Integrative Paths to the Past: Paleoanthropological Advances in Honor of F. Clark Howell, edited by Robert S. Corrnccini and Russell L. Ciochon, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1994.

Pamela R Willoughby

doi:10.5334/bha.05209

Abstract

F. Clark Howell retired from the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. At Berkeley, and earlier while at the University of Chicago, he was responsible for training a number of specialists in human biocultural evolution, or palaeoanthropology. In fact, Howell is credited with developing the concept of palaeoanthropology (and defining the term itself); he certainly created the framework for this integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to human evolution. For his retirement, former students and colleagues collaborated to produce this volume. Some of the papers were presented at a one day symposium reviewing the highlights of Howell's career along with current research directions in palaeoanthropology. It took place during the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association held in San Francisco in 1992. Bowell's long time colleague J. Desmond Clark gave the distinguished lecture at the same meeting. During his career, Howell directed excavations at Isimilain Tanzania, as well as Torralba and Ambrona in Spain (all extensive Acheulean localities), but is best known for his work west of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. It was there during the 1960s and 1970s that he developed the methods and approaches which would come to characterize the best of palaeoanthropological research.

Highlights

Numerous, often spectacular, hominid discoveries made the names and careers of th ir discoverers-Richard Leakey at East Turkana and Donald Johanson at Hadar.·A number of people have suggested that Clark Howell never became "famous" because he failed to discover as many fossil hominid remains, or did not publicize them in the way that others did
Geologists and palaeontologists were able to create a sequence of depositional units and fossil speCies which provide the basis for correlating sites elsewhere in the Lake Turkana basin, and even further north into the Hadar and Middle Awash regions where the earliest hominid remains (AustralQPithecus afarensis, and most recently, A.. raroidus) have been recovered
I outline the facts for each species in turn, focus on the debate about the significance of this information

Summary

Introduction

When he began to work here, Howell chose to focus on under standing the palaeoenvironmental and geolOgical history of the region, rather than just prospecting for hominid fossils. East Africa for understanding the framework in which early hominid evolution occurdre .

Results

Conclusion