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Francis Clark Howell (November 27, 1925 – March 10, 2007), generally known as F. Clark Howell, was an American
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...
. Born in
Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
, F. Clark Howell grew up in
Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
, where he became interested in natural history. He served in the
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
during World War II, from 1944 to 1946 in the Pacific Theater. Howell was educated at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the ...
, where he received his Ph.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees under the tutelage of Sherwood L. Washburn. Dr. Howell died of metastatic lung cancer on March 10, 2007 at age 81 at his home in
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Em ...
.


Academic career

Howell began his career in the Anatomy Department of
Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University ...
in
St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...
, in 1953, and stayed there for only two years before moving back to his alma mater, the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the ...
. He went on to spend the next 25 years of his career there in the Department of
Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
. He achieved a professorship in 1962 and became chairman of the department in 1966. In 1970, Howell moved to the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
following his mentor Washburn. This time he stayed for good, remaining a professor and then an emeritus until his death. Howell's early work focused on ''
Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While ...
'' for which he made trips to Europe beginning in 1953. His later work brought him to Africa, the cradle of mankind. From 1957 to 1958 he worked at Isimila, Tanzania, where he recovered enormous hand-axes dating from the
Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associate ...
(260,000 years old). Continuing his study of the Acheulean period he excavated in Spain (1961 to 1963) at the sites of Torralba and Ambrona which are 300,000 to 400,000 years old. At none of these sites did he find skeletal material however. That had to wait until he worked on lower
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the '' Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed i ...
deposits dating from 2.1 - 0.1 Mya in the Omo River region of southern
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
. There he found vertebrate fossils of
monkeys Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
as well as
hominids The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (th ...
. It was here that he also pioneered new dating methods based on
potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...
-
argon Argon is a chemical element with the symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third-most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as ...
radioisotope A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transfer ...
techniques.


Other interests

Howell was an proponent for scientific research of all kinds and strongly believed in popularizing science. He demonstrated this through many of his non-academic interests and efforts. Howell was instrumental in the creation of the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. Subsequently he served the Foundation as Science Advisor, Chairman of the Science and Grants committee, and then trustee until his death. Howell also played significant roles in several other evolution and natural sciences organizations including the Stone Age Institute in Bloomington IN, the Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC), the Institute for Human Origins ('IHO'), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the
National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding t ...
('NCSE') and the Human Evolution Research Center ('HERC') at the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
, which he co-managed for over thirty years with his colleague Tim D. White. Howell was also a science advisor and later president, trustee and fellow of the
California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...
. Since 2013, Howell has been listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education. At various times, Howell served on the editorial boards of Encyclopædia Britannica, World Book/Childcraft and Science Year, National Geographic and Time-Life Books (now part of Time Warner). Finally, Howell wrote a popular mainstream book on human evolution, ''Early Man'', which was published in 1965 as part of the Time-Life's LIFE Nature Library series (see ''March of Progress'' (illustration)). In February 2007 one month before his death he sat down for interviews totaling 8 hours with Samuel Redman of the
Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
's Oral History Center.


Honors

Howell was a member of the United States'
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Na ...
, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...
, and the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
. He was also a member or fellow of the science institutes and academies of France, Britain and South Africa. He received the Charles Darwin Award for lifetime achievement from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and the Leakey Prize in 1998 from the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. The California Academy of Sciences awarded him its Fellows Medal in 1990. At least seven extinct species are named for him. The species name ''howelli'' designates two mollusks, two ancestral species of civet cats, one hyena, an ancestral antelope and a primate of the loris family.


Writings

In addition to ''Early Man'', a volume of the Life Nature Library, Howell wrote more than 200 scientific papers and reviews. *Chapter on
Hominidae The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...
in Evolution of African Mammals, edited by Vincent Maglio and Basil Cooke (1978).


References

*Matthew R. Goodrum: "Francis Clark Howell." In: ''Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology''. Edited by Matthew R. Goodrum. (2020) Available at
Francis Clark Howell.pdf
* *
''Science Journal''''SF Gate'' (San Francisco Chronicle)
- Obituary

- Obituary
''Daily Californian''
(student paper of the University of California at Berkeley) *Brian David Howell (son) - Photograph and personal details


External links

*
''UC Berkeley News'' - "Famed paleoanthropologist Clark Howell has died"F. Clark Howell
A blog about F. Clark Howell's cancer treatment, written by his son Brian Howell.
L.S.B Leakey FoundationOral History Transcripts
Transcripts and video clips courtesy of the Bancroft Oral History Center. {{DEFAULTSORT:Howell, Francis Clark 1925 births 2007 deaths American paleoanthropologists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Deaths from lung cancer Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American anthropologists American military personnel of World War II University of Chicago alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Members of the American Philosophical Society