Alfred M. Tozzer

Alfred Marston Tozzer (July 4, 1877 – October 5, 1954) was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, linguist, and educator. His principal area of interest was Mesoamerican, especially Maya, studies.

Early studies and career

Alfred Tozzer was born in Lynn, Massachusetts to Samuel Clarence (1846–1908) and Caroline (née Marston, 1847–1926) Tozzer, and graduated in anthropology from Harvard University in 1900. That summer he entered field as an assistant to Harvard's Roland Dixon to study American Indian languages of California. The following year he collected linguistic and ethnographic data on the Navajos living near Pueblo Bonito in New Mexico. From these experiences he published his first paper, which he presented at the Thirteenth International Congress of Americanists held in New York in 1902.

In December 1901, he won appointment as a traveling fellow for the Archaeological Institute of America. He spent several seasons in Yucatán conducting fieldwork among the Maya. He began at the Hacienda Chichén, owned by U.S. Consul to Yucatán Edward H. Thompson, a large plantation that included the ancient city of Chichen Itza. There he studied the Maya language and traveled the countryside collecting folk tales and oral histories. During one of his seasons at Chichen Itza he helped Thompson dredge the Cenote Sagrado; at the end of another, he carried artifacts to the Peabody Museum in his luggage.

In 1903, Tozzer traveled to Campeche and Chiapas to conduct research among the Lacandon Maya, and lived for several weeks in a small settlement on Lake Pethá, witnessing and even participating in their ceremonies. He returned there during the 1904 season. He wrote his PhD dissertation comparing the ceremonies of the Lacandone Maya with the Yucatecan Maya.