20th-century American archaeologists

D. L. True (August 31, 1923 – June 20, 2001) was an archaeologist who worked in California, particularly San Diego County, and in northern Chile.
Born in San Pedro, California, son of a lumberyard foreman, True worked in a shipyard and served as an aerial-gunnery instructor for the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war he established a small avocado ranch in Pauma Valley, an inland area in northern San Diego County, also working as a school bus driver.
True became interested in and thoroughly familiar with the archaeological remains of the Pauma region's prehistoric cultures. Under the mentorship of Clement W. Meighan, he enrolled in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was cited by Time magazine as one of the dozen top graduates in 1961. He went on to receive his doctorate from UCLA in 1966, with a dissertation entitled "Archaeological Differentiation of Shoshonean and Yuman Speaking Groups in Southern California". He served on the anthropology faculty of the University of California, Davis, from 1965 until his retirement.
True was instrumental in defining the Pauma, San Luis Rey, and Cuyamaca complexes and in elucidating their roles in regional prehistory. Together with Claude N. Warren, he also helped to clarify understanding of the early San Dieguito and La Jolla complexes.

Cyrus Herzl Gordon (June 29, 1908 – March 30, 2001) was an American scholar of Near Eastern cultures and ancient languages.

Froelich Gladstone Rainey (June 18, 1907 – October 11, 1992) was an American anthropologist and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology from 1947 to 1977. Under his leadership, the Penn Museum announced the Pennsylvania Declaration, ending the purchase system of acquiring antiquities and artifacts that had, in practice, encouraged looting from historical sites.
In the early 1950s, Rainey also devised and hosted the popular "What in the World?" television gameshow, which highlighted the museum's collections and involved notable scholars and celebrities of the day. In 1975, in recognition of his role at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he had served as the university's first professor of anthropology from 1935 to 1942, Rainey's Cabin on the campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Wendell Phillips (1921 – December 4, 1975) was an American archaeologist and oil magnate who led some of the first archaeological expeditions in the areas that are part of modern-day Yemen and Oman. Excavating primarily in the 1950s, Phillips unearthed artifacts from the ancient kingdom of Sabaʾ. He was famous in the United States for his dashing style and adventurous stories, leading to his nickname, "America's Lawrence of Arabia".
Following his archaeological career, Phillips acquired oil concessions in Oman, Venezuela, South Korea, Indonesia, and other countries, which made him the largest individual holder of oil rights in the world, and gave him a net worth of $120 million.