Howell, F(rancis) Clark

▪ 2008

      American anthropologist

born Nov. 27, 1925 , Kansas City, Mo.

died March 10, 2007, Berkeley, Calif.

utilized experts in several areas of study, including biology, ecology, geology, and primatology, to establish paleoanthropology as a multidisciplinary science in the study of early human origins. Howell conducted extensive field research in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and he earned a Ph.D. (1953) from the University of Chicago. During the early 1950s he taught anatomy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., but he then returned to his alma mater, where he taught (1955–70) physical anthropology. Howell went on to serve (1970–91) as professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he founded the Human Evolution Research Center. Perhaps his best-known work was Early Man (1965), a volume that contained illustrations of early hominids, beginning with a Neanderthal and evolving to the modern Homo sapiens; these drawings were used to teach the concept of human evolution and were featured in the Time-Life Nature Library series. Howell was a founding member of the Leakey Foundation, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Charles Darwin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Physical Anthropology. In addition, he was an adviser for the Encyclopædia Britannica.

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