author
Robert F. (Robert Fleming) Heizer
1915–1979
A leading American archaeologist of the twentieth century, he helped shape the study of Indigenous history and archaeology in California, the Great Basin, and the broader American West. His work combined large-scale field research with a drive to publish widely and make the past more clearly documented.
1 Audiobook
Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579
by Robert F. (Robert Fleming) Heizer
About the author
Born in Denver on July 13, 1915, Robert Fleming Heizer became one of the most influential archaeologists associated with the University of California, Berkeley. He earned both his A.B. and Ph.D. there and spent much of his career on the Berkeley faculty, where he trained generations of students in archaeology and anthropology.
Heizer is best known for extensive fieldwork and writing on California, the Southwestern United States, and the Great Basin. Archival and memorial sources describe him as a major figure in twentieth-century archaeology whose research also reached into ethnography, ethnohistory, and the study of Native American peoples in both prehistoric and historic periods.
He published on a remarkable scale and left behind a large scholarly legacy, with archives and memorials emphasizing how central he was to Western American archaeology. He died in Berkeley in July 1979, but his work continues to be cited by researchers studying the archaeology and Indigenous histories of the American West.