Joseph Birdsell

Joseph Birdsell
Born
Joseph Benjamin Birdsell

(1908-03-30)March 30, 1908
DiedMarch 5, 1994(1994-03-05) (aged 85)
EducationMassachusetts Institute of Technology,
Harvard University
Occupationanthropologist
Known forstudy of Aboriginal Australians
Notable workThe Birdsell model
RelativesJohn Birdsell (grandfather)
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship (1946)

Joseph Benjamin Birdsell (March 30, 1908 – March 5, 1994) was an American anthropologist known for his work on Indigenous Australians, which spanned from the 1930s through to the 1970s. He was a long-serving professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is best known for his "tri-hybrid" model of human migrations into Australia, which proposed three distinct waves of racially distinct populations. The "Birdsell model" was popular in the mid-20th century, but was later found to be unsupported by scientific evidence.