Geoffrey Ainsworth Harrison

FRAI The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

(8 June 1927 – 14 September 2017) was an English biological anthropologist who taught at the University of Oxford.

Early life and education

Harrison was born in Teddington, Middlesex, England, on 8 June 1927. He received a 1st class degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read natural sciences. At Cambridge, he became interested in anthropology after attending a lecture on '' Australopithecus'' by paleontologist Robert Broom. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford for his work on the adaptation of mice to warm environments, which he conducted under the supervision of

Joseph Weiner Joseph Sidney Weiner FRCP FRAI (29 June 1915 – 13 June 1982) was a South African-born British human biologist and environmental physiologist. He was influential and among other things helped expose the Piltdown hoax. He was President of the R ...

Academic career

Harrison's first academic position was as a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, where he studied skin pigmentation. In 1963, he joined the faculty at Oxford as Reader in Physical Anthropology, where he was appointed Professor of Biological Anthropology in 1976. As a faculty member at Oxford, he was noted for his central role in the founding of the Human Sciences degree. He also helped to establish Oxford's Diploma in Human Biology, the Department of Biological Anthropology (later the Institute of Biological Anthropology), and the MSc in Human Biology. He retired from Oxford in 1994, though he continued to write and conduct research for an additional 20 years. He received the

Huxley Memorial Medal The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

from the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

in 1987 for his work 'Social Heterogeneity and Biological Variation' although no papers on this are held by the institute.

Professional affiliations

Harrison was president of the

from 1969 to 1970. He was also chair of the Society for the Study of Human Biology and of the Biosocial Society, as well as a member of many learned societies.

Death

Harrison died in Oxford, England, on 14 September 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Geoffrey Ainsworth 1927 births 2017 deaths English anthropologists People from Teddington Fellows of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Presidents of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Academics of the University of Oxford Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Liverpool Alumni of the University of Oxford Physical anthropologists