Richard Klein (paleoanthropologist)

Richard G. Klein (born April 11, 1941) is a Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Stanford University. He is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1966, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in April 2003. His research interests include paleoanthropology, Africa and Europe. His primary thesis is that modern humans evolved in East Africa some 100,000 years ago and, starting 50,000 years ago, began spreading throughout the non-African world, replacing archaic human populations over time. He is a critic of the idea that behavioral modernity arose gradually over the course of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years, he instead supports the view that modern behavior arose suddenly in the Upper Paleolithic revolution around 50,000 or 40,000 years ago.

Publications

• The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, 3rd ed., University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN 9780226439655
• The Dawn of Human Culture, with Blake Edgar, John Wiley & Sons, 2002. ISBN 0-471-25252-2
• The Analysis of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, with Kathryn Cruz-Uribe, University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN 9780226439587
• Ice-Age Hunters of the Ukraine, University of Chicago Press, 1973. ISBN 0-226-43945-3

Awards

• Member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• President, South African Archaeological Society (2002–2004)
• Gordon J. Laing Award

See also

• Behavioral modernity

External links

• Biography of Richard G Klein
• three distinct populations
• Archeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior
• The Ysterfontein 1 Middle Stone Age site, South Africa, and early human exploitation of coastal resources