Lothrop was a longtime research associate of Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and made many contributions based on fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and evaluations of private and public collections that focused on Central and South America.
Lothrop is also known for his research on goldwork and other artifacts from Costa Rica, the Veraguas Province of Panama, and the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, Mexico.
[1] He traveled extensively throughout Central America as a research associate of the Peabody Museum, excavating various areas and studying collections.
[5] After the war, he returned to his graduate work, eventually earning his Ph.D. with a doctoral dissertation, a version of which was published in 1926 as Pottery of Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Given their ability to observe cultural practices as well as those useful to strategies of war, not to mention the fact that they could use their careers as a cover for their intelligence gathering, anthropologists are ideal choices for spies.
[1] After completing his doctorate studies, Lothrop worked field excavations in the Yucatan and Guatemala under the employment of the Carnegie Institution's Historical Division.
From 1924 until the end of the stock market crash in 1929 Samuel Kirkland Lothrop was employed by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
[10] Lothrop determined that the spheres were formed over many centuries, suggesting a cultural practice and continuity over an extended period of time.
Late in life he wrote a book titled The Treasures of Ancient America: The Arts of the Pre-Columbian Civilizations from Mexico to Peru (1964), Editions d'Art Albert Skira, Geneva, 230 pp.