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David Humiston Kelley (April 1, 1924 in
Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...
– May 19, 2011) was an American
archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...
and epigrapher. He was associated with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and later with the University of Calgary. He is most noted for his work on the phonetic analysis and major contributions toward the decipherment of the
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable for ...
used by the
Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, a ...
of
pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...
Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
, the
Maya script Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found whi ...
.


Work and interests

David Kelley was a descendant of Amos Humiston, a
Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to t ...
soldier who was killed at the
Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the ...
in 1863. He graduated from
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
with a PhD in 1957. From the late 1950s, he was one of the first Mayanist scholars to give credence to the theories of the Russian linguist and ethnographer Yuri Knorozov concerning the
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
and syllabic nature of the Maya script, which would later lead to breakthroughs in the script's decipherment. Kelley's landmark 1962 paper, ''Phoneticism in the Maya Script'', would provide important corroborating data of the phonetic interpretation of Maya glyphs, which ran counter to the then-prevailing view that the script lacked phonetic elements. In addition to his work on scripts and linguistics, he worked on calendrics and
archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cult ...
, particularly on application of archaeoastronomical data to the Maya calendar correlation problem. Kelley and Eugene Milone co-authored ''Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy'' (Springer, 2005). He was also interested in long-range cultural contacts, including trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic voyages (" Diffusionism"). He also published frequently on mediaeval and ancient genealogies, publishing papers on the Carolingians, the Jewish Exilarchs and the Nibelungs. He was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists in 1970.American Society of Genealogists: All Fellows.
/ref> Kelley was a
professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
in the Department of Archaeology at the
University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
. Before teaching at the University of Calgary, he taught during the 1960s at the University of Nebraska, and before that at Texas Tech. Studying under Alfred M. Tozzer, his doctoral dissertation (1957) at Harvard was entitled "Our Elder Brother Coyote". He met his wife Jane while they were both students at Harvard, where she also earned a doctorate; hers in Southwestern archaeology. She was also a professor in the department of archaeology in Calgary.


Published works

Academic papers and books published by Kelley include: * * * * * * *Kelley, David H. : ''Maya Astronomical Tables and Inscriptions'', Native American Astronomy. Edited versions of papers presented at a Symposium, held at Colgate University, September 23–26, 1975, Edited by Anthony F. Aveni. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977., p. 57 *Kelley, David H. : ''Deciphering the Maya Script'', Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976 * *Kelley, David H. : "The Maya Calendar Correlation Problem". In :- R. M. Leventhal & A. L. Kolata (eds.) : ''Civilization in the Ancient Americas : Essays in Honor of Gordon R. Willey''. Santa Fe : University of New Mexico Press; and Cambridge (MA) : Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1983. pp. 157–208 *Kelley, David H. : "The Lords of Palenque and the Lords of Heaven". In :- M. G. Robertson & Virginia M. Fields (eds.) : ''Fifth Palenque Round Table, 1983''. San Francisco : Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 1985. pp. 235–240 *Kelley, David H. : "Mesoamerican Astronomy and the Maya Calendar Correlation Problem". In :- ''Memorias de Segundo Coloquio Internacional de Mayanistas''. Universidad National Autónoma de México, 1989. pp. 65–96 *Kelley, David H. : "Tane and Sina : a Uto-Aztecan Astronomical Cult in Polynesia". In :- Bruno Illius & Matthias Laubscher : ''Circumpacifica : Festschrift für Thomas S. Barthel''. Frankfort am Main : Verlag Peter Lang, 1990. vol. II, pp. 137–155 *''Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy'' by David H. Kelley (Author), Eugene F. Milone (Author), Springer, 2005


References

* * * * * * * * *


External links


Dr. Kelley's Faculty Staff page
University of Calgary

by Peter Mathews, on Mesoweb {{DEFAULTSORT:Kelley, David H. 1924 births 2011 deaths Mayanists Epigraphers American genealogists Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty Mesoamerican epigraphers Mesoamerican archaeologists American Mesoamericanists Canadian Mesoamericanists 20th-century Mesoamericanists University of Calgary faculty American historians Harvard University alumni American expatriates in Canada