Braidwood, Robert J.

Braidwood, Robert J. (John)

(1907– ) archaeologist, anthropologist; born in Detroit, Mich. He held appointments at the University of Chicago (1933–76) and directed fieldwork in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey (1947). He pioneered interdisciplinary scientific studies in archaeology; he published widely on the development of agriculture and village society in the Middle and Near East; and he wrote the long-lived textbook Prehistoric Men (1951, frequently revised).