Andrew Zipkin
Biography
Andrew M. Zipkin is a Visiting Researcher with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. Although he is currently employed as an Associate Scientist (Inductively Coupled Plasma chemistry) with Eurofins EAG Laboratories in Liverpool, New York, Zipkin maintains an affiliation with ASU to faciliate ongoing research collaborations begun while he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Assistant Research Scientist there from 2018 to 2021.
Previously, he was also a National Science Foundation SBE Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2015-2018. Zipkin earned a PhD in Hominid Paleobiology from The George Washington University in 2015, where he was supervised by Prof. Alison Brooks. He has conducted archaeological, ethnographic, geological, and environmental chemistry field work in Alaska, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia since 2007. Andrew focuses on analytical chemistry method development and application to archaeological provenance research, with a special emphasis on Rare Earth Element and strontium isotope ratio measurement using variants of Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry. His overarching research objective is the integration of ethnographic and archaeological science methods to investigate anthropological questions about landscape use, mobility, network formation and maintenance, and material symbolism.
Education
The George Washington University
Doctor of Philosophy in Hominid Paleobiology
Dissertation: Material symbolism and ochre exploitation in Middle Stone Age East-Central Africa
Graduate advisor: Prof. Alison S. Brooks
August 2009 - August 2015
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Cornell University
Bachelor of Science with Research Honors, Magna Cum Laude
Major: Biology and Society
August 2005 - May 2009
Google Scholar
Publications
Andrew M. Zipkin, Gideon Bartov, Craig Lundstrom, Alex Taylor, Alyssa Dwyer, and Stanley Ambrose. (2020) Red earth, green glass, and compositional data: A new procedure for solid-state elemental characterization, source discrimination, and provenience analysis of ochres. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 27: 930-970
Andrew Du, Andrew M. Zipkin, Kevin G. Hatala, Elizabeth Renner, Jennifer L. Baker, Serena Bianchi, Kallista H. Bernal, and Bernard A. Wood. (2018) Tempo and mode of brain size evolution in the hominin clade. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285: 20172738.
Alison S. Brooks, John E. Yellen, Richard Potts, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Alan L. Deino, David E. Leslie, Stanley H. Ambrose, Jeffrey R. Ferguson, Francesco d’Errico, Andrew M. Zipkin, Scott Whittaker, Jeffrey Post, Elizabeth G. Veatch, Kimberly Foecke, and Jennifer B. Clark (2018) Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age. Science 360: 90-94.
Andrew M. Zipkin, Stanley H. Ambrose, John M. Hanchar, Philip Piccoli, Alison S. Brooks, and Elizabeth Y. Anthony. (2017) Elemental fingerprinting of Kenya Rift Valley ochre deposits for provenance studies of rock art and archaeological pigments. Quaternary International 430: 42-59
Andrew M. Zipkin, John M. Hanchar, Alison S. Brooks, Mark W. Grabowski, Jessica C. Thompson, and Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu. (2015) Ochre fingerprints: Distinguishing among Malawian mineral pigment sources with Homogenized Ochre Chip LA-ICP-MS. Archaeometry 57 (2): 297–317.
Andrew M. Zipkin, Mark Wagner, Kate McGrath, Alison S. Brooks, and Peter W. Lucas. (2014) An Experimental Study of Hafting Adhesives and the Implications for Compound Tool Technology. PLoS ONE 9 (11): e112560.
Professional Associations
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
The Register of Professional Archaeologists
American Chemical Society: Analytical Chemistry and History of Chemistry technical divisions (archaeological chemistry subdivision)
Work History
Assistant Research Scientist
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
July 2020 - August 2021
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Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
July 2018 - June 2020
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Postdoctoral Research Associate
Department of Anthropology
University of Ilinois at Urbana-Champaign
June 2015 - June 2018
Board
Vice President for Intersociety Relations
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
August 2020 - Present
https://www.socarchsci.org/board.html
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Governing Board Delegate
SciX Conference Section Chair: Art & Archaeology
Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS)
May 2019 - Present
https://www.facss.org/governing-board
https://scixconference.org/scix-program-section-chairs
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Vice President for Social Media and Outreach
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
January 2017 - August 2020
Industry Positions
Associate Scientist, Inductively Coupled Plasma Group
Eurofins | EAG Laboratories, Liverpool, New York
August 2021 - Present