Hester A. Davis

Hester A. Davis (1930-2014) was an American archaeologist. Arkansas' first State Archaeologist, she was instrumental in creating national public policy and conservancy standards for cultural preservation as well as developing professional and ethical standards for archaeologists. She was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including two distinguished service awards and induction into the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame. Early life Hester Ashmead Davis was born on June 4, 1930, in Ayer, Massachusetts to Dorothy Canning (née Thomas) and Edward Mott Davis. Her grandfather was William Morris Davis, a renowned geographer and geomorphologist and her great-great grandmother was Lucretia Mott, Quaker abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Davis was the youngest of five siblings and grew up spending summers on her parents' apple farm in Shirley, Massachusetts and winters in Winter Park, Florida, where their father taught natural history at Rollins College. Davis' father died when she was twelve and the death had a strong impact upon her. Unhappy and doing poorly at school in Winter Park, when she failed algebra in her first year of high school, she was enrolled at Northfield School for Girls. A summer trip after her graduation, spurred Davis' interest in history and archaeology, prompting her to enroll to study history and anthropology at Rollins College. By that time, Davis' brother Mott was working as an archaeologist at the University of Nebraska and her sister Penny, who had worked at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, suggested the Peabody as a potential employer. Davis wrote to them and was accepted for the Upper Gila Expedition in 1950. Her primary duties were drawing artifacts and record keeping. Returning to Rollins in the fall, Davis led a successful protest against the college administrators for budget irregularities. She returned to the Gila Expedition the following summer and worked on organizing the lab and record keeping, before completing her Bachelor of Arts in history in 1952, earning Algernon Sydney Sullivan Medallion for her leadership and academic accomplishments. Davis' next summer job before starting graduate school, was on the Smithsonian Institution's River Basin Surveys and then she spent the next two years studying physical and cultural anthropology at the University of Oregon under Homer Barnett, serving as a research assistant to Bill Laughlin.