Herbert Joseph Spinden

Born in Huron, South Dakota, in 1879, Herbert Joseph Spinden studied anthropology at Harvard under Frederick Putnam and Alfred Tozzer. He earned his PhD in 1909 with a thesis on Maya art, a subject that would shape much of his career.

After completing his doctorate, he joined the American Museum of Natural History, where he continued researching Maya culture. His 1913 book A Study of Maya Art became one of his best-known works and helped establish Maya art as a serious field of study. Sources also describe him as a specialist in Native American cultures of the United States and Mesoamerica.

Spinden later held museum posts including work at the Buffalo Museum of Science and the Brooklyn Museum, and he served as president of the American Anthropological Association in 1936. He died in 1967, remembered as an important early interpreter of the art, history, and chronology of ancient America.