J. Desmond Clark

John Desmond Clark ( born April 10, 1916 in London, † 14 February 2002 in Oakland ) was a British archaeologist who also conducted research in the field of anthropology and paleoanthropology. He was considered one of the foremost experts of the 20th century for prehistoric cultures in Africa. In 1981, he was the initiator of the Middle Awash Research Project, the numerous findings earlier Hominini owe. He shortened his name from always and described himself as J. Desmond Clark.

Career

J. Desmond Clark grew 60 km west of London, in the small village of Northend in the Chiltern Hills, and took over from his father and grandfather as a child whose interest in antiquities. He attended Monkton Combe School in Bath, and then Christ's College, Cambridge University. There he studied for two years history and then at a pioneer of the study of Stone Age tools, Miles Burkitt (1890 - 1971), archeology and anthropology. In these subjects, he acquired in 1937 the Bachelor's degree. Since his applications for a job in England did not succeed, he a three -year agreement as curator accepted in the same year at the David Livingstone Memorial Museum in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and also worked as a secretary for the newly established Rhodes - Livingstone Institute in Lusaka.

1940 Clark earned his master's degree at Cambridge and then made ​​from 1941 to 1946 as a paramedic service in World War II. Locations have included Ethiopia, where he incidentally had the opportunity to collect prehistoric stone tools, as well as Kenya, where he conducted excavations with Louis and Mary Leakey. 1950/51 Clark returned to Cambridge to his promotion to finish (Ph. D. ). He then moved back to Livingstone, expanded the museum and was its director ( until 1961 ).

From 1961 to 1986, Clark Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1970, he earned a second doctorate degree ( Sc. D. ).

Research

J. Desmond Clark was one of the first archaeologists who explored the prehistoric African residential places systematically. His specialty was the dating of stone tools. In 1953 he discovered near the Kalambo cases a residential place, which has been inhabited since the Acheulian to the Iron Age and is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Africa.

After his appointment as a professor at Berkeley, he built the local paleoanthropology - together with Glynn Isaac and later Francis Clark Howell and Tim White - the world's most important institution for the study of early African Hominini from. From 1981 until his death he worked as a director and co-director for the Middle Awash Research Project on Middle Awash in Ethiopia. Above all, it is today's knowledge due to the use of tools of the Awash River discovered early hominids. At the same time he made ​​sure that African students received financial support from abroad to be trained as archaeologists and anthropologists. In this way he made ​​a major contribution that today African scientists - as Berhane Asfaw and Yohannes Haile - Selassie - are active in African archaeological sites.

In 1991, he convinced the Government of the People 's Republic of China, foreign archaeologists to issue an excavation permit after 40 years; He was then the first foreigner to which such permission was granted.