RIP II Renowned researcher introduced environmental principles to archaeology

William T. Sanders, the late Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Archaeological Anthropology at Penn State University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, was one of the first archaeologists to attempt to make the discipline of archaeology a true science through the development of theories and the formation of testable hypotheses about culture. His approach, known as cultural ecology, considered the biology of an area, subsistence patterns of the human population, demography, technological innovation and social organization as an interacting whole. He died July 2, 2008, in State College, Pa., of complications from a fall.