Jan F. Simek | |
---|---|
InterimChancellor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville | |
In office 2008–2009 | |
Preceded by | Loren Crabtree |
Succeeded by | Jimmy Cheek |
Jan F. Simek (born April 15,1953) is an American archaeologist and educator who was the interim president of the University of Tennessee system from 2009 to 2010.
A faculty member in the department of anthropology at the University of Tennessee,Knoxville,Simek's research interests include Paleolithic archaeology,human evolution,quantitative analysis,spatial analysis,archaeology of the southeastern United States,and cave archaeology. He has been involved in the discovery and exploration of numerous “Unnamed Caves”,a naming practice used to protect their location,in the Cumberland Plateau for the past fifteen years. He has been instrumental in the discovery of prehistoric artwork;dating back thousands of years. He has also conducted important research in France at Neanderthal habitation sites. [1]
Before his stint as interim president of the University of Tennessee system,he served in leadership and administration positions including department head,interim Director of the School of Art,interim Dean of Architecture and Design,and interim Chancellor of the University of Tennessee Knoxville.
Simek was born April 15,1953,in Glen Cove,New York. His mother,Susan Tours Simek,served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and worked after the war at the new Radio Free Europe in Germany,where she met her future husband,Vasek. [2] His father,Vasek Simek,was a Czechoslovakia-born New York theater director and Hollywood character actor whose roles included Soviet premiers,Russian chess players,and ambiguously “foreign”scientists. [1] Jan Simek grew up in California.
Simek received a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1976 and master's and Ph.D. degrees from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1978 and 1984,respectively.
Simek began his career research in Europe where he studied Neanderthal habitation sites. He and his colleague,Jean-Phillippe Riguad,began excavating a site in southwestern France,called Grotte XVI,in the mid-1980s. [3] Their research has aided in the understanding of Neanderthal ways of life. Specifically,Simek and Riguad found evidence revealing more sophisticated Neanderthal behavior than what was widely thought possible. Their discovery of well-preserved fireplaces,including ashes of several different types of wood as well as different grasses,within Grotte XVI,suggests that Neanderthals may have been using fire in complex ways. [3] The types of grasses found in the fireplace remains would have had to be carried in from outside the cave,dried,and then used to start fires. [3] Furthermore,evidence was found to suggest that Neanderthals may have even been using the grasses to create enough smoke to repel mosquitoes. [3] The presence of fish bones in the cave suggested that Neanderthals were smoking fish for later use. [3] Simek’s research discoveries provide contrasting evidence against the idea that Neanderthals were incapable of planning ahead,or imagining the future.
He joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee anthropology department in 1984 and advanced in rank to become a distinguished professor of anthropology. In addition to his faculty duties,he served the university as head of the anthropology department,interim director of the School of Art,and interim dean of the College of Architecture and Design. He was interim chancellor of the university's Knoxville campus for one year (from January 2008 to January 2009),after having been chief of staff to the chancellor from 2005 to 2008. He became acting president of the university system on March 1,2009,after John D. Petersen announced his resignation,and he became interim president on July 1,2009,when Petersen's resignation became official. [4] [5] [6]
He has conducted archaeological research in France,Italy,Croatia,California,and Tennessee,and has spent time at the University of Washington,the University of Bordeaux,and the Autonomous University of Barcelona as a visiting faculty member. [4]
Inspired by one of his colleagues,Charles Faulkner,Simek developed a passion for ancient cave art in Tennessee. Although petroglyphs had been noticed on Tennessee cave walls for years,Faulkner was the first to conduct an archaeological study of the artwork in 1979. [7] Faulkner’s study inspired Simek to pursue his own research of early southeastern prehistoric cave art. Since 1979,many other caves have been discovered. Sites such as- Third Unnamed Cave,provide contextual information on dark zone cave art. [7] The findings in these caves force scholars to rethink the analytic and interpretive approaches used in considering Southeastern cave art. [7] The archaeological contents of the cave were not fully appreciated until Simek and a team of archaeologists from the University of Tennessee spent time researching and documenting detailed findings of the cave. [7] more than 15,000 artifacts were mapped and recovered from Third Unnamed Cave. [7] This same attention to detail has become a recurring practice in the caves Simek and his colleagues continue to visit. [8] [9] While many of the caves yielding art have been dated back to the Mississippian period,some images are thought to be from the Woodland and even Archaic period. Third Unnamed Cave,for example,possesses the same kind of characteristics such as simple shapes,meandering lines,and geometric patterns similar to other cave art depictions dated to be Archaic. [7]
Simek became the founder of the Cave Archeology Research Team at the University of Tennessee in 1996. [10] The team has gone on to produce substantial findings which offer a glimpse into once lost Native American cultures and traditions. Many of the cave images exemplify classic Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) iconography,which is found widely in Eastern North America in the centuries around 1200 A.D.,a part of Mississippian culture that is yet to be fully understood.
