Culture Historical timeline.

Born in Mosul, Iraq, Rassam's research focused on Mesopotamia and the Assyrian Empire. He identified as ethnically Assyrian, and his important discoveries included clay tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written narrative poem. He collaborated with Austen Henry Layard, a British archaeologist. Together they excavated at Nimrud. He emigrated to England, and led four expeditions for the British Museum. He facilitated the removal and export of stone monuments from Iraq.

Caso studied pre-Hispanic cultures and contemporary Indigenous peoples in Mexico. His research incorporated history, linguistics, demographics, and ethnography. He was the first to propose that the famous Zapotec site of Monte Albán was a capital city that controlled much of the region. Caso was influential in Mexico and the United States. He served as the first director of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and was a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

She was a Russian-American scholar who trained as an architect, but became a prominent scholar of the Maya although she never received a formal Ph.D. in archeology. She made significant contributions to our understanding of Mayan pyramid construction and hieroglyphics. She identified political symbolism and representation in Maya writing. Her work contributed to the development and understanding of Mayan languages and their importance in the development of Mayan cultures and identities.

Smith graduated from the University of Chicago and was one of only a few women to have a Ph.D. in archaeology at the time. Her research focused on the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. In 1941, she became the first woman in Illinois to lead an archaeological excavation when she directed the first large-scale professional excavations at Cahokia for the Illinois State Museum. She implemented new archaeological techniques, using ceramics and stratigraphy to accurately date the occupation of the site.

Maria Reiche graduated from Dresden Technical University after studying mathematics, astronomy, geology, and foreign languages. Reiche worked in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. She developed the idea that the Nazca Lines were part of an astronomical calendar. Se hypothesized that the monkey line represented Ursa Major. Reiche used her background as a mathematician to analyze how the Nazca people could have produced the geoglyphs. Reiche fought for the lines to become a World Heritage site.

Known for excavating at Jericho in 1952, her work provided evidence of the first development of permanent settlement. She pioneered the Wheeler-Kenyon method which emphasized vertical depth rather than horizontal exposure. Kenyon’s method involved digging trenches or squares like a checkerboard, with walls between the squares. The walls revealed the layers of time and events at a particular site. This improved the ability to date findings and reconstruct the history of Jericho.