Joseph Birdsell | |
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Born | Joseph Benjamin Birdsell March 30, 1908 |
Died | March 5, 1994 | (aged 85)
Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University |
Occupation | anthropologist |
Known for | study of Aboriginal Australians |
Notable work | The Birdsell model |
Relatives | John Birdsell (grandfather) |
Awards | Guggenheim 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.