Andrew Hill (1946–2015) was a British

palaeoanthropologist Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinsh ...

and

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

. He was the J. Clayton Stephenson Professor of Anthropology at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

Education and career

Hill was born on 6 June 1946, in

Huthwaite Huthwaite is a village in Nottinghamshire, England, located to the west of Mansfield, close to the Derbyshire boundary. It is in the Huthwaite and Brierley ward of Ashfield District Council. Before 1907 the village was known as Hucknall-under- ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

. He studied

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

and palaeontology at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

, graduating in 1967, and published his first scientific paper, on fossil

chordate A chordate () is an animal of the phylum Chordata (). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five synapomorphies, or primary physical characteristics, that distinguish them from all the other taxa. These fi ...

s, the following year. He then completed a PhD under William Bishop at Bedford College. Hill began conducting research in East Africa in 1968. After finishing his PhD in 1975, he obtained a research position with the

National Museums of Kenya The National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a state corporation that manages museums, sites and monuments in Kenya. It carries out heritage research, and has expertise in subjects ranging from palaeontology, archeology, ethnography and biodiversit ...

(NMK) and later became the director of the International Louis Leakey Memorial Institute for African Prehistory in Nairobi. Whilst based in Kenya, he conducted fieldwork at

Lake Baringo Lake Baringo is, after Lake Turkana, the most northern of the Kenyan Rift Valley lakes, with a surface area of and an elevation of . The lake is fed by several rivers: the Molo, Perkerra and Ol Arabel. It has no obvious outlet; the waters ar ...

and also the

Sivalik Hills The Sivalik Hills, also known as the Shivalik Hills and Churia Hills, are a mountain range of the outer Himalayas that stretches over about from the Indus River eastwards close to the Brahmaputra River, spanning the northern parts of the India ...

in Pakistan. One of his discoveries was the Laetoli Tuffs, where

Mary Leakey Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA (née Nicol, 6 February 1913 – 9 December 1996) was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised ''Proconsul'' skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also disc ...

later found the famous "Laetoli footprints". In 1981, Hill moved to the United States for a

postdoctoral fellowship A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and in 1985 obtained a faculty position at

. He remained at Yale for the rest of his career, serving as a

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

from 1992, the J. Clayton Stephenson Professor of Anthropology from 2006, the chair of the department of anthropology from 2000 to 2006, and a curator and head of division at the

Peabody Museum of Natural History The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Oth ...

. Hill was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009.

Personal life

Hill was married to Sally McBrearty, an American palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Andrew 1946 births 2015 deaths British anthropologists British palaeontologists Alumni of the University of Reading Alumni of Bedford College, London Harvard University faculty Yale University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science