Ralph Stefan Solecki (October 15, 1917 – March 20, 2019) was an American archaeologist. Solecki was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York in October 1917, the son of Polish immigrants – Mary (nee Tarnowska), a homemaker, and Casimir, an insurance salesman. From 1959 to 1988, he was a member of the faculty at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. His best-known excavations were at the

Neanderthal 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 the ...

site at

Shanidar Cave Shanidar Cave ( ku, Zewî Çemî Şaneder ,ئەشکەوتی شانەدەر, ) is an archaeological site located on Bradost Mountain, within the Zagros Mountains, in the Erbil Governorate of Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. It is known for the ...

, in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. His publications include early works on aerial photography and photo-interpretation as well as two volumes on

Shanidar Shanidar Cave ( ku, Zewî Çemî Şaneder ,ئەشکەوتی شانەدەر, ) is an archaeological site located on Bradost Mountain, within the Zagros Mountains, in the Erbil Governorate of Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. It is known for th ...

(1971, 1972). He was married to fellow archaeologist Rose Solecki, and they were the parents of American geographer William Solecki and

UNHCR The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrat ...

official John Solecki. In 2013, he was interviewed about his work by

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

. He died in March 2019, at the age of 101.

References

External links

*Matthew R. Goodrum: "Ralph Solecki." In: ''Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology''. Edited by Matthew R. Goodrum. (2020) Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uR944nQWfZrH_2vL0yjwoqUs5MI6sifU/view
Ralph Stefan Solecki (b. 1917)
1917 births 2019 deaths American archaeologists American centenarians American expatriates in Iraq American people of Polish descent Columbia University faculty Men centenarians {{US-archaeologist-stub

See also

References

External links