RICHARD PAUL ROARK

(1936 - 1970)

Richard P. Roark died in a scuba diving accident at the age of 34,

while vacationing with his wife in the Caribbean, in April of this year.
In addition to his wife, he left a young child. His death has brought a
feeling of great sadness to those who have known him, because he was a
very kind, generous, and idealistic man and a gifted teacher.

Roark was born in Colorado on July 7, 1936. Later his family moved
to Los Angeles, where Roark went to high school. His undergraduate work
was done at the University of California at Los Angeles for the first
year, and then at the University of California at Berkeley, where he

received his B.A. degree in 1958. He graduated with highest honors in

anthropology and with a Phi Beta Kappa key. He then continued his gradu-
ate studies in anthropology at Berkeley, and received his Ph.D. in Sep-

tember of 1964. After that he went on to become a faculty member in the
Social Studies Department of the State University of New York at Genesco,
a position he continued to occupy until the time of his death.

We at Berkeley inevitably lost touch with Roark after he went to

Genesco, but he is well remembered here as one of the most valuable and
interesting students and research colleagues in our department. He had

an unusually distinguished scholastic record, and all professors who were
called on to comment on it through the years pointed to his exceptionally
acute mind, wide ranging interests, powers of organization, and clear ex-
pression of ideas. In particular, everyone stressed the originality of

the ideas lhe contributed to discussions and research.  His principal re-

search field was Andean archaeology, but he also had an extensive interest
in linguistics. His third field of specialization was the study of the
Indians of North America, and he had considerable background in social
anthropology and the theory of anthropology as well. He also did a

great deal of work in physical anthropology, and distinguished himself

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as a teaching assistant in that field. In other words, he was one of the

very rare individuals who had some expert knowledge and insight in all major
branches of modern anthropology.. Rarer still was his success in seeing

the relationships of all these specialized areas of research to one another,
and the manner in which they were working in complementary ways toward
the same goal, which he saw as the understanding of cultural processes.

Roark's conception of cultural processes was, as everything else that he

did, original and, to some, controversial. However, it was very difficult
to quarrel with his reasoning, which was based on concrete evidence and
skillful logical argument. Perhaps the best testimony to the quality of

his scholarship is the high esteem in which he was held by professors such
as Theodore D. McCown, John H. Rowe, and Eugene A. Hammel.

His most distinguished publication is on the subject of Peruvian
archaeology, a monograph entitled "From Monumental to Proliferous in

Nasca Pottery," a revision of his dissertation. In this study Roark showed
howone art style changes into a very different one by a process of in-
ternal development; techniques borrowed from linguistics were used to
demonstrate the process.

Perhaps not least among Roark's endearing qualities was-a certain

awkwardness and shyness in personal relations, qualities that his friends
knew how to appreciate as part of his personality. Unfortunately these

were also qualities that made field work in unaccustomed cultural settings
difficult for him. This awkwardness turned out to be a very good fortune

for students, however, because it caused Roark to dedicate his professional
life to teaching, an occupation at which he excelled. There are a great

many people whose paths he crossed who will always remember him as someone
who enriched their lives and made them aware of the dignity, greatness
and comical aspects of people, in times of good fortune as well as in
adversity and sorrow.

Dorothy Menzel

University of California,

Berkeley

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Bibliog,raphy of Richard P. Roark

1960      A model of language extinction and formation. Kroeber

Anthropological Society Papers 23: 86-104.

1961      The mathematics of American cousinship. Kroeber Anthropological

Society Papers 24: 17-18.

19065     From monumental to proliferous in Nasco pottery. flawpa Pacho 3:

1-92.

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