Guide to the W. Raymond Wood papers

Content Description

The papers of W. Raymond Wood consist almost exclusively of Wood's professional correspondence, however, included are Wood's faculty record, university appointments and other employment-related files. Correspondence relates largely to Wood's research and publications.

Biographical

W. Raymond Wood (1931-2020) was an archaeologist and ethnohistorian whose work focused on the archaeology and early history of the Great Plains and the Ozarks in the State of Missouri. His research and publications also included subjects such as World War II archaeology, historical cartography, and he is noted for his early interdisciplinary ecological and archaeological studies in the 1960s. His archaeological work began in Nebraska in the 1950s, included River Basin Survey work in North Dakota in the 1950s, and archaeological investigations in Arkansas and Missouri. He is primarily known for his research on historic and late prehistoric Native American villages sites in the Northern Plains and his research on early explorers and traders in the Plains. He was at the University of Missouri Department of Anthropology from 1963 to 2020 and served on many MA and PhD committees. He wrote 42 monographs or books; 19 book chapters; and over 100 articles. He served as editor of American Antiquity, Plains Anthropologist, and other journals. He received many honors, including the Society for American Archaeology's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. His professional memoirs, A White-Bearded Plainsman: The Memoirs of Archaeologist W. Raymond Wood, were published by the University of Utah Press (Wood 2011).

Wood received his BA (Anthropology, English) and MA (Anthropology) from the University of Nebraska in 1954 and 1956, respectively, and his PhD (Anthropology) in 1961 from the University of Oregon.

Sources cited:

Thiessen, Thomas. "Obituary: W. Raymond Wood, 1931-2020," in Plains Anthropologist 67 (2022).

Related Materials

Additional papers of W. Raymond Wood including field notes, photographs, and other material relating to Missouri are at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. The State Historical Society of North Dakota also holds papers relating to Wood's Plains research.

The National Anthropological Archives holds the records of the River Basin Surveys.