Alonzo W. Pond (1894–1986) was an American archaeologist and speleogist.

Career

Born in Janesville, Wisconsin, he was assistant curator of the Logan Museum of Anthropology in Beloit, Wisconsin, starting in that position in 1924. Between 1925 and 1930 he conducted four excavations of prehistoric (paleolithic) sites in northeastern Algeria, the first of which is described, along with his portrayals of extensive encounters with the Tuareg, in his narrative Veiled Men, Red Tents, and Black Mountains: The Lost Tomb of Queen Tin Hinan. His M.A. thesis, “A Contribution to the Study of Prehistoric Man in Algeria, North Africa,” was completed in 1928 in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, presenting results of his excavations of the Mechta-Afalou and published in the Logan Museum Bulletin (vol 1, no. 2) under the same title. Ten years later the same bulletin published its fifth issue, Prehistoric Habitation Sites in the Sahara and North Africa in which Pond expands his studies on Algerian prehistory based on subsequent excavation findings in Algeria. In 1928 he joined one of the Central Asiatic Expeditions led by fellow Beloit College alumnus Roy Chapman Andrews in central Mongolia and, in addition to the north African collection in the 1920s, Pond significantly increased the Asian artifacts collection at the Logan Museum. He also published a scholarly study on making flint arrowheads after the manner of the pre-Columbian Indian entitled Primitive Methods of Working Stone, in which one reader points out Pond makes significant "the dependent relationship between lithic materials and controlling the design and shape of an implement." The stock market crash ended further financial support so the Algerian excavations ended. After 1931 Pond took various positions in the United States. He served as "an archaeologist and project supervisor for the National Park Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and Cave of the Mounds at Blue Mounds, Wisconsin." Pond's Illustrated Guidebook of the Newly Discovered Cave of the Mounds (1941) was the first speleological publication about the cave, written primarily for tourists. According to one reviewer, the Guide describes "what there is to see at the Cave, interspersed with valuable geological information." Between 1934 and 1936, along with John T. Zaharov, H. Summerfield Day, and W.J. Winter, Pond directed the Civilian Conservation Corps excavations of colonial Jamestown, as well as CCC Trail building at Interstate Park along the St. Croix River gorge in the northwestern part of Wisconsin. With his multiple excavation experiences in Algeria, Pond helped prepare future combat soldiers to contend with desert conditions, serving as the Chief of the Desert Branch of the Arctic, Desert, Tropic Information Center (ADTIC) at Alabama's Maxwell Air Force Base, with lecture notes published as a 51-page booklet in 1951, and subsequently extended for a thorough, book-length treatment, co-authored by Paul H. Nesbitt and William H. Allen. He delivered lectures illustrated with lantern slides and films on such topics as "With Andrews in the Gobi", "Nomads of Algeria", "Lost John of Mummy Ledge" concerning a pre-Columbian miner stuck after a boulder moved onto him (and Pond extracted and preserved his remains), and Mammoth Cave. Over a thousand of his photographic slides have been archived in the Gottesman Research Library at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, while over thirty film reels, discovered in 1980 by Michael Tarabulski in the Logan Museum archives, are permanently archived in the Human Studies Film Archives of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He supported numerous younger scholars, for example supplying all the data he had gathered for research that Georg Neumann undertook on two mummies discovered in Mammouth Cave, the first of which Pond preserved, named "Lost John" and "Fawn Hoof," or in the final expedition he directed in eastern Algeria when, in February 1930, Pond led a group of eleven college students to assist him in excavating the sites. He wrote a pictorial guide on natural and man-made landscape features entitled Wisconsin Nooks and Corners (1947), with all photographs taken by himself. A highly regarded spelunker, Pond was a member of the Explorers Club and the Adventurer's Club of Chicago. In 1970, he was awarded the "Distinguished Service Citation" from his alma mater Beloit College.

Personal life

Born to William Samuel Pond and Maria Olson Pond in 1894, Alonzo grew up in Jamesville with his younger brother Edwin. He married Dorothy Long (1900–1987), on July 20, 1926, five weeks after their first meeting, who immediately joined Alonzo on an Algerian expedition. Dorothy Pond later became the posthumous author of If Women Have Courage... Among Shepherds, Sheiks, and Scientists in Algeria (2014). Their daughter Chomingwen (1927–2019) was ordained in the United Church of Christ ministry in Wisconsin after graduating from Beloit College in 1950 with a major in geology; she then became a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries in Africa and earned a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University; their son Arthur (1932–2012) served in the Coast Guard and then was employed by the US Forest Service; both were born in Madison, Wisconsin. In retirement Alonzo and Dorothy resided in Minocqua in northern Wisconsin until their deaths, and their daughter Chomingwen subsequently retired there as well.

Selected bibliography

Pond published many scholarly articles, books and book reviews, including:

Photos

Documentary films