JOHN ROWE: BIOGRAPHY, DISCOVERIES AND THEORIES - HISTORY - 2024

John Rowe (1918-2004) was an emeritus professor of anthropology at Berkeley who distinguished himself by using an interdisciplinary approach in his empirical investigations of the Peruvian Andes and in his development of new archaeological theory. Among others, he combined knowledge in the fields of archeology, history, ethnography, art and linguistics.

For more than six decades, John Howland Rowe dedicated his life to archaeological and historical research in the Peruvian territory. His inquiries made him an authority on the matter. Thanks to them, the following generations had the possibility of a better understanding of pre-Hispanic and colonial Peru.

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In the process, John Rowe trained several generations of students, both in Berkeley and in Cuzco. In the same way, he influenced many others and attracted them to inquiries about the Inca past. His biographers say that few scholars from the central Andean territory have been so systematically original and productive in their work.

In the same way, they recognize the indelible impact that his work had on Andean studies. Despite an extraordinary and distinguished career, Rowe remained unpretentious.

He always insisted that students and his colleagues simply call him John. In addition, he was very given to sharing his ideas and hypotheses with others.

Biography

Early years

John Rowe was born on June 10, 1918 in Sorrento, Maine, USA. His father was Louis Earle Rowe, who was serving as the principal of the Rhode Island School of Design. His mother, Margaret Talbot Jackson, was an assistant director of the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. She was later a curator at the Yale University Art Gallery.

At an early age, John decided to become an archaeologist. In fact, his parents claimed that John communicated that decision to them at the age of three. The academic training of his parents had a great influence on this decision.

His father had wanted to pursue archeology since his student days at Brown University. Pursuing that dream, he participated in the 1911 excavations in Egypt led by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. However, due to poor prospects for work in archeology, he decided to pursue another trade.

As for her mother, she always worked in the art area. Thus, the boy John Rowe had no way of not being caught up in the professional and academic pursuits of his parents. Archeology became a very important part of his childhood development.

Youth and university life

When John Rowe was ten years old, his parents traveled to Egypt. She was left in Rome in the care of a French nanny along with her brother and sister. During that time he studied at a school for American children. Also, during this stay, he developed an interest in archeology visiting and studying its classical ruins.

At the age of 13, John first came into contact with Peruvian archeology by reading a book that he found in a local library. The following year, he dedicated himself to reading everything he could find about Peru and its archeology.

While in high school, John Rowe was able to examine the collection of ancient Peruvian objects in the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) museum. Similarly, he attended numerous courses on art history. These experiences were enough to convince him to specialize in Peruvian archeology.

So, he enrolled at Brown University and devoted himself to studying classical archeology and, at the same time, Spanish literature during the period 1935-1939. Subsequently, she studied anthropology at Harvard University from 1939 to 1941.

Professional life

After graduating with honors, John Rowe entered the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. While there, he founded the student group Club de Excavadores. With them he carried out investigations in Massachusetts, Florida and Maine. This was an effort to improve his skills in the science of field archeology.

In 1941, he participated in an expedition organized by Harvard University to southern Peru. As part of this expedition, he carried out explorations in Puno together with leading researchers from the university. From 1946 to 1948, he worked in Colombia for the Smithsonian Institute.

Then, in 1948, he began teaching at the University of California. This institution would be her base for the rest of her professional career. At the time of his admission, he was appointed as Assistant Professor of Anthropology. He was also appointed Assistant Curator of South American Archeology at the University's Museum of Anthropology.

From John Rowe's arrival in Berkeley in 1948 and his retirement in 1988 at age 70, he divided his efforts between research and teaching. In college, he trained and mentored a large number of students. He was also the advisor to more than two dozen doctorates, most of them dedicated to Andean archeology.

Personal life

After receiving his master's degree in anthropology from Harvard University in 1941, he married for the first time. His wife, Barbara Burnett, was a well-known music student from Maine.

At the outbreak of World War II, John Rowe was deployed by the army to serve in Europe as a sergeant in the US combat engineers.He participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. He was also involved in the destruction and construction of bridges and roads during the Allied invasion of Germany.

In 1947, after retiring from the army, he traveled to Harvard to complete his Ph.D. in History and Anthropology of Latin America. While there, the first of her two daughters, Ann, was born. So, she accepted a position to work doing archeology in the Popayán region of Colombia. There she lived for a time together with her family.

Recognitions

John Rowe was widely honored throughout his professional life. Among others, he was conferred the Robertson Award from the American Historical Association (1957), Officer of the Order "The Sun of Peru" (1968) and the Grand Cross of the Order "To Merit for Distinguished Service" (Peru, 1981).

Likewise, he received the following recognitions as a member of the following institutions:

• London Antiquarian Society
• National Academy of History (Lima)
• Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut
• Société des Américanistes de Paris

In the same way, he was appointed Honorary Professor of the Academic Department of Humanities of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (Lima) in 1996.

Last years

John Rowe retired in 1988, but continued his research until a few years before his death. He died from complications derived from Parkinson's disease on May 1, 2004 in Berkeley.

By the time of his death, he was remarried to Patricia Lyon, an archaeologist and researcher in Amazonian ethnology.

At his death, he was survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Ann Pollard Rowe and Lucy Burnett Rowe. He was also survived by a sister, Edith Talbot Rowe, and his wife, Patricia Lyon.

Discoveries and theories

In 1941, John Rowe took part in an expedition organized by Harvard University to southern Peru. There he carried out explorations in the region of Puno and Cuzco, and discovered a characteristic pottery belonging to the early horizon period. This find provided the first glimpse into Cuzco's past before the appearance of the Incas.

The following year he returned to Peru, where he spent the next two years (1942-43). On that trip he completed a doctoral research in the capital of Tahuantinsuyu. As a result of this research, John Rowe was able to identify the Killke style of pottery as the forerunner of Inca pottery in the region of the discovery site.

John Howland Rowe was an accomplished scholar who dedicated his life to the study of ancient civilizations, especially that of Andean antiquity. He was also the main Inca scholar of the 20th century.

Among others, it established the bases of the horizon / period chronological scheme that still predominates in studies of Andean prehistory. He also published extensively on South American ethnology, linguistics, the history of anthropology, and the history of technology.

Rowe devoted much of his attention to the Chavín culture. Through a careful examination of the architecture at Chavín de Huantar, he proposed a construction sequence that was used to support a long stylistic chronology of stone carvings and designs.

References

1. Maclay, K. (2004, May 07). John Rowe, authority on Peruvian archeology, dies at 85. Taken from berkeley.edu.
2. Hastorf, C., Calpestri, S., Hammel, EA (s / f). In memoriam. Taken from web.archive.org.
3. Burger, RL (2007). John Howland Rowe (June 10, 1918 - May 1, 2004). Taken from digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu.
4. Schreiber, K. (2006). John Howland Rowe 1918–2004. Taken from tandfonline.com.
5. Silverman, H. and Isbell, W. (2008). Handbook of South American Archeology. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media.
6. Maestri, N. (2017, August 21). Timeline of the Andean Cultures of South America. Taken from thoughtco.com.