[2] In 2005 Adams was awarded the Order of the Two Niles, Sudan's highest civilian honor, for his contributions to Nubian history.
Following the death of his father in 1935, the family moved to Window Rock, Arizona where the widowed Lucy Adams took a position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
These early years on the Navajo Reservation had a profoundly formative effect on the boy that led to a lifelong love of the American Southwest and an interest in other cultures.
Adams's work in Nubia began in 1959 as part of the UNESCO archaeological salvage campaign to excavate sites threatened by the rising flood waters of Lake Nasser following the construction of the Aswan Dam.
By analyzing the changing proportions of broken potsherds in the fill, Adams was able to establish a typology of Nubian pottery that could be used to date excavation levels.