Lucien Carr was born on December 15, 1829, in Troy, Lincoln County, Missouri.

He was an American archeologist and author. He studied at St. Louis University, Missouri where he received his B.A. in 1846. In 1867, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He then turned to a brief career in journalism before moving to a rural area to become a gentleman farmer. In 1867, he moved back to Cambridge and began exploring mounds in Tennessee and the mid-South in 1871-1875. He developed an interest in the study of the Indians and of American archeology and was soon recognized as an expert in the field. He held the office of Assistant Curator at the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1876 to 1894. He was an author of "Report on the Exploration of a Mound in Lee County, Virginia" (1877), “Mound of the Mississippi Valley” (1883), “Missouri, a Bone of Contention” (1888), and “On the Prehistoric Remains of Kentucky”, with Shaler (1904). He was a member of the Anthropological Society of Washington, the American Antiquarian Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1854, he married Cornelia Louisa Crow (1833–1922). He died on June 27, 1915, in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.