M. Steven Shackley (Steve), Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Earth and Planetary Science, UC Berkeley, received the Society for American Archaeology’s Fryxell Medal (Physical Science) in 2019 and the Award for Excellence in Archaeological Analysis (Lithics [stone tools]) in 2011. Dr. Shackley received his BA in Environmental Geology and Anthropology from San Diego State University in 1979, his MA in Anthropology in 1981, and a PhD in Anthropology from Arizona State University in 1990.
Steve has directed the Geoarchaeological XRF Laboratory since 1990, first as an NSF-sponsored (National Science Founation) lab at UC Berkeley, and now as a private lab in Albuquerque focused on whole rock and metals artifact analyses. His research, though mainly in the Southwest, includes lithic and obsidian provenance studies worldwide, including Neanderthal procurement in the Caucasus of Russia, early Homo sapiens obtaining obsidian in the Ethiopian Rift Valley, East Africa, and continuing projects in northwest Mexico and Mesoamerica.
(What is XRF [X-ray fluorescence]?)
Steve has taught many undergraduate and graduate courses, including XRF Lab Practicum, Geoarchaeological Science, Lithic Technology, Data Analysis and Computational Methods, Method and Theory, Field Practice in Archaeological Petrology, Southwest Archaeology (with Judith Habicht-Mauche, University of Southern California, Santa Cruz), and Museum Anthropology.