Dr. Richard H. Meadow

Dr. Richard H. Meadow is remembered with great love by his family. Richard, 79, passed away peacefully from Alzheimer’s Disease on July 10. He was born on October 23, 1946 in Rochester, NY, moving as a young boy to a farm in the Boston-area, where he lived for the rest of his life.

He attended Milton Academy and then Harvard University, receiving B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, and specializing in zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains from archaeological sites.) His research focused on the domestication and exploitation of animals during pre- and protohistoric periods in the Middle East and South Asia, the development of the Indus Civilization, and the provisioning of ancient urban settlements.

He was a member of the team that discovered the Iranian site of Tepe Yahya (Iran) in 1967 and helped to excavate that site until 1975. He excavated at the coastal village site of Balakot in the mid-1970s, which is where he began working on the on-going excavations of the Harappa Archaeological Research Project (Pakistan) which he later co-directed. He also worked with field teams in the western United States, Oman, Syria, and Turkey. In 1991, he became director of the Zooarcheaology Laboratory at the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology at Harvard University, authored several publications and spent decades serving as a Senior Lecturer of anthropology and archaeology.

In 1969, Richard married Deyne Tompkins and they spent the next few years traveling the world for his work, eventually settling back into his childhood home. Here, they raised two children, Lela and Ashok, along with a gaggle of dogs (but absolutely no indoor cats, ever, despite several attempts by his kids.) Known as “Sir Grampsy,” to his beloved granddaughters, Richard loved ice cream, pie (with ice cream), molasses pudding, sushi, photography, opera, the Boston Red Sox, reading, history, traveling to new places around the globe and the state of New Mexico. For decades, you’d find him in his L.L. Bean “uniform” - tan utility pants, a long-sleeved vented shirt and from September - May (a true New Englander) a red puffer jacket.

He’s survived by Deyne, his wife of 57 years, his two children Lela (Jim) and Ashok, grandchildren Edie and Margo, sister Catherine, a large extended family, lifelong friends, and many colleagues and graduate students around the world, whose lives he deeply impacted. He is preceded in his death by parents Mary and Henry, and sister Patricia. A celebration of life will be held at a future time.