William Y. Adams is an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky. He is the winner of the 1978 Herskovits Prize for his history of Nubia, Nubia: Corridor to Africa. In 2005 Adams was awarded the Order of the Two Niles, Sudan's highest civilian honor, for his contributions to Nubian history. 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. Over the course of the next seven years he excavated a number of medieval sites in northern Sudan, including the pottery factories at Faras. 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. 

1927 in Los Angeles