J.B. Birdsell was born in South Bend, Indiana on March 20, 1908. When he was 23 years old, he attended MIT and received a science degree. In 1941 he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Birdsell began his career at College of Washington, Pullman where he taught anthropology. He moved to Los Angeles in 1943 and taught at UCLA from 1947 to 1975 and during this time there he met his wife, Roselin.
Birdsell mainly dealt with the Aborigine culture in Australia. He led expeditions down to Australia with Harvard and UCLA. His studies dealt mostly with the evolution of man. He was a member of the American Anthropological Society, Society for American Archaeology, American Society for Human Genetics, Society for the Study of Evolution, and the American Association of Physical Anthropology. Dr. Birdsell also completed three books in his lifetime. They are, Races, a Study of Race formation in Man, Human evolution: An Introduction to the New Physical Anthropology, and Microevolutionary Patterns in Aboriginal Australians: A Gradient Analysis of Clines.
References
Former link, http://clolek.com/wwwvlpages/aborigpages/history.html, (May, 2000)
May, Hal. Contemporary American Authors, Gale Research Company, Detroit, MI, 1987
http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/dprice/deadbook.htm, American Anthropology Obituary Index
Written By: Adam Williamson