Alonzo W. Pond

Alonzo W. Pond (1894–1986) was an American archaeologist and speleogist.

Born in Janesville, Wisconsin, he was assistant curator of the Logan Museum of Anthropology in Beloit, Wisconsin in 1924. Between 1925 and 1930 he conducted four excavations of prehistoric (paleolithic) sites in northeastern Algeria, the first of which is described, along with his portrayals of extensive encounters with the Tuareg, in his narrative Veiled Men, Red Tents, and Black Mountains: The Lost Tomb of Queen Tin Hinan.^[1] His M.A. thesis, “A Contribution to the Study of Prehistoric Man in Algeria, North Africa,” was completed in 1928 at the University of Chicago, presenting the results of his excavations of the Mechta-Afalou and published in the Logan Museum Bulletin (vol 1, no. 2) under the same title. Two years later the same bulletin published its fifth issue, Prehistoric Habitation Sites in the Sahara and North Africa in which Pond expands his studies on Algerian prehistory based on subsequent excavation findings in Algeria. He then published a study on making flint arrowheads after the manner of the pre-Columbian Indian entitled Primitive Methods of Working Stone.^[2] After 1931 he served as "an archaeologist and project supervisor for the National Park Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and Cave of the Mounds at Blue Mounds, Wisconsin."^[3] Pond's Illustrated Guidebook of the Newly Discovered Cave of the Mounds (1941) was the first speleological publication about the cave, written primarily for tourists. Between 1934 and 1936, along with John T. Zaharov, H. Summerfield Day, and W.J. Winter, Pond directed the Civilian Conservation Corps excavations of colonial Jamestown.^[4][5] With his multiple excavation experiences in Algeria, Pond helped prepare future combat soldiers to contend with desert conditions, serving as the Chief of the Desert Branch of the Arctic, Desert, Tropic Information Center (ADTIC) at Alabama's Maxwell Air Force Base,^[6] with his lecture notes subsequently published as a 51-page booklet in 1951.^[7]

He delivered lectures illustrated with lantern slides on such topics as "With Andrews in the Gobi",^[8] "Nomads of Algeria", "Lost John of Mummy Ledge",^[9] and Mammoth Cave. He supported numerous younger scholars, for example supplying all the data he had gathered for an article published by Georg Neumann on two mummies discovered in Mammouth Cave which Pond preserved, named "Lost John" and "Fawn Hoof."^[10] He wrote a pictorial guide on natural and man-made landscape features entitled Wisconsin Nooks and Corners (1947), with all photographs taken by himself. A highly regarded spelunker, Pond was a member of the Explorers Club and the Adventurer's Club of Chicago. In 1970, he was awarded the "Distinguished Service Citation" from his alma mater Beloit College.^[11]

He married Dorothy Long (1900–1987) on July 20, 1926, five weeks after their first meeting. Their daughter Chomingwen (1927–2019) was ordained in the United Church of Christ ministry in Wisconsin and became a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries in Africa; their son Arthur (1932–2012) was employed by US Forest Service; both were born in Madison, Wisconsin.

• "Alonzo Pond Riding Ole Olson" (1925) in Aïn Salah, (central) Algeria—in the Alonzo W. and Dorothy L. Pond papers collected at the Wisconsin Historical Society <https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM135307>
• "Steps Taken to Preserve the Body in Cave." Associated Press Photo (undated, but in the early to mid 1930s) in Mammoth Cave. In: "The Mummies of Mammoth Cave" by Dan Wagner. (Pond photo is in the section titled Lost John Mummy) <https://www.greatamericanhikes.com/post/the-mummies-of-mammoth-cave>
• "Pond, Alonzo W." (1930s) Alonzo William Pond, 1894-1986 (left) with Frank G. Logan, 1851-1937 (right) at Beloit College. University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center. <https://storage.lib.uchicago.edu/ucpa/series1/derivatives_series1/apf1-06866r.jpg>

• Algerian History Channel (Alonzo Pond, American Explorer to Algeria on YouTube)

• Alonzo Pond and the 1930 Logan Museum Expedition to North Africa-The Beloit College Symposium, Lawrence B. Breitborde (ed.), Logan Museum Bulletin (new series), vol. 1, no. 1, 1992.
• Judith Siers-Poisson: "A Dash through the Sahara: Alonzo Pond's First Algerian Expedition." In: The Wisconsin Magazine of History 101:3 (Spring 2018): 12–27. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/44843437>