Claude Nelson Warren (March 18, 1932 – November 4, 2021) was a California Desert anthropologist and specialist in early humans in the Far West and was instrumental in defining the San Dieguito and La Jolla cultural complexes.

His Ph.D. dissertation proved that Native Americans lived in the San Diego coastal area 10,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought.

During his junior year he reported on Tenino High School sports for the Thurston County Independent.

He was editor of the school paper and yearbook and was named to all-conference football and basketball teams his senior year.

[3] In 1953 Warren attended an archaeological summer field school near Vantage, Washington, where he met Earl H. Swanson Jr. and Robert H. Crabtree, both of whom became lifelong friends.

Warren received his Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from the University of Washington in 1954 and in the fall of that year began graduate work in anthropology at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, as a Carnegie Follow in the African Studies Program.

In the summer of 1955 Warren conducted a brief archaeological survey on the lower Columbia River, under the direction of Doug Osborne, for Washington State Museum.

In 1957 Warren served as an assistant field director at the Fort Okanogon excavations under the supervision of Earl H. Swanson.

In 1958, while completing his Master's thesis at UCLA, Warren took a position as the junior Research Archaeologist with the University of California Archaeological Survey in Los Angeles.

During his tenure at the survey, Warren taught a summer field school in archaeology at Cedar City, Utah.

Warren and True's (1961) The San Dieguito Complex and Its Place in California Prehistory has been cited in many syntheses of early man in the Far West.

[3] Warren et al.'s (1961) Early Gathering Cultures on the San Diego Coast: Results and Interpretations of an Archaeological Survey contains the first descriptive typology for the La Jolla artifact assemblage and has been instrumental in the chronological placement of the La Jolla assemblage.

In 1967 the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) offered Warren an assistant professorship in anthropology.

While At UCSB Warren conducted research in the Mojave Desert and taught archaeological field schools on the Santa Barbara coast.

It was during the 1969 and 1971 field schools that Warren developed an interest in the analysis of California Mission records.

His work was performed at the request of the "Hold the Fort" campaign[8] to preserve the original building, the oldest in Las Vegas, by an organization founded by Anna Dean Kepper and Elizabeth von Till Warren,[9] called Friends of the Fort (which later became the Preservation Association of Clark County[10][11][12]).

His discoveries of long-term human occupation there helped re-route the Oran K. Cragson Expressway (US 95) through the heart of Las Vegas, so that it went around the site instead of through it.

Many onlookers including members of the press, Warren's sons and UNLV students were present.

From 1981 to 1984, Warren directed the Fort Irwin Archaeological Project under contract from Dames and Moore.

During the 1980s, Warren was joined by his wife on visits to their son Louis, who was educated extensively abroad.

Claude Warren developed an interest in the history of Archaeology as a science, as well as visiting various ruins in England, France and later at Great Zimbabwe.

The rough house and its rocky outcropping overlooking the valley hosted field school students well into the 2000s.

Warren's travels abroad during the 1990s took him to archaeological sites in Cyprus, Egypt and Israel, often visiting former students or colleagues.

Warren has written histories of the archaeology of the San Diego coast and the Mojave Desert.

As an outgrowth of the research, Warren presented a paper entitled The Empirical Evidence for the Antiquity of Mankind at Brixham Cave at the 1998 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2012 Warren completed "Purple Hummingbird: A Biography of Elizabeth Warder Crozer Campbell."

"Early Gathering Cultures on the San Diego Coast: Results and Interpretations of an Archaeological Survey".

"Shell Midden analysis at Site SDi-603 and Ecological Implications for Cultural Developments of Batiquitos Lagoon, San Diego County, California".

William Pengelly's Spits, yards and prisms : the forerunners of modern excavation methods and techniques in archaeology.