J. Louis Giddings

After finding the Ipiutak settlement, Giddings turned his interests toward the Kobuk river region to study the living Eskimos and their ancient settlements.^[2] In the forest bordered Kobuk River he began the science of subarctic dendrochronology.^[6] Using wooden artifacts from Kobuk River sites, he became the first to use this new dating technique in the Arctic.^[3] Giddings continued his research at Norton Bay during the summers of 1948 through 1952. At the site he discovered the Denbigh Flint complex, a previously unknown Paleo-Eskimo culture in Alaska.^[2][3] Giddings continued to work in Cape Denbigh until 1952. In 1951 Giddings received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.^[3] After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to Brown University in Rhode Island where he was appointed professor of anthropology and the director of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in 1956.^[2] Throughout his academic career Giddings built upon his research of Arctic cultures. In 1964, his last year of field work, Giddings returned to Onion Portage on the Kobuk River for a large scale excavation that would provide a vertical succession of Arctic cultures.^[2]

While recovering at Memorial Hospital of Pawtucket R.I. from an automobile accident Giddings suffered from a heart attack and died on December 9, 1964.^[1]