William Curtis Sturtevant

From 1956 a research anthropologist, and, from 1965, a museum curator, up to his retirement in 2007 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Sturtevant was one of the world's leading scholars of the cultures, languages, and histories of the indigenous peoples of the New World. Over the course of of his career he published more than 200 articles and served as the general editor of the Handbook of North American Indians, a university instructor, consultant, and public lecturer. He was past president of the American Society for Ethnohistory, the American Ethnological Society, the American Anthropological Association and the Anthropological Society of Washington. He contributed in myriad ways to the development of contemporary anthropology and to the research endeavors of scores of anthropologists and scholars in many other disciplines.

He is survived by his wife Sally McLendon Sturtevant, his daughter Kinthi Diana Maw Sturtevant, his son Reed Padi Maw Sturtevant, and his grandson Alexander Maw Sturtevant. He was predeceased by a son, Alfred Boyan Maw Sturtevant.

References

William Curtis Sturtevant, Anthropologist

Essay by William L. Merrill, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560-0112, USA. Source: Anthropology, History, and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William Curtis Sturtevant. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 44, published 2002.

William C. Sturtevant; Expert on Indians

An obituary published by The Washington Post on March 17, 2007.

William C. Sturtevant (1926-2007)

An obituary by Jason Baird Jackson.