American archaeologist who extinguished the more bizarre theories of the origins of humans in North America and who helped establish professional archaeology in the US. Holmes opposed a popular belief that there was a period in New World prehistory comparable to Upper Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Europe. His 1903 monograph on ceramics laid the foundation for the culture history of the eastern United States. He was curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. His other published works include Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities (1919).
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