Richard Potts

Professorial Lecturer in Anthropology
Director, Human Origins Program, Smithsonian Institution
E-mail pottsr@si.edu
Office: National Museum of Natural History, rm. 351 / (202) 633-1984

Dr. Potts is a paleoanthropologist with extensive field experience in Kenya, China, and elsewhere. His focus is on human origins, especially the development of human adaptability in changing Pleistocene environments.

Research

A major long-term project is a study of environmental dynamics and hominid evolution in China, funded jointly by U.S. and Chinese agencies.

Selected Publications

Book

1996	Potts, R. Humanity's Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. New York: William Morrow & Co.

Articles and Book Chapters

2007	Wang, W., R. Potts, Y. Baoyin, W. Huang, H. Cheng, R. Edwards, and P. Ditchfield. "Sequence of mammalian fossils, including hominoid teeth, from the Bubing Basin Caves, South China," Journal of Human Evolution 52(4): 370-79.
2007	Potts, R., "Environmental context of Pliocene human evolution in Africa." In R. Bobe, Z. Alemseged, and A.K. Behrensmeyer, eds., Hominin Environments in the East African Pliocene: An Assessment of the Faunal Evidence. New York: Springer.
2004	Potts, R., A.K. Behrensmeyer, A. Deino, P. Ditchfield, and J. Clark. "Small Mid-Pleistocene hominin associated with East African Acheulean technology," Science 305: 75-78, with supporting online material: (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5680/75/DC1).

Course Taught

Anth 247: Paleoanthropology

Education

Ph.D. 1982, Harvard University
B.A. 1975, Temple University