William White Howells, 97; scion of famed writers became an anthropologist

Years before DNA tests would provide confirmation, the research of William White Howells established that modern humans are one species, regardless of skin color or ethnic origin.

Begun during the 1960s when lingering scientific disagreement shrouded certain racial questions, his meticulous work took him far afield from Harvard University, where he was a professor of anthropology. Dr. Howells reached his conclusion by analyzing dozens of measurements taken on thousands of skulls culled from populations around the world.

He died Dec. 20 at his home in Kittery Point, Maine. Dr. Howells was 97. He continued to write well into his 90s and to sip a martini each day that was made from a recipe he had concocted. Contrary to the tastes of the fictional spy James Bond, he preferred his martinis stirred, not shaken, said his son, William Dean Howells of Washington, D.C.

Dr. Howells, who became a leading physical anthropologist of the 20th century, was inclined to follow in the footsteps of his writerly grandfathers when he arrived at Harvard as an undergraduate in the 1920s.

''Although attuned to dinosaurs and cave men as a boy, I never heard of anthropology," he wrote in an autobiographical article published in 1992. ''Certainly not as a college freshman tentatively pointed for English literature."

Upon seeing the summer reading list, he abruptly abandoned that route. Recalling that a friend had once mentioned enjoying an anthropology course, he sought out the department chairman and found his calling.

Dr. Howells did not entirely abandon his literary leanings, though. He wrote several anthropology textbooks in a gentle, almost conversational style that was tailored as much for the uninitiated as it was for the graduate student.

''His writing was always wonderful," said Ian Tattersall, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. ''It was always so accessible."

Born in New York City, he was the son of the architect John Mead Howells, who designed the Chicago Tribune Tower. The previous generation, however, may have bequeathed to Dr. Howells his sure hand at prose.

One grandfather was the journalist Horace White, an early Lincoln biographer who also was editor of the Chicago Tribune. The other was William Dean Howells, the novelist and critic who dominated the nation's literary circles in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Dr. Howells graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., and from Harvard, where he fell under the spell of the noted anthropologist Earnest Hooton. He graduated in 1929, a year early, to marry Muriel Gurdon Seabury, who accompanied him on many of his research trips. They had been married 73 years when she died in 2002.

He received his doctorate from Harvard in 1934 and worked for a few years at the American Museum of Natural History before starting to teach at the University of Wisconsin. During World War II, Dr. Howells served as a lieutenant in the Navy, doing intelligence work, and also began publishing books.

''Of all animals, we men are the only ones who wonder where we came from and where we will go," Dr. Howells began in his first book, ''Mankind So Far," published in 1944. ''The future is the more awesome prospect; it is dim, and the prophets are dismayed. Be we can take a calmer view of our past, because it is water over the dam."

In 1954, he moved to Harvard to succeed Hooton, his mentor, and remained there until retiring to professor emeritus in 1974. At Harvard, he became such a popular teacher that The Crimson, the student newspaper, once published a photo of students lining up the night before to secure a place in one of his classes, said his daughter, Gurdon Metz of New York City.

''He said, 'If I had known, I would have sold tickets,' " she recalled.

During these years, Dr. Howells also was an enthusiastic member of Boston's exclusive Tavern Club, then a mens-only organization, writing and performing in its plays. Dr. Howells, who was slender, ''definitely had the female lead," his daughter said. ''He was not as burly as the other men."

Michael Crichton, the best-selling author, was a student of Dr. Howells' at Harvard in the early 1960s and contributed a memoir to his professor's Festschrift, a volume of writings collected to honor a scholar.

''His texts were always praised for not reading like textbooks, and that is probably the best compliment one can bestow on them," Crichton wrote, adding later, ''In person, Howells was so easygoing that it was possible to misconstrue the depth of his seriousness about his work."

Dr. Howells ''was one of the sweetest, nicest, kindest, and most generous men you could imagine," said David Pilbeam of the Peabody Museum in Cambridge. ''I think his strongest expletive was 'phooey.' "

At the end of the autobiographical article Dr. Howells published in the Annual Review of Anthropology in 1992, he wrote this about Kittery Point, where the Howells family holdings has grown to four houses: ''Now I can lean back, read without having to revise lecture notes, and tell myself (in private) just what I think of things."

The houses in Kittery are close enough so that the generations who live there -- Dr. Howells's two children, four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren -- could gather at the end of the day and those old enough would join him for a martini.

A memorial service was held Dec. 29 at First Congregational Church in Kittery Point. A second service will be held Feb. 24 at 2:30 p.m. in Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

''When you die at 97, it's hard to fill a church, but he did," his daughter said of the Kittery Point service.

It is also difficult to choose a present for someone who has been around so long.

For his 90th birthday, Dr. Howells received a silver martini shaker from his family, engraved with the Latin phrase ''mixtum non agitatum." Hailing from a generation versed in Latin, Dr. Howells knew the intended translation: stirred, not shaken.