Much of the artwork related to the SECC is quite gruesome,which has inspired some archaeologists to refer to it as the “Southern Death Cult”. [1] Recurring images include the Toothy Mouth,a round,severed head with gore spilling out of the neck. [1] The face encases weeping eyes and an exaggerated grin. [1] This image is commonly found where dead are buried.
In archaeology,cave paintings are a type of parietal art,found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. These paintings were often created by Homo sapiens,but also Denisovans and Neanderthals;other species in the same Homo genus. Discussion around prehistoric art is important in understanding the history of the Homo sapiens species and how Homo sapiens have come to have unique abstract thoughts. Some point to these prehistoric paintings as possible examples of creativity,spirituality,and sentimental thinking in prehistoric humans.
The Mousterian is an archaeological industry of stone tools,associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe,and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latter part of the Middle Paleolithic,the middle of the West Eurasian Old Stone Age. It lasted roughly from 160,000 to 40,000 BP. If its predecessor,known as Levallois or Levallois-Mousterian,is included,the range is extended to as early as c. 300,000–200,000 BP. The main following period is the Aurignacian of Homo sapiens.
The Châtelperronian is a proposed industry of the Upper Palaeolithic,the existence of which is debated. It represents both the only Upper Palaeolithic industry made by Neanderthals and the earliest Upper Palaeolithic industry in central and southwestern France,as well as in northern Spain. It derives its name from Châtelperron,the French village closest to the type site,the cave La Grotte des Fées.
Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil is a former commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It was created in 1973 by the merger of two former communes:Les Eyzies-de-Tayac and Sireuil. On 1 January 2019,it was merged into the new commune Les Eyzies.
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly,it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago,according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in early modern humans,until the advent of the Neolithic Revolution and agriculture.
Spy Cave is located in Wallonia near Spy in the municipality of Jemeppe-sur-Sambre,Namur Province,Belgium above the left bank of the Orneau River. Classified as a premier Heritage site of the Walloon Region,the location ranks among the most significant paleolithic sites in Europe. The cave consists of numerous small chambers and corridors.
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil,often referred to as AbbéBreuil,was a French Catholic priest,archaeologist,anthropologist,ethnologist and geologist. He is noted for his studies of cave art in the Somme and Dordogne valleys as well as in Spain,Portugal,Italy,Ireland,China with Teilhard de Chardin,Ethiopia,British Somali Coast Protectorate,and especially southern Africa.
Prehistoric France is the period in the human occupation of the geographical area covered by present-day France which extended through prehistory and ended in the Iron Age with the Roman conquest,when the territory enters the domain of written history.
Harold Lewis Dibble was an American Paleolithic archaeologist. His main research concerned lithic reduction;he conducted fieldwork mainly in France,Egypt,and Morocco. He was a professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator-in-Charge of the European Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
The Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in France since 1979. It specifically lists 15 prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley in the Dordogne department,mostly in and around Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil,which has been called the "Capital of Prehistory". This valley is exceptionally rich in prehistoric sites,with more than 150 known sites including 25 decorated caves,and has played an essential role in the study of the Paleolithic era and its art. Three of the sites are the namesakes for prehistoric periods;the Micoquien,Mousterian,and Magdalenian. Furthermore,the Cro-Magnon rock shelter gave its name to the Cro-Magnon,the generic name for the European early modern humans. Many of the sites were discovered or first recognised as significant and scientifically explored by the archaeologists Henri Breuil and Denis Peyrony in the early twentieth century,while Lascaux,which has the most exceptional rock art of these,was discovered in 1940.
