Rodolfo (Rudolph) Larios

Rodolfo (Rudolph, Rudi) Larios was born near the Los Angeles Plaza on June 11, 1928. He graduated with honors from Los Angeles schools and the Colegio Luisa Silva of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and was made a Research Associate in Anthropology of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. He received the B.A. in History and Spanish from St. Mary's College, Moraga and graduate degrees in anthropology and sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

As an enthusiastic archaeologist, Larios located over 150 sites throughout California and was regarded as the premier expert on High Sierra and Central Coast archaeology.

Anthropologist, sociologist, and historian, Larios carried out field studies of Iberian civilization; Pre-Columbian Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and the U.S. Southwest; prehistory in France, England, Italy, and Israel; South Pacific cultures in New Zealand and Hawaii; Aboriginal culture in Australia; high altitude archaeology in the Swiss Alps, the Norwegian Alps; and Japanese ethics, aesthetics and culture in Japan.

Throughout his life, he gathered knowledge of Alta California as a cultural region of Mexico to reconstruct life here from 1821 to 1846. He published first editions of this pursuit as Alta California, Estados Unidos Mexicanos and a case study trilogy of Sonoma: Mision de San Francisco Solano, Frontier Town; El Presidio de Sonoma, 1835-1844; and Sonoma, 1844-1846: The Crucial Years.

Larios won four national and one state award for his research and teaching. His classes were known among students as enthusiastic, easy to comprehend and inspirational.

He lived a long, full life and never lost his love of learning. He'll always be remembered as a strong, highly intelligent, solitary man with a unique personality and traits that can never be replaced.

He leaves behind many loved ones including his sister, Elena Branch, daughters, Lilia Larios, Laura Larios, and Felicia Larios Kruger, son-in-laws, Eduardo Flores and Robert T. Kruger, III, grandchildren Audrey Kruger and Robert Kruger and niece Nancy Wolf.