Jeffrey Kevin McKee | |
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Occupation(s) | Biological anthropologist, academic and author |
Academic background | |
Education | BA., Anthropology AM., Anthropology PhD., Anthropology |
Alma mater | Miami University (Ohio) Washington University (St. Louis) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | The University of the Witwatersrand The Ohio State University |
Jeffrey Kevin McKee is an American biological anthropologist,academic,and author. He is a professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Evolution,Ecology,and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University. [1] [2]
McKee's publications comprise books and research articles focusing on biological anthropology,paleoanthropology,and paleoecology. [3] He received an Emmy Award in 2016 [4] and is a Fellow of the Ohio Academy of Science [5] and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [6] Additionally,he has been the Co-editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Ohio Journal of Science. [7]
McKee earned a BA in anthropology from Miami University in 1980,followed by an AM in 1982 and a PhD in 1985 from Washington University,where he also worked as a Computing Consultant and Teaching Assistant. [8]
McKee began his academic career as a senior lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Witwatersrand Medical School from 1986 to 1996. He joined The Ohio State University in 1996 as an adjunct assistant professor and lecturer in the Department of Anthropology,later becoming a lecturer in the Department of Evolution,Ecology,and Organismal Biology in 1999. He was appointed associate professor in both departments in 2000 and has been serving as professor since 2004. [1]
McKee co-founded and convened the Thomas Henry Huxley Society for Synapomorphic Symposia (1993–1995) and served as a Scientific Consultant for the Taung Heritage Site (1992–1995). He also held leadership roles on the board of directors for Sigma Xi from 2003 to 2010,Ohio Citizens for Science from 2002 to 2006,and the Ohio Academy of Science from 2008 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2017. [9]
McKee has also worked in the field,having conducted archaeological surveys in Ohio in 1979 and 1980,followed by Missouri in 1981. [10] In 1982,he excavated human skeletal material at Mammoth Cave,Kentucky. From 1988 to 1996,he served as Field Director and Co-principal Investigator for excavations at Buxton Limeworks,also known as Taung,in South Africa. [11] He directed excavations at Makapansgat Limeworks from 1993 to 1996,was Co-principal Investigator from 1999 to 2001,and Principal Investigator from 2002 to 2006. [12]
McKee has written four books on the topics of human evolution and biodiversity. He published the 4th and 5th editions of Understanding Human Evolution with Frank E. Poirier and W. Scott Mcgraw (1999 and 2005),providing an overview of paleoanthropology focusing on human evolution through fossil analysis,incorporating the latest discoveries,and addressing key debates in the field. Later,he authored The Riddled Chain:Chance,Coincidence and Chaos in Human Evolution exploring how chance and chaos,rather than natural selection alone,shaped human evolution and could have led to entirely different outcomes. In a review for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute ,Goran Strkalj remarked,"Although the subjects McKee discusses are complex and difficult to understand,his easy-going style,rich in interesting and humorous examples and metaphors,makes the book easy to follow for anyone with a grain of intellectual curiosity." [13]
In 2003,McKee published Sparing Nature:The Conflict Between Human Population Growth and Earth's Biodiversity which argued that human population growth drives biodiversity loss,pushing species toward extinction while calling for population control to protect ecosystems. J. Roberts stated that the book "should be mandatory reading for anyone who is concerned about the quality of life on this planet." [14]
McKee's research has spanned paleoanthropology,mammalian paleontology,evolutionary theory,and population genetics,with a focus on paleoecological modeling,mammalian ecology,craniofacial biology,primatology,biodiversity threats,and the intersection of faith and science. [3] Alongside colleagues,he showed that human population growth is linked to increasing numbers of threatened mammal and bird species,predicting a 14% rise by 2050,underscoring the need to control population growth to protect biodiversity. [15] He also analyzed fossil assemblages from southern Africa's Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs to establish a relative chronology,identifying a sequence of sites based on the Faunal Resemblance Index calculated from time-sensitive mammals. [16]
Biological anthropology,also known as physical anthropology,is a social science discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings,their extinct hominin ancestors,and related non-human primates,particularly from an evolutionary perspective. This subfield of anthropology systematically studies human beings from a biological perspective.
Milford Howell Wolpoff is a paleoanthropologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and its museum of Anthropology. He is the leading proponent of the multiregional evolution hypothesis that explains the evolution of Homo sapiens as a consequence of evolutionary processes and gene flow across continents within a single species. Wolpoff authored the widely used textbook Paleoanthropology,and co-authored Race and Human Evolution:A Fatal Attraction,which reviews the scientific evidence and conflicting theories about the interpretation of human evolution,and biological anthropology's relationship to views about race.
Australopithecus (,OS-trə-lə-PITH-i-kəs,-loh-;or is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera Homo,Paranthropus,and Kenyanthropus evolved from some Australopithecus species. Australopithecus is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina,which sometimes also includes Ardipithecus,though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of Australopithecus. Species include A. garhi,A. africanus,A. sediba,A. afarensis,A. anamensis,A. bahrelghazali and A. deyiremeda. Debate exists as to whether some Australopithecus species should be reclassified into new genera,or if Paranthropus and Kenyanthropus are synonymous with Australopithecus,in part because of the taxonomic inconsistency.
