Putnam, Frederic Ward (1839–1915)

US archaeologist and naturalist. A pioneering excavator of Indian sites, and Harvard professor 1886–1909, he virtually founded North American anthropology by developing university programmes, initiating museum-sponsored excavations, and helping to found Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.

He was born in Salem, Massachusetts. He studied zoology with Louis Agassiz at Harvard and became interested in archaeology as a curator at Harvard's Peabody Museum 1875–1909, one of numerous museum affiliations that included the Essex Institute 1856–94 and the American Museum of Natural History 1894–1909.