John Shea - Anthropology - Social Science - Arts/Humanities

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Expert Profile: John Shea

Expertise: Questions about Old World prehistoric archaeology (especially Stone Age) of Europe, Africa, and Western Asia, prehistoric human and hominid behavior, primitive technology, origin of modern humans, extinction of the Neandertals.

Publications
Journal of Field Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science, Lithic Technology, Evolutionary Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Mitekufat HaEven (Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society), Paléorient, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, American Anthropologist, Geoarchaeology.

Education/Credentials
Ph.D (Anthropology) Harvard University, 1991.
BA (Archaeology) Boston University, 1982.

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What do you like about this subject? I like that it puts our current problems into longer-term evolutionary perspective. It also give me an opportunity to explore the lives of Ice Age humans. Many of the cultural and biological resources we have available to solve our own problems reflect these earlier humans' adaptive strategies.

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field? I hope to learn more about the range of human behavioral variability. A lot of anthropologists stereotype earlier humans as unintelligent creatures whose lives were shaped by environmental change. I think humans have been fundamentally creative, clever, and inclined towards experiment for much of our evolutionary past. If I can increase our under

Something interesting about this subject that others may not know: Many accounts of modern human origins link the emergence of Homo sapiens to the appearance of Ice Age art around 36,000 years ago. Yet, anatomically-modern-looking humans were already present in much of Africa, Southwest Asia more than 100,000 years ago.

Something controversial or provocative about this subject Fossil and archaeological evidence from the Middle Paleolithic period (47,000-245,000 BP) in Southwest Asia, that Neandertals may have displaced earlier populations of modern humans (e.g., the Skhul/Qafzeh humans). See http://www.athenapub.com/8shea1.htm for my take on this issue.

Average Ratings
Prestige Points: 3898
Knowledge	9.96 Best of the best
Clarity of Response	9.95 Best of the best
Timeliness	9.91 Best of the best
Politeness	10.0 Best of the best
Number Of Questions (in Past 24 Hours)		0
Max Questions to be Asked (in 24 Hour period)		5
Total Questions (since joining AllExperts)		459

Recent Reviews from Users

Knowl	Clarity	Time	Politeness	Date
8	8	10	10	10/20/08
10	10	10	10	10/22/08
10	10	10	10	10/20/08
10	10	10	10	10/01/08
10	10	10	10	08/09/08

User Comments

Thank you for your response. You have suggested further avenues for research.
(Will on 10/22/08)

Thanks! You are one of the few experts that actually answer questions instead of sending "I dunno" notes :S
(Drake on 10/20/08)

Terrific John. Many thanks for your time. Tony
(Tony on 10/01/08)

That's the one I was looking for! Thank you so much! I am going to buy a DVD and make all my friends to watch it :) Mindblowing stuff for us that thou
(Espen on 08/09/08)

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Recent Answers from John Shea

2008-11-25 Snowshoes: Dear Karl When I was a kid, my French-speaking grandmother called these things "raquettes" (sing. la raquette). I don't think Iniut/Eskimo use snowshoes much, but forest-dwelling Athapaskans do. The...

2008-11-22 Radiocarbon dating of animal bones.: Randy I thought I answered this two days ago. Radiocarbon is the best method for those materials (bone). It is not perfect, and there can be contamination issues. For a sample from the last 3000 years...

2008-11-10 regarding moustache in chimps: Dear Nain It (human male mustache) probably had something to do with sexual selection -advertising male health/fitness to potential mates at an early phase in our evolution. Some monkeys have analogous...

2008-10-23 early human food: Madison From variaiton in the Nitrogen and Carbon isotope composition of their bones, we know the Neandertals at a lot of meat and fat, mainly from large terrestrial mammals that were grazers (mammoth...

2008-10-20 Human Evolution: Dear Alejandra Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives from both a genetic and morphological standpoint. For more about this, consult any basic college-level textbook on physical anthropology...