William Meacham

William Meacham (Chinese: 秦維廉) is an American archaeologist living and working in Hong Kong since 1970. Meacham has written several books on archaeology in southern China.^[1]

In 1977, he published an article on South China archaeology in the journal Current Anthropology,^[2] opposing the then general consensus that innovations spread south from the Central Plains of North China. This "nuclear area hypothesis" was promoted by Kwang-chih Chang, the prominent doyen of ancient China archaeology. In 2000, in a preface to his own Festschrift, Chang acknowledged: "On the concept of 'Regional Cultures,' I was very much a late-comer. Judith Treistman (1972) and William Meacham (1977) were both pioneers on this question."^[3]

Meacham has written several papers^[4] and a book^[5] on the restoration of the Shroud of Turin in 2002, where Meacham is questioning the restoration methods used by the Catholic Church.

He located a Confederate burial ground of 227 soldiers in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.^[6]^[7] In researching the epidemic that killed these soldiers encamped at Hopkinsville in 1861, Meacham developed a hypothesis that the disease, at the time called "Black Measles", was influenza. He published a lengthy article on the subject.^[8]

References

^ From a presentation of Meacham when presenting an article at the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine at The University of Hong Kong
^ "Continuity and local evolution in the Neolithic of South China: a non-nuclear approach". Current Anthropology. by William Meacham. 1977 18(3): 419–440
^ "Reflections on Chinese Archaeology in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century". Journal of East Asian Archaeology. by Kwang-Chih Chang. 2001 3(1):5–19
^ William Meacham, "The Authentication of the Turin Shroud, An Issue in Archeological Epistemology", Current Anthropology, 1983 24(3): 283–311
^ William Meacham, The Rape of the Turin Shroud, 2005, ISBN 1-4116-5769-1
^ Initial report in the Washington Times
^ latest report by Nashville TV station
^ William Meacham, "Was measles a powerful killer, as widely believed, during the Civil War?" Journal of Civil War Medicine 17(4):163–182, October–December 2013. ISSN 1545-4975.

External links

Bibliography of Meacham's major publications, most available to download

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[1] From a presentation of Meacham when presenting an article at the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine at The University of Hong Kong

[2] "Continuity and local evolution in the Neolithic of South China: a non-nuclear approach". Current Anthropology. by William Meacham. 1977 18(3): 419–440

[3] "Reflections on Chinese Archaeology in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century". Journal of East Asian Archaeology. by Kwang-Chih Chang. 2001 3(1):5–19

[Article-4] William Meacham, "The Authentication of the Turin Shroud, An Issue in Archeological Epistemology", Current Anthropology, 1983 24(3): 283–311

[5] William Meacham, The Rape of the Turin Shroud, 2005, ISBN 1-4116-5769-1

[6] Initial report in the Washington Times

[7] test report by Nashville TV station

[8] William Meacham, "Was measles a powerful killer, as widely believed, during the Civil War?" Journal of Civil War Medicine 17(4):163–182, October–December 2013. ISSN 1545-4975.

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