Richard Potts (anthropologist)
Richard (Rick) Potts (born August 16, 1953 in Philadelphia ) is an American paleoanthropologist . He is a lecturer of anthropology at the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences of the George Washington University and director of the Human Origins Program of the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution . His research areas are evolution , ecology , behavior and the theory of fossilization of the early hominini .
Life
From 1971 to 1975 Potts studied at Temple University , where he earned a bachelor's degree. He then moved to Harvard University , where he submitted his doctoral thesis in 1982 , entitled Lower Pleistocene site formation and hominid activities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.
Since 1985 he has been curator of the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution and holder of its Peter Buck Chair in Human Origins . Since 1992 he has also taught at George Washington University. As excavation manager and deputy excavation manager, Potts has repeatedly worked in Kenya and the People's Republic of China . In a long-term project he researches in China the influence of environmental factors on the evolution of the ancestors and the phylogenetically close relative of anatomically modern humans . In Kenya he is u. a. involved in excavations in the Olorgesailie Basin .
Fonts (selection)
- Early hominid activities at Olduvai. Aldine Transaction, 1988, ISBN 978-0202011769
- Humanity's Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. Avon Books (Reprint edition) 1997, ISBN 978-0380715237
- with Michael Petraglia: The Old World Paleolithic and the Development of a National Collection. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, No. 48, Smithsonian Institution 2004, ( web )
- as first author: Small Mid-Pleistocene Hominin Associated with East African Acheulean Technology. In: Science . Volume 305, No. 5680, 2004, pp. 75-78, doi: 10.1126 / science.1097661
- as first author: Environmental dynamics during the onset of the Middle Stone Age in eastern Africa. In: Science. Online publication March 15, 2018, doi: 10.1126 / science.aao2200
Web links
- Richard Potts website on the Smithsonian Institution server
- Climate and human evolution. On: climate.gov from November 9, 2016
- SUB Goettingen
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Potts, Richard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Potts, Rick |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American paleoanthropologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 16, 1953 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia |