Alfred Vincent Kidder (October 29, 1885 – June 11, 1963) was an American archaeologist considered the foremost of the southwestern United States and Mesoamerica during the first half of the 20th century.

Kidder spent two successive summers in the mesa and canyon country of southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah and areas of New Mexico.

This research laid the foundation for modern archaeological field methods, shifting the emphasis from a "gentlemanly adventure" adding items such as whole pots and cliff dwellings to museum coffers to the study of potsherds and other artifacts in relation to the cultural history.

His Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology, published in 1924, was the first synthesis of North American prehistory based on professionally recovered empirical data.

[5] That same year, he formally used the Navajo term "Anasazi" to define a specific cultural group of people living in the southwest between approximately 200 BC and 1300 AD.

In 1951, Kidder, in discussions with Thomas Stuart Ferguson and Gordon Willey of Harvard University, was instrumental in establishing a foundation dealing with the status of archaeology in Mexico and Central America.

The result of the discussion was that we agreed to set up a new organization to be devoted to the Pre-Classic civilizations of Mexico and Central America—the earliest known high cultures of the New World.” The following year, the New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF) was incorporated in California, as a nonprofit, scientific, fact-finding body.

As a consequence of The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires federal and other museum facilities to inventory, establish cultural affiliations, and publish in the Federal Register any and all Native American human remains and certain objects in their possession, the Pueblo of Jemez made a formal claim on behalf of the Pecos people.

This repatriation was primarily due to the efforts of William J. Whatley, the Jemez Pueblo tribal archaeologist, who searched through museum records for these remains and artifacts for eight years.