Mark Aldenderfer

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Mark S. Aldenderfer (born 1950) is an American anthropologist and archaeologist. He is the MacArthur Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Merced where he was previously the Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts. He has served as Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Aldenderfer received his Ph.D. from Penn State University in 1977. He is known in particular for his comparative research into high-altitude adaptation, and for contributions to quantitative methods in archaeology. He has also served as editor of several journals in anthropology and archaeology.

Contents

Research contributions

His research themes include the origins of settled village life, human adaptation to high altitude environments, hunting and gathering, and early plant and animal domestication. Aldenderfer has made important contributions to understanding the Archaic and Formative period peoples of the south-central Andes through active field projects in southern Peru. He has directed excavation projects at the sites of Asana, Qillqatani, and Jisk'a Iru Muqu, and survey projects in the Osmore valley (Moquegua, Peru) and in river valleys in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Since 1997 he has also conducted research on Buddhist and pre-Buddhist occupations in the Himalaya through field research in far western Tibet. He has also done fieldwork in Mesoamerica, Ethiopia, and in the United States.

Editorial work

From 2008-2018, Aldenderfer served in the role of editor-in-chief for the journal Current Anthropology . [1] He has served as the editor of Latin American Antiquity and the Society for American Archaeology Bulletin (now the SAA Archaeological Record). He is currently a Deputy Editor for the open access journal Science Advances. [2]

Major publications

Papers on Tibetan archeology

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibet</span> Plateau region in Asia

Tibet is a region in the central part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi). It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as the Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba peoples and, since the 20th century, considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui settlers. Since the 1951 annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, the entire plateau has been under the administration of the People's Republic of China. Tibet is divided administratively into the Tibet Autonomous Region, and parts of the Qinghai and Sichuan provinces. Tibet is also constitutionally claimed by the Republic of China as the Tibet Area since 1912.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Titicaca</span> Large freshwater lake on the border of Peru and Bolivia

Lake Titicaca is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. By both volume of water and by surface area, it is the largest lake in South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibetan Plateau</span> Plateau in Central, South and East Asia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plateau</span> Highland area, usually of relatively flat terrain

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Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophies and practices of Tibetan Buddhism. Zhangzhung people are mentioned frequently in ancient Tibetan texts as the original rulers of today's western Tibet. Only in the last two decades have archaeologists been given access to do archaeological work in the areas once ruled by the Zhangzhung.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altiplano</span> Large plateau in west-central South America

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Tibetan Muslims, also known as the Kachee, form a small minority in Tibet. Despite being Muslim, they are officially recognized as Tibetans by the government of the People's Republic of China, unlike the Hui Muslims, who are separately recognized. The Tibetan word Kachee literally means Kashmiri and Kashmir was known as Kachee Yul. The Muslim community in Tibet is very diverse, with Muslims being of Tibetan, Nepalese and Indian ancestry.

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Zhang-Zhung is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in what is now western Tibet. It is attested in a bilingual text called A Cavern of Treasures and several shorter texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jisk'a Iru Muqu</span> Archaeological site in Peru

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This is a list of topics related to Tibet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthias Kuhle</span>

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Matthew T. Kapstein is a scholar of Tibetan religions, Buddhism, and the cultural effects of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. He is Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and Director of Tibetan Studies at the École pratique des hautes études.

John W. Olsen is an American archaeologist and paleoanthropologist specializing in the early Stone Age prehistory and Pleistocene paleoecology of eastern Eurasia. Olsen is Regents' Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Executive Director of the Je Tsongkhapa Endowment for Central and Inner Asian Archaeology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, USA. He is also a Lead Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch in Novosibirsk and Guest Research Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing where he is also Co-Director of the Zhoukoudian International Paleoanthropological Research Center. Olsen has been named a Distinguished Researcher of the Nihewan Research Center in Hebei Province, China. He is also a Foreign Expert affiliated with The Yak Museum in Lhasa, Tibet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asana, Peru</span> Archaeological site in Peru

Asana is an archaeological site by the Asana River, a tributary of the Osmore River, in the south-central Andes of southern Peru. The site is situated at an elevation of 3,430 metres (11,250 ft), with land use documented from 3,000–4,800 metres (9,800–15,700 ft). Asana was occupied over the course of 8,000 years; though the inhabitants were initially mobile foragers, long term habitation was marked at a later phase by residential architecture.

Soro Mik'aya Patjxa is a high-altitude archaeological site located in the Ilave Basin in Peru, about 30 km (19 mi) west of the current shoreline of Lake Titicaca. Soro Mik'aya Patjxa was a seasonal residential site that was reused consistently by hunter-gatherers over a period of over a thousand years.

Zhang Dongju is a Chinese archeologist and an associate professor at the College of Earth and Environmental Sciences of Lanzhou University. Zhang's research determined that the Xiahe mandible found in the Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau shared DNA with fossilized remains found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. This moved to 120,000 years earlier the dates of earliest proven hominin activities in the Tibetan Plateau, and revealed for the first time that the Denisovan hominins had spread throughout Asia rather than being located only near the Denisova Cave. Zhang's work is considered likely to prompt reconsideration of other fossil remains using ancient protein analysis. Discover, Science News, and Nova all named the discovery to their lists of top science stories of 2019.

Chen Fahu is a Chinese geographer, geologist and climatologist who has served as Director of the Institute of Tibet Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2018. He formerly served as professor and Vice President of Lanzhou University, and Dean of the university's College of Earth and Environment Sciences. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences.

Ilave River or Río Ilave is a stream in Peru, located in the Puno Region region, on the Titicaca slope. It flows into Lake Titicaca.

References

  1. "Current Anthropology".
  2. Advances, Science. "Editorial Working Groups". Science Advances. AAAS. Retrieved June 7, 2022.