Stephen C. Jett

Stephen C. Jett was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1938, grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, received a diploma cum laude from The University School, and graduated cum laude in Geology from Princeton University in 1960. He obtained a Ph.D. in Geography from The Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and was a special student in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. After a year as Instructor of Geography at The Ohio State University, he spent the remainder of his career at the University of California, Davis, serving three terms as Geography Chair; after 1996, he was also Professor of Textiles and Clothing. He retired from the university in 2000 and currently resides with his wife Lisa Roberts Jett, a geographer and a library reference specialist, in Abingdon, Virginia. He founded and edits "Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts." Dr. Jett has two principal writing interests: 1) the culture and history of the Navajo, especially architecture and other material culture, crops and farming, sacred places, and placenames; 2) the effects of pre-1492 transoceanic contacts between the Old and New worlds in spreading human genes, ideas, technologies (such as the blowgun), and domesticates. He has published over 150 articles and book chapters on these topics, and his award-winning books are: "Navajo Wildlands: 'as long as the rivers shall run'"(with photographer Philip Hyde; 1967) and "Navajo Architecture: Forms, History, Distributions" (with Virginia E. Spencer; 1981). Other books include "House of Three Turkeys: Anasazi Redoubt" (with photographer Dave Bohn; 1977) and "Navajo Placenames and Trails of the Canyon de Chelly System, Arizona" (2001). His "Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contact with the Americas before Columbus" appeared in 2017. He has traveled globally and is a fellow of the Explorers Club. Professor Jett's interest in tribal textiles has led to his curating significant exhibitions. He is fluent in French and owns houses in Provence; in 2004, he published a high-school-level book on France.