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F. Clark Howell (1925–2007) Palaeoanthropologist Who Defined a Discipline

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F. Clark Howell (1925–2007) Palaeoanthropologist Who Defined a Discipline NEWS & VIEWS NATURE|Vol 447|3 May 2007 OBITUARY F. Clark Howell (1925–2007) Palaeoanthropologist who defined a discipline. F. Clark Howell was the principal architect In 1956, he attended the conference and prime mover of the multidisciplinary marking the centennial anniversary study of human evolution in the past of the Neanderthal fossil discovery in half-century. In a career during which he Germany, and last summer was the came to personify palaeoanthropology, keynote speaker at the 150th anniversary Howell distinguished himself through celebrations in Bonn. his unbounded curiosity, unparalleled Howell displayed an unparalleled ability scholarship, inspirational leadership, to operate effectively at the interface of modesty and humanity. He died in Berkeley, numerous disciplines. And more than any California, on 10 March. other biological anthropologist, he was able Howell was born in Kansas City in 1925. to maintain a career-long balance that met and excavations in Turkey. His official Raised on a small farm, he attended a the demands of substantive and extended retirement in 1991 allowed him to become one-room Kansas schoolhouse until the fieldwork in the Old World; of professional even more active in advising, writing, 1937 recession changed much of the organization, communication and teaching; conducting field and laboratory work, US Midwest to a dust bowl, and Howell’s and of a commitment to promoting and and enjoying life. The Howells travelled father became a travelling salesman. funding research by young scholars from all abroad almost yearly to visit friends and After service as a navy signalman in the over the world. institutions in dozens of countries across Pacific during the Second World War, Howell Although Howell conducted three the world. Howell also read voraciously met the palaeontologists George Gaylord excavation seasons at Acheulean sites in Spain in many languages throughout his career. Simpson, Franz Weidenreich and Ralph von in the 1960s, his signature work came with His knowledge was correspondingly Koenigswald, then working at the American his leadership of the American contingent of encyclopaedic, covering subjects as diverse as Museum of Natural History in New York. the International Omo Research Expedition Neogene carnivoran palaeontology, Turkish These meetings proved Howell’s inspiration, in southern Ethiopia between 1967 and 1973. tectonics, classical jazz, palaeolithic typologies and he enrolled under the GI Bill of Rights as This project put his philosophy and skills and molecular systematics. an undergraduate at the University of Chicago on international display, and set standards In science, Howell’s influence went beyond in 1947, completing a PhD in anthropology for the field as we now know it. Thousands academia. His indefatigable efforts with the there in 1953. of vertebrate fossils, including dozens Leakey Foundation over 38 years enabled Howell went on to teach anatomy at of hominid specimens, were recovered generations of students to expand and Washington University, St Louis, and in from precisely documented stratigraphic enrich our knowledge of human evolution. 1954 embarked on his first journey to a and palaeoenvironmental contexts. The In the words of a former student, Howell mostly still-colonial Africa. During this era of multidisciplinary, international “made good things happen by putting six-month study tour, Howell became friends palaeoanthropology had begun. the right people together in a common with such pioneers of African prehistory as Howell worked tirelessly to make the cause”. During his final four years, he did Raymond Dart, and Louis and Mary Leakey. knowledge generated by his science accessible this again by assembling and steering the Returning to the University of Chicago as to a general audience, and so attracted new largest-ever palaeoanthropological research assistant professor in 1955, Howell, together generations of students to it. In the 1960s, enterprise, the Revealing Hominid Origins with Sherwood Washburn, helped Africa to with illustrator Jay Matternes and author Initiative funded by the National Science emerge as the focus of a new, multifaceted Maitland Edey, he created the Early Man Foundation’s HOMINID programme, approach to research on human origins and volume for the Time-Life Nature series. He aiming to illuminate the trunk of humanity’s evolution that brought together strands from was senior scientific adviser to MGM for family tree. geology, climatology, ecology, archaeology, an Emmy-nominated network-television Howell’s achievements and published evolutionary biology and many other documentary, The Man-Hunters, that featured work, honoured by numerous awards and disciplines. his Omo fieldwork. appointments, were broad, and will be In 1957 and 1958, together with his wife Howell left Chicago in 1970 to join the lastingly influential. In a field where transient Betty, Howell excavated ‘Acheulean’ sites University of California, Berkeley, founding celebrity is sometimes associated with containing hand-axes from the Middle the Laboratory for Human Evolutionary finding particular hominid fossils, Howell Pleistocene at Isimila in the highlands of Studies (now the Human Evolution never sought popular adulation. He was a what was then Tanganyika. In 1959, he Research Center), and continuing his scholar’s scholar, as the many tributes paid made a preliminary survey of fossil-bearing multidisciplinary researches there. Berkeley by colleagues on his death show (http:// deposits in the lower Omo Valley of southern was thus placed at the forefront of human- herc.berkeley.edu/fc_howell_memorial). Ethiopia, and was in Nairobi, Kenya, to origins research. On the international He brought his unique combination of receive at first hand the news of Mary Leakey’s front, hard on the heels of US President knowledge, wisdom, vision and generosity to momentous discovery of the early hominid Richard Nixon’s historic trip to the bear in steadfast advocacy of the developing Australopithecus in the Olduvai Gorge. People’s Republic of China, Howell led science of human evolution. ■ From the very start of his career, however, the first National Academy of Sciences Tim D. White Howell’s interest in human evolution was not anthropological delegation to that country Tim D. White is at the Human Evolution Research confined to Africa, but spanned all continents in 1975. Center and the Department of Integrative Biology, and epochs. From the 1950s onwards, he In the early 1980s, Howell returned to University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, published work bringing together Eurasian Spain for further excavations, moving on California 94720, USA. palaeobiology, archaeology and geology. at the decade’s end to extensive surveys e-mail: [email protected] 52.
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