Gary O. Rollefson (born August 2, 1942) is a Near Eastern prehistoric archaeologist.
Gary O. Rollefson was born in Forest City, Iowa. He was the oldest of three boys. In 1957, the Rollefson family moved to Long Beach, California where he completed high school. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated in 1965 receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology. [1]
After serving as a translator in the Vietnam War, [1] he went on to study anthropology at the University of Arizona, where he was awarded a Master of Arts in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1978. [2]
Rollefson spent five years working at cave sites in Israel [1] while working toward his dissertation entitled, A Quantitative and Qualitative Typological Analysis of Bifaces from the Tabun Excavations, 1967-1972. [2]
In 1978 Rollefson went to Jordan on a fellowship, working at archaeological sites outside Amman, Jordan, and in 1985 made a significant discovery of 8,000-year-old plaster figurines at the ancient settlement of 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan. [3] 'Ain Ghazal is one of the largest known Neolithic agricultural settlements in the Near East. Rollefson continues to do work in the region today. [1] He has lectured and published extensively. His articles have appeared in a number of journals including American Antiquity , Current Anthropology , Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research , Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and Holocene .
He has held various teaching positions throughout the United States, Jordan and Germany since 1970. Currently, he is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, [2] and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at San Diego State University.
He leads educational journeys to Jordan for Far Horizons Archaeological and Cultural trips
Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1.
Robert McCormick Adams Jr. was an American anthropologist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1984–94). He worked in both the Near East and Mesoamerica. A long time professor of the University of Chicago, he was best known for his research in Iraq.
Ayn Ghazal is a Neolithic archaeological site located in metropolitan Amman, Jordan, about 2 km north-west of Amman Civil Airport. The site is remarkable for being the place where the ʿAin Ghazal statues were found, which are among the oldest large-sized statues ever discovered.
Oleg Grabar was a French-born art historian and archeologist, who spent most of his career in the United States, as a leading figure in the field of Islamic art and architecture in the Western academe.
Alexander H. JoffeAlex Joffe is an archaeologist and historian of the Near East.
Frank Moore Cross Jr. was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opusCanaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy. Many of his essays on the latter topic have since been collected in Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook.
The Zarqa River is the second largest tributary of the lower Jordan River, after the Yarmouk River. It is the third largest river in the region by annual discharge and its watershed encompasses the most densely populated areas east of the Jordan River. The Zarqa rises in springs near Amman, and flows through a deep and broad valley into the Jordan, at an elevation 1,090 metres (3,580 ft) lower.
Plastered human skulls are human skulls covered in layers of plaster and typically found in the ancient Levant, most notably around the modern Palestinian city of Jericho, between 8,000 and 6,000 BC, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art.
Clive Stephen Gamble, is a British archaeologist and anthropologist. He has been described as the "UK’s foremost archaeologist investigating our earliest ancestors."
Peter Michael Warren, is a British archaeologist and academic, specialising in the Aegean Bronze Age. From 1977 to 2001, he was Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Bristol, where he is currently Professor Emeritus and a senior research fellow at the university.
Rolfe D. Mandel is a Distinguished Professor of archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kansas as well as Senior Scientist and Executive Director of the Odyssey Geoarchaeological Research Program at the Kansas Geological Survey. Initially trained as a geographer, he has been a major figure in defining the subdiscipline of geoarchaeology and has spent the last thirty years focusing on the effects of geologic processes on the archaeological record. His primary research interests include geoarchaeology, Quaternary soils, geology, paleoecology, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction in the Great Plains region of the United States as well as the Mediterranean. Over the years, Mandel has participated in numerous research projects and has served as an editor to multiple journals and a book. His work has been key in promoting an interdisciplinary approach in archaeology, geology, and geography.
The American Center of Research (ACOR) is a private, not-for-profit scholarly and educational organization. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, with a facility in Amman, Jordan, ACOR promotes knowledge of Jordan and the interconnected region, past and present. Prior to 2020, ACOR was known as The American Center of Oriental Research.
The ʿAin Ghazal statues are a number of large-scale lime plaster and reed statues discovered at the archaeological site of ʿAin Ghazal in Amman, Jordan, dating back to approximately 9000 years ago, from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period. A total of 15 statues and 15 busts were discovered in 1983 and 1985 in two underground caches, created about 200 years apart.
Hani Hayajneh is a professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and civilizations at Yarmouk University, Jordan. He is expert in the field of cultural heritage studies, especially the Intangible cultural heritage. His research focuses on areas including the cultural history and heritage of the Arabian Peninsula from ancient periods to modern times. He represented Jordan on cultural heritage issues in the Intergovernmental Committee of the UNESCO Convention for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Burton MacDonald was a Canadian biblical archaeologist specialising in the archaeology of Jordan. He was a professor at St. Francis Xavier University from 1965 to 2005, then a Senior Research Professor, and was made Professor Emeritus in the Religious Studies department in 2017.
Ilse Köhler-Rollefson is a German scientist known for championing pastoralism, Ethnoveterinary medicine and camels with special reference to India. She helps the Raika people whose way of life was under threat because of their dependence on camels and she decided to help. In 2017 she was awarded the highest award for women in India, the Nari Shakti Puraskar and, in 2018, the Federal Cross of Merit of the German Federal Government.
Zeidan A. Kafafi is a Jordanian archaeologist and academic who has directed and otherwise contributed to numerous excavations in and around Jordan and has assisted the institutional development of local academic institutions. He is a Professor Emeritus who recently served as the President of Yarmouk University.
Edward Bruce (Ted) Banning is a Canadian archaeologist and professor at the University of Toronto. He was born in Montreal in 1955 but has lived in Toronto for most of his life. His research focuses on the beginnings of village life and political-economic inequality in southwest Asia, especially in the Neolithic, and concentrates on the southern Levant. He has also been very involved in theoretical and methodological research on archaeological survey.
Wadi Shuʿeib is a Neolithic archaeological site in Wadi Shuʿeib, Jordan. Considered a "mega-site", it consists of the remains of large village occupied through the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and Late Neolithic periods.
The Madaba Plains Project, or MPP, was founded by veterans of the Heshbon Expedition to continue archaeological survey and excavations research in the hills and plains between Amman and Madaba. MPP is notable for its longevity and influence on archaeology in Jordan. An estimated 2,000 plus students, volunteers and professors have participated in MPP's projects over the past fifty years and MPP is considered Jordan's longest ongoing archaeological project.