William Duncan Strong (1899–1962) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist noted for his application of the direct historical approach to the study of indigenous peoples of North and South America.
He initially studied zoology, but he changed his focus to anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, under the influence of Alfred L. Kroeber, who became his "principal teacher, mentor, and friend".
[2] A related study of his, Aboriginal Society in Southern California,[3] presenting his detailed fieldwork among the Serrano, Luiseño, Cupeño, and Cahuilla peoples, has been characterized as "one of the earliest and one of the best efforts by a United States anthropologist to combine structural-functional analysis with historical data and interpretation".
[9] Strong performed pioneering fieldwork in California's San Joaquin Valley, the Pacific Northwest, the American Great Plains, Labrador, and Honduras, where he sought the legendary La Ciudad Blanca.
In Peru, he developed statistical methods to seriate pottery styles and is credited with the discovery of the tomb of the war god Ai apaec in 1946.