His studies focused on changes throughout various cultures over time; he saw great importance in empirical research and made his reports as detailed as possible.
His main interests were studying human relations and analyzing cultural processes among Native American groups.
As a teacher, Spier was greatly admired by his students because he was extremely successful in passing along his methodological techniques for gathering exact data.
[4] His years at Columbia would prove be extremely fulfilling, allowing him to study under the famous anthropologist Franz Boas.
While studying at Columbia as a graduate student (1916–1920), he was employed as an assistant anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History.
[1] The greater part of Spier’s research involved detailed investigations into the life and cultures of Native American groups—Zuni, Klamath, Havasupai, Wishram, Kiowa, and various others.
Spier, along with other archaeologists such as Nels Nelson, Clark Wissler, and A. R. Kroeber, created new seriation-based chronologies for the American Southwest.
He combined his knowledge of statistical analysis with the archaeological deposits, concluding that the artifacts were present due to natural geological changes in the area.
In conjunction with Kidder’s seriation, Kroeber’s ranking and concurrent variation, and Nelson’s stratigraphy, Spier was helping develop fundamental methods in archaeological theory that are used to this day.
He conducted many ethnographic studies among Native American populations; for Spier, it was crucial to gain knowledge and evidence about these cultures before they became extinct.
[4] Spier’s personal interest in gathering firsthand knowledge of American Indian cultures shaped his place in the ethnographic world.
[1] His interest in Native American cultures led him all across the United States, but a majority of his research is based in the western areas of the country from California to the Great Basin, and everywhere in between.