Robert L. Kelly

Robert L. Kelly, PhD, began participating in archaeological research in 1973, at the age of 16, and today is Professor emeritus at the University of Wyoming. He earned his BA in anthropology from Cornell University, his MA from the University of New Mexico, and his PhD in 1985 from the University of Michigan. His academic career began at the University of Louisville in 1986. He joined Wyoming’s department of anthropology in 1997. He served as department head at both institutions, was secretary of the American Anthropological Association’s Archaeology section, president of the Society for American Archaeology, editor of the Society’s flagship journal, American Antiquity, and Director of the University of Wyoming’s Frison Institute. He is among the top 2% of cited scientists in the world and has lectured in 15 foreign countries. He holds a Senior Humboldt Research Award (Germany), has been a visiting fellow at two University of Cambridge colleges, and is a Presidential Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has authored over 200 articles, reviews, books, monographs, and encyclopedia entries, and is co-author, with NAS member David Hurst Thomas, of the most widely used university textbook, Archaeology. He is the author of The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers (in press since 1995, appearing first as The Foraging Spectrum) and The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us About Our Future (Archaeological Institute of America’s Felicia Holton book award; translated into Chinese, Korean, German, and Slovakian).