Photo: Linda M. Nicholas

His JMA tenure at Kiel started in November

In early November, we welcomed the well-known US archaeologist Gary Feinman and his wife and research partner Linda Nicholas to Kiel. Gary Feinman is the holder of the JMA chair for the coming months until the end of February. Feinman and Nicholas look forward to discussing new projects with Kiel colleagues and to plan joint activities.

Gary Feinman received his B.A. in Anthropology at the University of Michigan and received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from City University of New York-Graduate Center in 1980. In his scientific work, he has specialized in the study of complex human societies – how and why they arose, the different ways they were organized and changed over time, and how the economies of these ancient social formations were underpinned and interrelated with their political and social institutions.

Currently Gary Feinman and Linda Nicholas both work for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where Feinman holds the position of MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American, and East Asian Anthropology.

Geographically, one of the foci of both colleagues is the study of pre-Columbian political and economic relations in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Since 1995, both also have been part of a collaborative team of North American and Chinese scholars studying the Late Neolithic through Han period in Shandong, China.
Feinman is also the founding and contact co-editor of the Journal of Archaeological Research, which is the top-ranked journal based on Impact Factor in Archaeology and Anthropology. He also is an Editorial Board member of Human Ecology and Cross-Cultural Research.  He served a term as the Editor of Latin American Antiquity. Feinman was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received the Presidential Recognition Award from the Society for American Archaeology.

While in Kiel, Gary Feinman and Linda Nicholas will collaborate with colleagues in ROOTS and in particular with the subcluster “Roots of Inequalities”. A public lecture with Gary Feinman will be announced separately.