Alison S. Brooks
| Dr. Alison S. Brooks | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Awards | Médaille d'Honneur of the City of Toulouse, Doctor of Letters honoris causae, and Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Faculty Scholarship |
| Website |
anthropology |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Thesis year | 1979 |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Anthropologist |
| Sub discipline | Paleoanthropologist and Paleolithic archaeologist |
| Institutions | George Washington University, Smithsonian Institution |
Alison S. Brooks is an American paleoanthropologist and Paleolithic archaeologist.[1] Her work is mainly in Africa and Northern China, dealing with the question of the origin of Homo sapiens.[1]
Biography
Alison Brooks is a Paleoanthropologist and Paleolithic archaeologist.[1] She works in Africa and Northern China.[1] One of her many fields of study is the Middle Stone Age; with sites in the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia and the Olorgesailie Basin, Southern Kenya Rift.[1]
She is one of the most prominent figures in the debate over where Homo sapiens evolved and when.[1] In 1979, she got her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University.[2] She has been a professor at George Washington University since 1988.[2]
Along with being a professor and an archaeologist, she is also a Research Associate in Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[2] Alison Brooks is also involved in the development and implication of new heritage policies in Africa.[2] Her work has taken her all over the world, including projects in: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Sweden, France, China, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Kenya.[2]
Research
Because she is such a big member of the human evolution debate, a lot of her research centers around human evolution and modern human behavior.[3][4][5] Modern human behavior is generally thought of a s beginning in Europe with the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, but Brooks thinks differently.[3] Her first argument is that the first Europeans were Africans after the second Out of Africa movement.[3] She argues that modern human behavior was visible in Africa in the Middle Stone Age, way before it was visible in Europe.[3] She has also found evidence of tools being used in Africa way before they were being made in Europe, which feeds into the modern human behavior argument in favor of Africa.[4] She found tools that are typically found in Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe in a site that was dated to the Middle Stone Age in Africa; along these tools were: barbed points and specialized bone tools.[4]
Another key point in the modern human behavior debate is the early fishing evidence that Brooks found on the lakeshore of Ishango in Zaïre.[5] Fishing is considered to be part of the Upper Paleolithic/Later Stone Age and part of modern human behavior. This fishing industry in central, northern, and eastern Africa are all based on bone harpoons found at sites.[5] She also looks at geoarchaeology in the Northwest Kalahari.[6] This area, compared to others, is very poorly known and researched.[6] There are lots of Later Stone Age sites here, as well as Middle Stone Age site.[6]
Important writings
- Brooks, Alison S.; Smith, Catherine C. (1987) "Ishango Revisited: New Age Determinations and Cultural Interpretations". African Archaeology Review. 5 (1)
- McBreaty, Sally; Brooks, Alison S. (2000) "The Revolution That Wasn't: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Behavior Human Behavior". Journal of Human Evolution. 39 (5)
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Alison Brooks | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program". humanorigins.si.edu. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Alison S. Brooks | Elliott School of International Affairs | The George Washington University". elliott.gwu.edu. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
- 1 2 3 4 McBrearty, Sally; Brooks, Alison (2000). "The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior". Journal of Human Evolution. 39 (5): 453–563. doi:10.1006/jhev.2000.0435.
- 1 2 3 Yellen, John; Brooks, Alison; Cornelissen, Els; Mehlman, Michael; Stewart, Kathlyn (1995). "A middle stone age worked bone industry from Katanda, Upper Semliki Valley, Zaire". Science: 553.
- 1 2 3 Brooks, Alison; Smith, Catherine (1987). "Ishango revisited: new age determinations and cultural interpretations". African Archaeological Review. 5 (1): 65–78. doi:10.1007/BF01117083.
- 1 2 3 Helgren, David; Brooks, Alison (1983). "Geoarchaeology at Gi, a middle stone age and later stone age site in the Northwest Kalahari". Journal of Archaeological Science. 10 (2): 181–197. doi:10.1016/0305-4403(83)90051-1.