Tucson archaeologist wins career-capping award
by Alan Fischer on Feb. 04, 2008, under Local
Archaeologist Jim Ayres surveys the site of a cabin at an 1870s logging camp in Utah in 2006.
Jim Ayres has studied millions of archaeological artifacts during his 43-year scientific career.
His work helped show that notorious Colorado cannibal Alfred Packer was a murderer.
Ayres served as director of the Tucson Urban Renewal archaeological excavation project from 1967-1971.
The Society for Historical Archaeology in Rockville, Md. awarded Ayres its J. C. Harrington medal for lifetime achievement at the group’s 41st annual conference Jan. 11 in Albuquerque, N.M.
“It’s the highest award the society can present,” said Teresita Majewski, chief operating officer of Statistical Research Inc. and a historical archaeologist who has worked with Ayres many times. “It’s a huge honor, given to the ones who have shaped the growth of the discipline and set the standard.”
Ayres said, “Getting this award is sort of the highlight of your career in a way. When you’ve been around long enough, eventually good things come.”
Ayres, 71, an adjunct lecturer in the University of Arizona anthropology department, came to Tucson in 1963 to attend graduate school at UA.
He worked at UA’s Arizona State Museum, served as the state’s historic preservation officer for then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt, taught at UA and worked at myriad archaeological sites across the West.
His most memorable dig involved researching Packer, who was accused of killing and eating the other five members of a mining exploration party after the group was stranded by a severe Colorado snowstorm in 1874 and ran out of food.
A team including Ayres and Arizona State Museum physical anthropologist Walter Birkby exhumed the bodies of the five victims near Lake City, Colo.
Ayres was in charge of the excavation, which found the bodies laid side by side.
After the remains were brought to Tucson, cleaned and examined, it was determined all five had been chopped with a hatchet and knife marks showed their flesh had been severed from their bones, Ayres said.
“We unequivocally demonstrated the five victims had been killed. They all had trauma, namely from a hatchet,” he said. “It was pretty clear Packer had eaten every one of them.”
Ayres directed the archaeological excavations for the Tucson Urban Renewal project that saw historic barrios razed to make way for buildings including the Tucson Convention Center.
As part of that project, Ayres collected more than 1 million artifacts from the downtown area.
“We salvaged a lot of artifacts that would have been bulldozed away,” he said. “We learned a lot about early Tucson (history) from that excavation. It was a great experience.”
Despite receiving the career-capping honor from the Society for Historical Archaeology, Ayres plans to continue studying sites and artifacts.
“I hope I can keep this up for a few more years anyway,” he said.
