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Roy Chapman Andrews (January 26, 1884 – March 11, 1960) was an American explorer, adventurer, and
naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
who became the director of the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
. He led a series of expeditions through the politically disturbed China of the early 20th century into the Gobi Desert and
Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
. The expeditions made important discoveries and brought the first-known
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...
eggs to the museum. Chapman's popular writing about his adventures made him famous.


Biography


Early life and education

Andrews was born on January 26, 1884, in
Beloit, Wisconsin Beloit ( ) is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 36,657 people. Beloit is a principal city of the Janesville, Wisconsin, Janesville–Beloit metropolitan statistical area (Rock Co ...
. As a child, he explored forests, fields, and waters nearby, developing
marksmanship A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision shooting. In modern military usage this typically refers to the use of projectile weapons such as an accurized scoped long gun such as designated marksman rifle (or a sniper rifle) to shoot ...
skills. He taught himself
taxidermy Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body by mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proces ...
and used funds from this hobby to pay tuition to Beloit College. After graduating, Andrews applied for work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He so much wanted to work there that after being told that there were no openings at his level, Andrews accepted a job as a janitor in the taxidermy department and began collecting specimens for the museum. During the next few years, he worked and studied simultaneously, earning a
Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
degree in mammalogy from
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. Andrews joined The Explorers Club in New York during 1908, four years after its founding.


Career

left, Roy Chapman Andrews, 1913 From 1909 to 1910, Andrews sailed on the to the
East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in Eastern world, the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainl ...
, collecting snakes and lizards and observing
marine mammal Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine enviro ...
s. In 1913, he sailed aboard the schooner ''Adventuress'' with owner John Borden to the Arctic. They were hoping to obtain a bowhead whale specimen for the American Museum of Natural History. On this expedition, he filmed some of the best footage of seals ever seen, though did not succeed in acquiring a whale specimen. He married Yvette Borup in 1914. From 1916 to 1917, Andrews and his wife led the Asiatic Zoological Expedition of the museum through much of western and southern
Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...
, as well as other
provinces of China Provinces ( zh, c=省, p=Shěng) are the most numerous type of province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). There are currently 22 provinces administered by the PRC and one prov ...
. The book ''Camps and Trails in China'' records their experiences. In 1920, Andrews began planning for expeditions to
Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
and drove a fleet of
Dodge Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence, Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...
cars westward from Peking. In 1922, the party discovered a fossil of '' Paraceratherium'' (then named "'' Baluchitherium''"), a gigantic hornless rhinocerotoid, which was sent back to the museum, arriving on December 19. The fossil species ''
Andrewsarchus ''Andrewsarchus'' (), meaning "Roy Chapman Andrews, Andrews' ruler", is an extinct genus of artiodactyl that lived during the Eocene, Middle Eocene in what is now China. The genus was species description, first described by Henry Fairfield Osb ...
'' was named after him. Andrews, along with Henry Fairfield Osborn, was a proponent of the Out of Asia theory of humanity's origins and led several expeditions to Asia from 1922 to 1928 known as the "Central Asiatic Expeditions" to search for the earliest human remains in Asia. The expeditions did not find human remains. However, Andrews and his team made many other finds, including dinosaur bones and fossil
mammals A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle e ...
and the first nests full of dinosaur eggs ever discovered. Andrews' account of these expeditions can be found in his book ''The New Conquest of Central Asia''. In his preface to Andrews's 1926 book, ''On the Trail of the Ancient Man'', Henry Fairfield Osborn predicted that the birthplace of modern humans would be found in Asia and stated that he had predicted this decades earlier, even before the Asiatic expeditions. On July 13, 1923, the party was the first in the world to discover
dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...
eggs. Initially thought to be eggs of a
ceratopsian Ceratopsia or Ceratopia ( or ; Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Asia and Europe, during the Cretaceous Period, although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Late Ju ...
, ''Protoceratops'', they were determined in 1995 actually to belong to the theropod ''Oviraptor''. During that same expedition, Walter W. Granger discovered a skull from the
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
period. In 1925, the museum sent a letter back informing the party that the skull was that of a mammal, and therefore even more rare and valuable; more were uncovered. Expeditions in the area stopped during 1926 and 1927. In 1928, the expedition's finds were seized by Chinese authorities but were eventually returned. The 1929 expedition was cancelled. In 1930, Andrews made one final trip and discovered some
mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...
fossils. A cinematographer, James B. Shackelford, made filmed records of many of Andrews' expeditions. (Sixty years after Andrews' initial expedition, the American Museum of Natural History sent a new expedition to Mongolia on the invitation of its government to continue exploration.) Later that year, Andrews returned to the United States and divorced his wife, with whom he had two sons. He married his second wife, Wilhelmina Christmas, in 1935. In 1927, the
Boy Scouts of America Scouting America is the largest scouting organization and one of the largest List of youth organizations, youth organizations in the United States, with over 1 million youth, including nearly 200,000 female participants. Founded as the Boy Sco ...
made Andrews an ''Honorary Scout'', a new category of Scout created that year. This distinction was given to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys...". That same year, Andrews was elected to the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
. Andrews was President of The Explorers Club from 1931 to 1934. In 1934, he became the director of the Natural History museum. In his 1935 book '' The Business of Exploring'', he wrote "I was born to be an explorer...There was never any decision to make. I couldn't do anything else and be happy." In 1942, Andrews retired to North Colebrook, Connecticut. He and Wilhelmina lived on a country estate of 160 acres, "PondOWoods". He wrote most of his autobiographical books of life and adventures here. Around 1958, Andrews moved to Carmel Valley, California. He died on March 11, 1960, of heart failure at Peninsula Community Hospital in
Carmel, California Carmel-by-the-Sea (), commonly known simply as Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, located on the Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 3,220, down from 3,722 a ...
. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in his hometown of Beloit.


