The American anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn (1905-1960) is known for his field work among the Navaho Indians, his contributions to the theory of culture, and his attempts to unify social sciences through interdisciplinary communication.

Clyde Kluckhohn was born in Le Mars, Iowa, on Jan. 11, 1905. He received his undergraduate education at Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin. He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship for study at Oxford, where he received his master's degree in 1932. He also studied at the University of Vienna in 1931-1932, where he encountered the diffusionist Kulturkreis school led by Father Wilhelm Schmidt. Returning to the United States, he received his doctorate in anthropology at Harvard University in 1936. There, in 1935, he was appointed as instructor, rising eventually to the rank of professor.

Kluckhohn was extremely fond of the American Southwest ever since his youth, when he had gone to a ranch near Ramah, New Mexico, to...