C. Wesley Cowan (born September 4, 1951 in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

) is an American anthropologist,

auctioneer An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

, and appraiser of

antiques An antique ( la, antiquus; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely ...

. He is an owner of Cowan's Auctions, Inc. in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Education and career

Cowan is a licensed auctioneer in

and received a B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology from the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

."BIO: Wes Cowan"
''cowanauctions.com'' After receiving his Ph.D., he taught at the Anthropology Department of

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. In 1984, Cowan moved to

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

to be the Curator of Archaeology at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History & Science. He has published in the fields of American archaeology and paleoethnobotany. In 1995, he left academia and founded his antiques business, Cowan's Auctions, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cowan has been a regular in the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

series ''

Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people (g ...

'' and ''

History Detectives ''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on Public Broadcasting Service, PBS. It features investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or ...

''.

Selected publications

Books

* Cowan, C. Wesley; Watson, Patty Jo, (editors)
''The Origins of Agriculture in International Perspective''
Tuscaloosa, Alabama : The University of Alabama Press, January 28, 2006 (originally published in 1992 by The Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. ) * Brose, David S.; Cowan, C. Wesley; Mainfort, Robert C., (editors), ''Societies in Eclipse: Eastern North America at the Dawn of European Colonization'', Washington, S.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. * Brose, David S.; Cowan, C. Wesley; Mainfort, Robert C., (editors)
''Societies in Eclipse: Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands Indians, A.D. 1400-1700''
Tuscaloosa, Alabama : The University of Alabama Press, 2010 * Cowan, C. Wesley, ''First farmers of the middle Ohio Valley : Fort Ancient societies, A.D. 1000-1670'', Cincinnati, Ohio : Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, 1987

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowan, Wes American antiques experts American television personalities Male television personalities Living people 1951 births University of Michigan alumni American auctioneers Television personalities from Louisville, Kentucky University of Kentucky alumni