Association with character "Indiana Jones"

Douglas Preston of the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
wrote: "Andrews is allegedly the person that the movie character of
Indiana Jones ''Indiana Jones'' is an American media franchise consisting of five films and a prequel television series, along with games, comics, and tie-in novels, that depicts the adventures of Indiana Jones (character), Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, ...
was patterned after. However, neither
George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman ...
nor the other creators of the films have confirmed this. Other candidates have been suggested, including Colonel Percy Fawcett. The 120-page transcript of the story conferences for the movie does not mention Andrews." An analysis by the Smithsonian Channel concludes that the linkage was indirect, with Andrews (and other explorers) serving as the model for heroes in adventure films of the 1940s and 1950s, who in turn inspired Lucas and his fellow writers.


Bibliography

Books listed on Worldcat: *''Monographs of the Pacific Cetacea'' (1914–16) *''Whale Hunting With Gun and Camera'' (1916) *''Camps and Trails in China'' (1918) *''Across Mongolian Plains'' (1921) *''On The Trail of Ancient Man'' (1926) *''Ends of the Earth'' (1929) *''The New Conquest of Central Asia'' (1932) *''This Business of Exploring'' (1935) *''Exploring with Andrews'' (1938) *''This Amazing Planet'' (1939) *''Under a Lucky Star'' (1943) *''Meet your Ancestors, A Biography of Primitive Man'' (1945) *''An Explorer Comes Home'' (1947) *''My Favorite Stories of the Great Outdoors'' (1950) *''Quest in the Desert'' (1950) *''Heart of Asia: True Tales of the Far East'' (1951) *''Nature's Way: How Nature Takes Care of Her Own'' (1951) *''All About Dinosaurs'' (1953) *''All About Whales'' (1954) *''Beyond Adventure: The Lives of Three Explorers'' (1954) *''Quest of the Snow Leopard'' (1955) *''All About Strange Beasts of the Past'' (1956) *''In the Days of the Dinosaurs'' (1959)


References


Further reading

* Charles Gallenkamp: ''Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions''. (New York: Viking, 2001). * Jules Archer: ''From Whales to Dinosaurs: the Story of Roy Chapman Andrews''. (New York: St. Martin's Pr., 1976). * Alonzo W. Pond: ''Andrews: Gobi Explorer''. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1972). * Fitzhugh Green: ''Roy Chapman Andrews, Dragon Hunter''. (London and New York: Putnam's Sons, 1939).


External links

* *
Roy Chapman Andrews Society official website
* * * * * * 1929 '' Popular Mechanics'
article
about Andrews expedition to Mongolia
''This Business of Exploring'' Manuscript
at Dartmouth College Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Andrews, Roy Chapman 1884 births 1960 deaths American paleontologists 20th-century American explorers Beloit College alumni Columbia University alumni People from Beloit, Wisconsin People associated with the American Museum of Natural History People from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Members of the American Philosophical Society