The details about Neanderthal behaviour remain highly controversial. From their physiology,Neanderthals are presumed to have been omnivores,but animal protein formed the majority of their dietary protein,showing them to have been carnivorous apex predators and not scavengers. Although very little is known of their social organization,it appears patrilines would make up the nucleus of the tribe,and women would seek out partners in neighbouring tribes once reaching adolescence,presumably to avoid inbreeding. An analysis based on finger-length ratios suggests that Neanderthals were more sexually competitive and promiscuous than modern-day humans.
Lynne Sullivan is an American archaeologist and former Curator of Archaeology for the Frank H. McClung Museum located on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville,Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Tennessee (undergraduate) and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,Sullivan is renowned for her research and publications on subjects such as Southeastern United States prehistory,Mississippian chiefdoms,mortuary analysis,and archaeological curation. She has been a major contributor to the feminist/gender archaeology movement through her studies in social inequality,gender roles,and the historic significance of women in the development of modern archaeology.
Dust Cave is a Paleoindian archaeology site located in northern Alabama. It is in the Highland Rim in the limestone bluffs that overlook Coffee Slough,a tributary of the Tennessee River. The site was occupied during the Pleistocene and early Holocene eras. 1LU496,another name for Dust Cave,was occupied seasonally for 7,000 years. The cave was discovered in 1984 by Dr. Richard Cobb and initially excavated in 1989 under Dr. Boyce Driskell from the University of Alabama.
Charles Harrison McNutt III was an American archaeologist and a scholar of the prehistoric Southeastern United States. He conducted fieldwork and published works on the archaeology of the American Southwest and the Great Plains in South Dakota. His work emphasized on a strong understanding of cultural history and statistical analysis.
Jefferson Chapman is an archaeologist who conducted extensive excavations at sites in eastern Tennessee,recovering evidence that provided the first secure radiocarbon chronology for Early and Middle Archaic period assemblages in Eastern North America. He also is a research professor in anthropology and the Director of the Frank H. McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee,Knoxville. Chapman’s professional interests include Southeastern archaeology,paleoethnobotany,museology and public archaeology.
Le Regourdou is an archaeological site in the Dordogne department,France,on top of a hill just 800 m (2,600 ft) from the famous cave complex of Lascaux. At this now collapsed 35 m (115 ft) deep ancient karst cavity remarkably well preserved Neanderthal fossils were recovered,that might be skeletal remains of deliberate burials. According to the current excavation team at the site,the correct name of the location is "Regourdou". "Le Régourdou" is considered a misnomer and should be avoided.
Carolina Mallol was born in Barcelona,Spain in 1973,and is a professor and researcher of archaeological science at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife,Spain.
The Grotte de Gabillou also known as Grotte de las Agnelas is a cave in France in which prehistoric ornaments stemming from the paleolithic period exist. It is situated in the commune of Sourzac in the department of Dordogne,Nouvelle Aquitaine and is a private property. Its sediments are from the Maastrichtian era.
Painted Bluff is a cliff overlooking the Tennessee River in Marshall County,Alabama that features over 130 individual prehistoric Native American pictographs and petroglyphs. Painted Bluff is located about 4 miles (6.4 km) downstream from the Guntersville Dam and is only accessible by boat. The bluff is divided into three levels:the low ledge along the river,a middle ledge above it,and a high ledge near the top of the cliff face. A small cave is located along the low ledge.
The Ancient Art Archive (AAA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation,visual documentation,and sharing of prehistoric works of art,particularly cave painting and petroglyphs,around the globe. The organization was founded in 2016 by photographer Stephen Alvarez following an assignment to photograph France's Chauvet Cave for National Geographic. As part of its mission to create and distribute 3D images of ancient artwork for educational purposes—many of which are threatened by climate change,mining operations,and vandalism—the Archive has launched the Mural of America,a collaboration of anthropologists,archaeologists,and Native American artists to document and provide cultural and scientific context to ten North American cultural landmarks. In 2022,members of the Archive team received wide media attention for their use of 3D photography in uncovering previously unseen cave art in Alabama's 19th Unnamed Cave.