Kent Flannery

After doing graduate work in zoology, Flannery became a zooarchaeologist on projects led by Robert Braidwood (Iran), Frank Hole (Iran), Michael Coe (Guatemala), Richard MacNeish (Mexico and Peru), and Joyce Marcus (Peru).  From 1966 to 1980 he directed the University of Michigan “Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico.”  This project (co-directed by Joyce Marcus from 1973 onward) investigated the origins of agriculture at Guilá Naquitz Cave and Cueva Blanca, and the origins of village life and social inequality at San José Mogote, Huitzo, and Abasolo in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Research Areas(s)

• Sociopolitical evolution, including the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal domestication
• the origins of sedentary life in villages
• the transition from egalitarian tribal societies to societies based on hereditary rank
• and the rise of kingdoms in Mexico, Peru, and the Near East

Affiliation(s)

• Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (Curator)

Award(s)

• Elected to National Academy of Sciences, 1978
• Honorary doctorate, University of Pennsylvania, 1987
• Alfred Vincent Kidder Medal, 1992
• Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996
• Elected to the American Philosophical Society, 2004
• Henry Russel Lecturer, University of Michigan, 2008