2009 Rydell ProfessorshipFeaturing Curtis Marean

Curtis Marean

Marean is a professor at the Institute of Human Origins as part of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he teaches courses on the Stone Age of Africa, prehistoric and historic hunter-gatherers, zooarchaeology, and paleoecology. During the last decade he has put more effort into on-site archaeological excavations. In 2007, Marean and colleagues announced that they had found the oldest known evidence for the use of coastal resources, dating back to about 164,000 years ago, in Cave 13B at Pinnacle Point on the South African coastline near Mossel Bay within the Cape Floral Kingdom.

Dr. Marean was a speaker at the Nobel Conference in 2008.

Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist and expert on human origins, provided at Gustavus during his residency. Marean’s lecture was titled “The Cape Floral Kingdom, Shellfish, and Modern Human Origins: Trans-disciplinary Problems Require Trans-disciplinary Projects.” Marean explored how his research off the coast of South Africa shows the earliest evidence for behaviorally modern people. As part of his residency at Gustavus, Marean co-taught a cultural anthropology course with Gustavus Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies Karen Larson.