Professor F. Clark Howell

Francis Clark Howell, palaeoanthropologist: born Kansas City, Missouri 27 November 1925; Instructor in Anatomy, Washington University 1953-55; Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Chicago University 1955-59, Associate Professor 1959-62, Professor 1962-70; Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley 1970-91 (Emeritus); married 1955 Betty Ann Tomsen (one son, one daughter); died Berkeley, California 10 March 2007.

F. Clark Howell was one of the fathers of palaeoanthropology, the science of study of human evolution. He will be best remembered for almost single-handedly establishing the scientific basis for the subject through his publications, his approach to fieldwork and through his personal influence on his students and collaborators.

The background to Howell's research work derived from two distinct influences: the study of living primates as a way into understanding human behaviour; and the archaeological background to human evolution. This set the stage for Howell's research - the integration of multiple scientific disciplines into a coherent whole.

An early outcome of this approach was the hugely influential book African Ecology and Human Evolution (1963), an international survey of African environments and cultural and biological evolution of man. This book, and the 1961 conference in Austria on which it was based, brought together workers in geology, climatology, palaeoecology, palaeontology, primate behaviour, palaeoanthropology, archaeology and human ecology, and the cross-fertilisation that ensued from this mixing of minds enormously advanced our knowledge of human evolution. Howell put it thus:

Interpreting the ecosystems under which the Middle and Early Upper Pleistocene human populations existed needs close investigation and the aid of geologists, botanists and zoologists, since reconstruction of the ecology is fundamental to an understanding of man's cultural achievements and social and economic attainments. This in turn rests on team excavation work of selected occupation sites.

Two years later, in 1965, Howell published Early Man, which brought together what was then known about human evolution. This was also a highly influential book, which inspired many students to take up careers in palaeoanthropology, myself included. These were early days in the study of human evolution, with little known about the time and place of human origins, but even then Howell understood that all lines of evidence were important.

He extended his overview from the fossil apes at one end of the evolutionary scale to studies of living hunter-gatherer peoples at the other, with of course the fossil evidence for human ancestry in between. This scope has rarely been repeated, even in today's multidisciplinary investigations, and it is a tribute to his vision that he established this principle so long ago.

Francis Clark Howell was born in Kansas, Missouri, in 1925 and grew up on a farm. He joined the US Navy during the Second World War. After the war he began to study palaeoanthropology, what he termed "stones and bones", the subject which had been his main interest from schooldays and which remained his passion for the rest of his life. He studied at the University of Chicago, receiving his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, and after a brief spell at Washington University he returned to Chicago to teach from 1955 to 1970.

From 1970 he was Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley until his retirement in 1991 as Emeritus Professor, continuing his research work and his ever-expanding influence. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the Charles Darwin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Physical Anthropology. He was a founder member and trustee of the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation for Anthropological Research, and for many years he was chairman of its science and grants committee which has been instrumental in supporting much anthropological research since its founding 39 years ago.

Underlying the multidisciplinary approach to his writing, Howell was perhaps even more influential in applying the same principle to fieldwork. From the start, Howell realised that modern fieldwork requires the collaboration of scientists from many different disciplines in exactly the same way as advocated in his publications. This approach was demonstrated in his fieldwork on the Omo River deposits in Ethiopia during the late 1960s, the first large-scale international collaboration in palaeoanthropology. This produced collections of fossils from a three-million-year sequence of strata which has set the standard for multidisciplinary field work in palaeoanthropology. He also directed work at important sites in Turkey (Yarimburgaz) and Spain (Ambrona) following the same principles.

One of the results of Howell's broad approach to scientific research was that he was often the peacemaker in a contentious field of research. It was not his way to promote himself at the expense of others, or to push his discoveries to greater prominence than others. As a result, in a field where there is much dispute, he was universally liked and respected.

Howell was also a strong believer in the value of making the results of academic research accessible to the general public. He brought his many gifts to bear to this end. He had great personal charm and he was articulate both in speech and writing. Indeed, his best-known book, Early Man, was written not as a textbook but as a popular account of human evolution.

This ability was founded on profound knowledge of the progress of study of human evolution based on his extensive personal library and on his continuing interaction with students and colleagues. He remained active in research until his final illness.

Peter Andrews

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