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist,best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil found of Australopithecus africanus,an extinct hominin closely related to humans,at Taung in the North of South Africa in the Northwest province.
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans,a process known as hominization,through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae,working from biological evidence and cultural evidence.
Java Man is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Indonesia). Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old,it was,at the time of its discovery,the oldest hominid fossil ever found,and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus.
Sterkfontein is a set of limestone caves of special interest in paleoanthropology located in Gauteng province,about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Johannesburg,South Africa in the Muldersdrift area close to the town of Krugersdorp. The archaeological sites of Swartkrans and Kromdraai are in the same area. Sterkfontein is a South African National Heritage Site and was also declared a World Heritage Site in 2000. The area in which it is situated is known as the Cradle of Humankind. The Sterkfontein Caves are also home to numerous wild African species including Belonogaster petiolata,a wasp species of which there is a large nesting presence.
Taung is a small town situated in the North West Province of South Africa. The name means place of the lion and was named after Tau,the Chief of the Legoya or Bataung people. Tau is the Tswana word for lion.
Australopithecus africanus is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. The species has been recovered from Taung,Sterkfontein,Makapansgat,and Gladysvale. The first specimen,the Taung child,was described by anatomist Raymond Dart in 1924,and was the first early hominin found. However,its closer relations to humans than to other apes would not become widely accepted until the middle of the century because most had believed humans evolved outside of Africa. It is unclear how A. africanus relates to other hominins,being variously placed as ancestral to Homo and Paranthropus,to just Paranthropus,or to just P. robustus. The specimen "Little Foot" is the most completely preserved early hominin,with 90% of the skeleton intact,and the oldest South African australopith. However,it is controversially suggested that it and similar specimens be split off into "A. prometheus".
Marc R. Meyer is an archaeologist and anthropologist who is notable for his excavation of,and research into,the remains of fossil hominids such as Australopithecines and early genus Homo. He currently lectures at Chaffey College,Rancho Cucamonga,CA.
The Taung Child is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung,South Africa. Raymond Dart described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925.
Phillip Vallentine Tobias was a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He was best known for his work at South Africa's hominid fossil sites. He was also an activist for the eradication of apartheid and gave numerous anti-apartheid speeches at protest rallies and also to academic audiences.
The turnover-pulse hypothesis,formulated by paleontologist Elisabeth Vrba,suggests that major changes to the climate or ecosystem often result in a period of rapid extinction and high turnover of new species across multiple different lineages. Changes may include climate change,tectonic plate shifting,and catastrophes,among other things. It can be seen as an extension of the concept of evolutionary radiation from a single to a multi-clade context.
Lee Rogers Berger is an American-born South African paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He is best known for his discovery of the Australopithecus sediba type site,Malapa;his leadership of Rising Star Expedition in the excavation of Homo naledi at Rising Star Cave;and the Taung Bird of Prey Hypothesis.
Makapansgat is an archaeological location within the Makapansgat and Zwartkrans Valleys,northeast of Mokopane in Limpopo province,South Africa. It is an important palaeontological site,with the local limeworks containing Australopithecus-bearing deposits dating to between 3.0 and 2.6 million years BP. The whole Makapan Valley has been declared a South African Heritage Site. Makapansgat belongs to the Cradle of Humankind.
Jean-Jacques Hublin is a French paleoanthropologist. He is a professor at the Max Planck Society,Leiden University and the University of Leipzig and the founder and director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,Germany. He is best known for his work on the Pleistocene hominins,and on the Neandertals and early Homo sapiens,in particular.
John Hawks is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also maintains a paleoanthropology blog. Contrary to the common view that cultural evolution has made human biological evolution insignificant,Hawks believes that human evolution has sped up in recent history.
Gondolin Cave is a fossiliferous dolomitic paleocave system in the Northwest Province,South Africa. The paleocave formed in the Eccles Formation dolomites. Gondolin is currently the only described hominin-bearing fossil site in the Northwest Province-portion of the designated Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cave is located on privately owned land and is not accessible to the public. As is the case with other South African Paleo-cave systems with Pliocene and/or Pleistocene fossil deposits,the system was mined for lime during the early 20th century. As a result,the system has been heavily disturbed and consists of only a small active cave,a series of in situ remnant cave deposits,and extensive dumpsites of ex situ calcified sediments produced during mining activities.
Haasgat is a fossiliferous South African paleocave located in the Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Area,approx. 20 kilometres (12 mi) northeast of the hominin-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans and approx. 60 kilometres (37 mi) north-northwest of the City of Johannesburg. It is located on private land and is not accessible by the public.
The Osteodontokeraticculture (ODK) is a hypothesis that was developed by Prof. Raymond Dart,which detailed the predatory habits of Australopith species in South Africa involving the manufacture and use of osseous implements. Dart envisaged Australopithecus africanus,known from Taung and Sterkfontein caves,and Australopithecus prometheus from Makapansgat,as carnivorous,cannibalistic predators who utilized bone and horn implements to hunt various animals,such as antelopes and primates,as well as other Australopiths.