Geoffrey A. Clark
Regents' Professor Emeritus
Ph.D., Archaeology, University of Chicago
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
SHESC Theme: Societies and their Natural Environments
Field Specializations: Archaeology, Hunter-Gatherers, Paleoanthropology, Paleontology
Regional Foci: Europe, Mediterranean, Near East
Contact: Geoffrey A. Clark, MH 107
Research:
Archaeologist and paleoanthropologist Geoffrey A. Clark is the author, co-author or editor of over 250 articles, notes, reviews and comments, and 11 monographs and books on human biological and cultural evolution in ‘deep time’—the past four million years. A University of Chicago Ph.D. (1971), his current interests turn on the logic of inference underlying knowledge claims in the various aspects of modern human origins research (Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research, co-edited with Cathy Willermet, Aldine de Gruyter [1997]; New Approaches to the Study of Early Upper Paleolithic ‘Transitional’ Industries in Western Eurasia, co-edited with Julien Riel-Salvatore, Archaeopress [2007]) and with applications of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory in archaeology (Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archaeological Explanation, co-edited with C. Michael Barton, American Anthropological Association [1997]). Clark has done fieldwork in Arizona, Mexico, France, Spain, Cyprus, Turkey and Jordan. Other research foci include European Mesolithic forager adaptations (The Mesolithic of the Atlantic Façade, co-edited with Manuel González Morales, ASU Anthropological Research Papers [2004]) and the peopling of the Americas (The Settlement of the American Continents, co-edited with C. Michael Barton, David Yesner and Georges Pearson, University of Arizona Press [2004]). A Regents' Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, Clark has headed the Archeology Division of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), and the Anthropology Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He lectures on race, racism and ethnic conflict; the evolution of human mating; the conflict between religion and science (‘creation science’); human evolution; and modern human origins. A materialist to the core, and a committed evolutionist, he has been concerned lately with the promotion of western science as a conceptual framework for describing and explaining the experiential world, and with contesting the claims of the various anti- and pseudo-science constituencies arrayed against it.
Research Projects:
Ayl-to-Ras en'Naqb Survey Project
Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics
Select Publications:
Clark, G. & Riel-Salvatore, J. (2006). Observations on systematics in Paleolithic archaeology. In E. Hovers & S. Kuhn (Eds.), Transitions before the transition: Evolution and stability in the middle Paleolithic and the middle Stone Age (pp. 29-56). New York: Springer.
Clark, G. A. (2005). Modern approaches to Paleolithic archaeology in Europe: A sampler of research traditions. American Antiquity, 70(2), 376-384.
Clark, G., Barton, C. M., Yesner, D. & Pearson, G. (Eds.). (2004). The settlement of the American continents: A multidisciplinary approach to human biogeography. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Clark, G. & Gonzalez Morales, M. R. (Eds.). (2004). The Mesolithic of the Atlantic facade: Proceedings of the Santander Symposium. Tempe: Arizona State University, Arizona State University Anthropological Research Paper No. 55.
Rousteaei, K., Clark, G. A., Vahdati Nasab, H., Biglari, F., Heydari, S. & Sindly, J. M. (2004). Recent paleolithic surveys in Luristan. Current Anthropology, 45(5), 692-706.
Clark, G. A. (2003). American archaeology's uncertain future. In S. Gillespie & D. Nichols (Eds.), Archaeology is anthropology (pp. 51-68). Arlington: Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 13.
Clark, G. (2002). Neandertal archaeology-implications for our origins. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 50-67.
Clark, G. & Riel-Salvatore, J. (2001). Grave markers: Middle and early Upper Paleolithic burials and the use of chronotypology in contemporary Paleolithic research. Current Anthropology, 42(4), 449-460 and 470-479.
Clark, G. (2000). Thirty years of Mesolithic research in Atlantic coastal Iberia (1970-2000). Journal of Anthropological Research, 56(1), 17-37.
Clark, G., Straus, L., Altuna, J. & Ortea, J. (1980). Ice-Age subsistence in northern Spain. Scientific American, 242(6), 142-153.
