William W. Fitzhugh

• 1. Deerfield To Harvard

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  William W. Fitzhugh IV began his academic journey at Deerfield Academy before moving to Dartmouth College. Professor Elmer Harp introduced him to archaeological fieldwork and Inuit studies in the Hudson Bay region of northern Canada during that time. Two years spent serving in the U.S. Navy preceded his entry into graduate school at Harvard University. He received his PhD in anthropology in 1970 with a focus on environmental archaeology and cultural systems of coastal Labrador. Upon graduating, he took a position at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as Curator of North American Anthropology.

• 2. Center For Northern Research

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  Dr. Fitzhugh established the Arctic Studies Center in 1988 as the only U.S. government program with a special focus on northern cultural research and education. This center specifically studies northern peoples by exploring history, archaeology, social change and human lifeways across the circumpolar world. The facility is part of the Department of Anthropology in the National Museum of History within the Smithsonian Institution. It curates extensive arctic and sub-arctic ethnology collections acquired between 1858 and 1890 by naturalists from regions like Mackenzie District, Ungava, Baffin Island, Coppermine, Alaska and Siberia. Research occurs both in Washington DC and at its division in Anchorage AK to bring researchers together with community scholars.

• 3. Labrador And Siberian Expeditions

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  Early field expeditions documented the full sequence of culture history and settlement along the coastal regions of central and northern Labrador. These efforts involved collaborations with other archaeologists, ethnographers, paleoecologists, and geologists to understand human adaptations to environmental change. His research took him from Labrador to Baffin Island and later to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence searching for evidence of early Inuit-European contacts. Recent investigations have focused on reindeer herding along the forest-steppe border between Tuva and Mongolia. Studies of Mongolia's Bronze Age deer stones suggest possible connections with Scythian art of Western Asia and East Asian art of the Bering Sea Eskimos.

• 4. Exhibitions For Public Audiences

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  Fitzhugh co-initiated major traveling exhibitions including Inua: Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo which ran from 1982 to 1984. Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska traveled from 1988 to 1992 before becoming Crossroads Alaska/Siberia until 1996. The exhibition Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga opened in 2000 and was featured in a cover story in Time magazine. Ainu: Spirits of a Northern People appeared in 1999 while Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely debuted in 2006. These projects synthesized scholarly research into formats available to visitors at public exhibitions through edited catalogues.

• 5. Publications And Films

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  He has published numerous books and more than 150 journal articles throughout his career spanning decades of work. Selected works include Environmental Archaeology and Cultural Systems in Hamilton Inlet, Labrador published by the Government Printing Office in 1972. The book Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga won the Society for American Archaeology Annual Book Award for 2001. Documentary films produced under his direction included Secrets of the Lost Red Paint People broadcast on European TV in 1987 and Mysteries of the Lost Red Paint Culture on NOVA broadcasts in 1988. Viking America aired as a NOVA broadcast in 1995 with Spofford Films.