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Peabody Museum Appoints Jeffrey Quilter as New Director

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University announced Prof. Jeffrey Quilter will be the next William and Muriel Seabury Howells Director of the Peabody Museum as of July 1, 2012. The Howells Director is appointed by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from among the faculty.

“I’m extremely honored and pleased,” said Quilter. “This is a wonderful opportunity to lead a remarkable museum with committed staff in fulfilling its mission to serve Harvard University in its educational and research roles.”

Quilter has been the Peabody Museum’s deputy director for curatorial affairs, curator for intermediate area archaeology, and a senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, Harvard, since 2005. Prior to his arrival at the Peabody, he spent ten years as director of pre-Columbian studies and curator of the pre-Columbian collection at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1981. He has taught at the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Yale University, and Ripon College, Wisconsin, where he served on the faculty for 15 years.

Quilter has conducted archaeological field investigations in several U.S. states, but his special interest has focused on the intermediate area (the region between Mesoamerica and South America), specifically Peru and Costa Rica. He has worked at the El Brujo archaeological complex, Peru, and currently the associated colonial-period site of Magdalena Cao Viejo since 2002. His work has been supported by the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Quilter is best known for his team’s discovery of a lost language; a Spaniard had written a trace of on a small piece of paper 400 years ago and it was later excavated at the Magdalena Cao Viejo site. The discovery made international news.

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
www.peabody.harvard.edu

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