About
Professor Geoffrey Clark joined the faculty of Arizona State University in 1971. He is known
nationally for his contributions to quantified archaeological research designs and internationally
for his work on hunter-gatherer adaptations, epistemology, and human origins research. He
has an exceptionally strong, balanced record in research, graduate education, and public service.
Professor Clark's internationally recognized work in paleoanthropology has produced four major
contributions to knowledge. (1) His research on paleolithic hunter-gatherers in Spain and Jordan
(funded so far by 14 NSF and NGS grants to Clark and his students) has shown that human
dietary intensification provoked by population/resource imbalances predated the shift to
domestication economies by as much as 10 kyr. (2) Clark's widely cited papers on the history
and role of quantification in archaeological research designs have made significant contributions
to the anglophone research tradition, the most heavily quantified in the world. (3) Since 1987
Clark has been a major writer and lecturer on the epistemological foundations for knowledge
claims in paleolithic archaeology and human paleontology. (4) His recent involvement in
modern human origins research (numerous articles, two books) has shown that data do not
exist independent of the conceptual frameworks that define and contextualize them, and that
paleoanthropologists can only ignore the logic of inference at their peril.
Geoffrey Clark has a stellar record in graduate education, having chaired 19 completed Ph.D.
committees and 32 MA committees (and two BA honors theses). He is, in fact, the department
record holder for graduate degree production. He enjoys working with graduate students and
has been unusually successful at involving them in his research. An NSF Fellow (1967-71), he
has also served on eight NSF graduate fellowship panels. In 1988 Professor Clark received the
Graduate College Distinguished Research Professorship. This award ultimately led to ASU's
acquisition of the Institute of Human Origins (1997). In 1992, he won the Graduate Colleges
Outstanding Mentor Award. His mentoring philosophy makes clear his approach to graduate
education, his construal of the nature of archaeology as a scientific endeavor, and his perception
of the relationship between science, science policy, education, and the public. Clarks doctoral
students have received dissertation funding from a variety of foundations and carried out their
research around the world. These students have gone on to successful careers at Berkeley,
South Carolina, New Mexico State, Iowa State, Cal State Northridge, San Diego State, Montana
State, Marquette, St. Marys, Seoul National, King Saud, Jordan, Arizona, and ASU. Six others
work in museums, the government, or the private sector.
Professor Clark has served on various NEH, NRC, NSF, and AAAS panels. He was elected to the
American Anthropological Associations (AAA) executive board (1986/89, 2001/04), chaired the
AAAs Archeology Division (1997/99), and is currently chair of the AAAS Anthropology Section
(2001/02). Clark has also been involved in anthropological publishing, having created ASU’s
Anthropological Research Papers (ARP), a peer-reviewed and widely distributed monograph
series published under ABOR copyright (53 titles published to date). He was also the
founding editor of the AAAs Archeological Papers (AP3A, 1989/93), the largest anthropological
monograph series in the US (and probably the world). He currently serves as an associate
editor for the American Anthropologist, the AAA flagship journal (1997/02). On the
local level, he has been president of both the ASU and the Arizona chapters of the
AAUP (1979/81), Phi Kappa Phi (1986/87), and the Society of Sigma Xi (1992/93, 1997/98).
A frequent reviewer for NSF, NGS, SSHRC (Canada), NERC (UK) and other funding agencies,
Professor Clark has also served as a reader/referee for more than a dozen national and
international anthropological journals and general science periodicals (e.g., Science).
An active researcher, Geoffrey Clark has presented dozens of invited papers in organized symposia
at the annual meetings of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the AAA. He has also
been invited to lecture on his research at a number of American universities and in 16 foreign
countries. In addition to service on national committees, he won the AAAs prestigious Morton
Fried Prize for the best paper published in the American Anthropologist (1989). A number of his
circa 230 publications have been reprinted in anthologies and other collected works. Clark is a Fellow
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the AAA, the Royal
Anthropological Institute (UK), and the Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales (Spain).
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Select Publications (Download pdf)
Curriculum Vitae (Download pdf)
Contact:
Geoffrey A. Clark
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