He remained with the survey for three years. During his tenure at the survey, Warren taught a summer field school in archaeology at Cedar City, Utah. Warren also conducted field work on sites in Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties as well as on San Clemente Island. The San Diego archaeology has proven instrumental in defining the San Dueguito and La Jolla cultural complexes.Warren and True
Delbert Leroy True
D. L. True was an archaeologist who worked in California, particularly San Diego County, and in northern Chile....
's (1961) The San Dieguito Complex and Its Place in California Prehistory has been cited in many syntheses of early man in the Far West. Warren et al.'s (1961) Early Gathering Cultures on the San Diego Coast: Results and Interpretations of an Archaeological Survey contains the first descriptive typology for the La Jolla artifact assemblage and has been instrumental in the chronological placement of the La Jolla assemblage.
In 1962 Warren was appointed to as the State of Idaho's first highway archaeologist. This half time appointment was held concurrently with a half time teaching position at Idaho State University in Pocatello.
During this time Warren's report on CA-SDi-603 on Batiquitos Lagoon
Batiquitos Lagoon
The Batiquitos Lagoon is a coastal wetland in southern Carlsbad, California. It is run by the California Department of Fish and Game as a nature reserve....
(Warren and Pavesic 1963) evidences his growing interest in environmental archaeology
Environmental archaeology
Environmental archaeology is the study of the long-term relationship between humans and their environments. Various sub-disciplines are involved to document and interpret this relationship, including paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, geomorphology, palynology, geophysics, landscape archaeology,...
.
Warren's Doctoral dissertation (1964), Cultural Change and Continuity on the San Diego Coast, has been important in establishing the chronology of culture on the San Diego coast, and reflects the influence of Herskovits on Warren's model of culture change. Upon completion of his Ph.D. In 1964, he accept an appointment as a full time Assistant Professor at Idaho State. While at Idaho State University, Warren conducted research at sites in Idaho and California, including work in Hell's Canyon (Warren, Sims and Pavesic 1968) and sites excavated as part of the “highway salvage” program in Idaho (Warren et al. 1971).
In 1967 the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
(UCSB) offered Warren an Assistant Professorship in Anthropology. While At UCSB Warren conducted research in the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
and taught archaeological field schools on the Santa Barbara coast.
Warren had been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation, Faculty Research Grants at Idaho State University and Faculty Research Grants at UCSB, to study further the San Dieguito and Lake Mojave complexes, and for excavations at Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
Lake Mojave. Research conducted with John Decosta and H. T. Ore at Lake Mojave, along with excavations a the C. W. Harris site in the mid-1960s defined Warren's career as a California Desert archaeologist (Warren and True, 1961; Warren and Decosta 1964; Warren 1966, 1967; Decosta and Warren 1967; Ore and Warren 1971; Warren and Ore 1978).
Warren moved to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) in 1969 as an Associate Professor. He was elected Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology (1970–1972) during his first academic year there,.
During this time he was instrumental in developing the M.A. Program in Anthropology and establishing the Ethnic Studies Program. From 1991 to 1994, Warren again served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies. It was during his latter tenure as chair that he initiated the Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, which was approved in the Spring of 1998.
Between 1969 and 1981, Warren taught the UNLV Lost City Field School (1970, 1972–1980). in 1971 he taught the joint UNLV-UCLA field school at Santa Barbara. It was during the 1969 and 1971 field schools that Warren developed an interest in the analysis of California Mission records. Other obligations kept him from delving deeply into this area of study but he did publish two papers (Warren, 1976; Warren and Hodge 1980) that proved the potential for this type of research and laid out some methodological guidelines.
In the summer of 1970, after teaching at Lost City, Warren was hired to direct a program to teach archaeological field methods to Shoshoni-Bannock Indian youths at Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho.
From 1981 to 1984, Warren directed the Fort Irwin Archaeological Project under contract from Dames and Moore.
In addition to summer field schools, Warren taught Saturday field classes nearly every year of the 28 years he was a faculty member at UNLV.
Warren was named the Barrick Distinguished Scholar by UNLV in 1988 and the Regents' Outstanding Teacher in 1998. In 1994 the Southwestern Anthropological Association named him a Distinguished Lecturer. He was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for California Archaeology in 1996.
History of Archaeology
Warren published his first paper on the history of archaeologyHistory of archaeology
The history of archaeology has been one of increasing professionalism, and the use of an increasing range of techniques, to obtain as much data on the site being examined as possible.-Origins :...
in 1970. His Time and Topography, Elizabeth Crozer Campbell's Approach to The Prehistory of California Deserts was followed by his authoring the chapter California in Fitting's (1973) The Development of North American Archaeology. Warren has written histories of the archaeology of the San Diego coast and the Mojave Desert.
In 1989 Warren began archival research on the works of William Pengelly
William Pengelly
William Pengelly, FRS FGS was a British geologist and early archaeologist who was one of the first to contribute proof that the Biblical chronology of the earth calculated by Archbishop James Ussher was incorrect....
which resulted in a small monograph on Pengelly's excavation methods and techniques (Warren and Rose 1994). As an outgrowth of the research, Warren presented a paper entitled The Empirical Evidence for the Antiquity of Mankind at Brixham Cave at the 1998 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology.