James F. O'Connell
University of Utah
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Primary Section: 51, Anthropology Secondary Section: 64, Human Environmental Sciences Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2006)
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Biosketch
O’Connell was trained in western North American archaeology and ethnography (PhD, UC Berkeley, 1971) and has extensive field experience there as well as in Central Australia and East Africa. His research deals with three broad topics: variation in traditional hunter-gatherer foraging and food sharing practices, the relationship between hunter-gatherer behavior and its archaeological consequences, and the implications of findings in these two domains for research on human ecology and evolution in the Pleistocene. His most recent work has focused on 1) the evolution of post-menopausal longevity in genus Homo, and 2) the initial human colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea) and its implications for current ideas about human behavior in the Late Pleistocene. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Foreign Associate of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Research Interests
Two topics: 1) the evolution of post-menopausal longevity in genus Homo, and 2) the initial human colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea) and its implications for current ideas about human behavior in the Late Pleistocene.
