Robert Andrew Foley, FBA (born 18 March 1953) is a British

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

, and academic, specialising in

human evolution ''Homo sapiens'' is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism, bipedalism, de ...

. From 1977 to 1985, he was a lecturer in anthropology at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to ...

. He has been a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, since 1987, and Leverhulme Professor of Human Evolution at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

since 2003.

Early career

Foley was born on 18 March 1953 in

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

, England, to Nelson and Jean Foley. He was educated at

Ardingly College Ardingly College () is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day school in the English Public school (UK), public school tradition located near Ardingly, West Sussex, England. The school ...

and

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

where he earned an MA and PhD in archaeology. While an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, he was a member of the University of Cambridge Archaeological Field Club (AFC).

Academic career

From 1977 to 1985, Foley was a

lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

at the

. He then returned to the

to take up a post in the Department of Biological Anthropology. From 1986 to 1998, he was a lecturer in

Biological Anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a natural science discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly fro ...

. Since 1987, he has been a

. From 1998 to 2003, he was reader in

evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the human evolution, evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Vari ...

. He co-founded the

Leverhulme The Leverhulme Trust () is a large national grant-making organisation in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1925 under the will of the 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), with the instruction that its resources should be used to cover ...

Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies in 2001 with Marta Mirazón Lahr, and has been its director since its inception. The centre was designed to provide a home for the Duckworth Collection, and first class laboratories and facilities to support research in human evolution which integrated genetics, anthropology, and other fields. In 2003, he was appointed Leverhulme

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of Human Evolution.

Research

Foley has carried out research in many aspects of evolutionary theory, human evolution, prehistory and more recently human evolutionary genetics. His early work was on the

Later Stone Age The Later Stone Age (LSA) is a period in African prehistory that follows the Middle Stone Age. The Later Stone Age is associated with the advent of modern human behavior in Africa, although definitions of this concept and means of studyi ...

of East Africa, where he developed methods and ideas to study the landscape distributions of artefacts, giving rise to the sub-field of Off-Site Archaeology. In his work on human evolution he has emphasized an evolutionary ecological approach, seeing human adaptations as solutions to the problems faced by hominins in the environments in which they were living. This evolutionary research has also explored the relationship between climate and evolutionary change, the evolution of social behavior (finite social space model), and patterns of

hominin The Hominini (hominins) form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos), and in standard usage exclude the genus '' Gorilla'' ( gorillas) ...

diversity. This approach was summarized in two books – Another Unique Species, and Humans Before Humanity. Since the 1990s, Foley has collaborated with Marta Mirazón Lahr on research relating to the evolution of modern humans and their diversity. Their work has argued for multiple dispersals of early humans out of Africa, and the use of the ‘southern route’. Their approach has emphasized the role of geographical factors in shaping human evolution, and a central role for dispersals as the process by which diversity evolves. He has co-led expeditions and archaeological excavations with Mirazon Lahr in the Solomon Islands, the Central Sahara, and Kenya, particularly in the Turkana Basin. In Turkana, Foley and Mirazon Lahr study the late Quaternary record of human occupation in the basin, and have recently described a group of 10,000 year-old skeletons from the site of Nataruk that died as part of conflict between hunter-gatherer bands. In the last decade, Foley has been involved in several aspects of evolutionary psychology and linguistics, exploring questions related to the evolution of human cognition, human language and its use as a mechanism is the evolution of society and social boundaries. He has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

of 51 according to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

Honours

In 2007, Foley was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

(FBA).

References

Selected publications

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External links

Robert A. Foley's homepageRobert Foley on Academia.edu

Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 27 April 2010 (video)The Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foley, Robert 1953 births Living people People educated at Ardingly College Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Fellows of King's College, Cambridge British evolutionary biologists Human evolution theorists Fellows of the British Academy People from Sussex Academics of Durham University English prehistorians