Emil Haury was born in Newton Kansas on May 2nd, the youngest of four sons. His parents were Gustav Adolf and Clara Ruth Haury. Emil married Hulda Penner in 1928 and together they had two sons, Allan Gene and Loren Richard. Hulda died in 1987. He married Agnese Nelms Lindley in 1990.
Haury attended public schools in Newton and Bethel College Academy. He graduated in 1923 and attended the University of Arizona completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1927 and Master of Arts degree in 1928. Haury taught archaeology in Arizona from 1928-29. He was Assistant Director of Gila Pueblo Foundation. He studied anthropology and archaeology at Harvard University and obtained his Ph.D in 1934. In mid-1937 he became Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Arizona. Haury also held the position of Directorship of the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona. He received the Fred A. Riecker Distinguished Professor of Anthropology in 1970 and retired in 1980.
He received an honorary doctorate from the University of New Mexico in 1959, Guggenheim Fellowship from 1949-50, Viking Fund Medal for Anthropology in 1951, Alfred Vincent Kidder Award in 1977, membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1956, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960 and the American Philosophical Society in 1969. He served as president of the American Anthropological Association from 1955-1956 and the Society for American Archaeology from 1943-1944.
Among his writings were these books: Point of Pines, Arizona: A History of the University of Arizona Archaeological Field School, Excavation of Los Muertos and Neighboring Ruins in the Salt River Valley, Southern Arizona, Emil W. Haury’s Prehistory of the American Southwest, In Coronados Footsteps, Mogollon Culture in the Forestdale Valley, East-Central Arizona, and Stratigraphy and Archaeology of Ventana Cave.
Emil Haury was an outstanding archaeologist who concentrated his studies in the Southwestern United States. He also had a strong interest in Mexican prehistory and archaeology. He assembled one of the first prehistoric-to-historic archaeological records of the Southwestern United States. He died December fifth, 1992.
Willey, Gordon R. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 1994. Vol 138:427-430.
Haury, Emil. Emil W. Haury’s Prehistory of the American Southwest. The University of Arizona Press. Ed. J. Jefferson Reid and David E. Doyel. 1986.
September 21, 1999
Written by: Lois Pichelmann