 His talents were recognised early on by his professors at New Mexico, and before completing his Masters study there, Green was encouraged to enroll in a doctorate program at Harvard.While there he studied closely under Gordon Willey and Cora du Bois.It was also there that he was first introduced to Pacific prehistory by Douglas Oliver, who helped arrange a Fulbright fellowship that took him to New Zealand and on to conduct research in French Polynesia on the islands of Moorea and Mangareva.