After completing his studies at Arizona, Willey moved to Macon, Georgia to perform field work for Arthur R. Kelly.[2] Along with James A. Ford, Willey helped implement and refine ceramic stratigraphy, a concept new to Georgian archaeological sites.[4][5] Willey also worked at the historic site of Kasita, on the Georgia Piedmont near Fort Benning.[6] In 1938, Willey published an article entitled "Time Studies: Pottery and Trees in Georgia."[7] In the early part of 1939, Willey worked at the Lamar Mounds and Village Site (inhabited from c. 1350 to 1600 CE) near Macon and identified relationships between Lamar and the Swift Creek (around 100–800 CE) and Late Woodland period Napier Phase (900–1000 CE) sites.
In 1941, together with Marshall T. Newman, Willey conducted research at Ancon (archaeological site)inPeru, including in the area of Las Colinas.
In 1950, he accepted the Bowditch Professorship of Mexican and Central American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.
Willey headed archaeological expeditions in Peru, Panama, Nicaragua, Belize and Honduras. He discovered Monagrillo ceramics, the earliest known pottery in Panama. He became widely cited for his study and development of theories about the pattern of settlements of native societies.[8] In particular, his study of settlement patterns in the Viru Valley of Peru exemplified Processual archaeology because it focused on the function of small satellite settlements and ceramic scattered across a landscape rather than pottery chronologies.
Add in: He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 1956, and its first Honorary Vice-President. He was awarded the Society's gold medal in 2000. (See obituary in The Times, London, May 1, 2002)
Willey married Katharine W. Whaley in 1939. They were married for 63 years and had two daughters. Willey died of heart failure in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 89.[3]
Waring, Antonio J. Jr. (1968). Stephen Williams (ed.). The Waring Papers: the collected works of Antonio J. Waring, Jr (originally published 1967 as vol. 58 of Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology papers, reprinted ed.). Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. OCLC8128645.
Willey, Gordon R. (1989). "Gordon Willey". In Glyn Edmund Daniel; Christopher Chippindale (eds.). The Pastmasters: Eleven Modern Pioneers of Archaeology: V. Gordon Childe, Stuart Piggott, Charles Phillips, Christopher Hawkes, Seton Lloyd, Robert J. Braidwood, Gordon R. Willey, C.J. Becker, Sigfried J. De Laet, J. Desmond Clark, D.J. Mulvaney. New York: Thames & Hudson. pp. 100–110. ISBN978-0-500-05051-4. OCLC19750309.
