Richard Klein, Stanford University
Professor
Stanford, California
RKlein@stanford.edu
Office:
(650) 725-9819
Expert In
Bio/Research
My primary interest is in the co-evolution of anatomy and behavior in human evolution. My research is mainly on ancient animal remains as indicators of early human ability to make a living. I have analyzed more than 100 assemblages of animal fossils, primarily from southern African archaeological...
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Bio/Research
My primary interest is in the co-evolution of anatomy and behavior in human evolution. My research is mainly on ancient animal remains as indicators of early human ability to make a living. I have analyzed more than 100 assemblages of animal fossils, primarily from southern African archaeological sites dating between 700,000 years ago and the historic present. I am currently directing excavations at a site 70 km NNW of Cape Town that dates from the Last Interglacial interval, between roughly 115,000 and 70,000 years ago. The animal remains show that the inhabitants exploited coastal resources much less efficiently than people who occupied the same coast during Present Interglacial (Holocene). The change in foraging efficiency probably occurred about 50,000 years ago and it helps explain the simultaneous expansion of anatomically modern humans from Africa to Eurasia, where they replaced the Neanderthals and other non-modern Eurasians.
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