 Randall
White
Position: Professor
of Anthropology
Education: B.A.
1976, Alberta
Ph.D. 1980, Toronto
E-mail: randall.white@nyu.edu
Phone: 212-998-8571
Research Sites: Abri
Castanet in south west France
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Professor
Randall White entering the 400-meter-deep cave at Sergeac
in the Dordogne |
Research
Focus: Randall White is Professor
of Anthropology at New York University and one of the world’s
leading specialists in the study of Paleolithic art and personal
adornment. White
was one of the
first to recognize the evolutionary importance of personal
adornment and its critical role in the organization and demographic
expansion
of modern humans. His work on the origins of art and personal adornment
in Europe has taken him to various museums from France to Russia.
He recently published the lavishly illustrated book
Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind (New York:
Harry Abrams, 2003).
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The Abri Castanet excavations at Sergeac in the Dordogne
region of SW France |
White has worked on the Upper Paleolithic cultures of France
for more than 30 years and is currently director of excavations
at the 35,000 year old ornament-rich site of Abri Castanet in
SW France. He is also a member of several other research teams
and is responsible for the analysis and publication of hundreds
of early Upper Paleolithic personal ornaments from modern excavations
at sites such as Isturitz, Brassempouy and Arcy-sur-Cure.
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Some
of the hundreds of Aurignacian ivory beads from Abri Castanet
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In
1993 White was instrumental in the re-discovery, authentification
and publication of a long-missing private collection of seven
Ice Age female statuettes from Grimaldi, Italy. This work led
him to undertake a massive study of more than 100 Gravettian
female statuettes, bringing into focus the techniques used
to fabricate them and new directions in their interpretation.
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Professor
Randall White in Berlin, Germany, studying the shell ornaments
from the Combe-Capelle burial. |
Over
the past twenty years White has been instrumental in bringing
to light, and publishing important Paleolithic collections
acquired early in this century
by North American museums. This endeavor has led him to a detailed investigation
of the history of French Paleolithic archaeology. His most recent book (2006),
entitled L’affaire de l’abri du Poisson : mythes et vérités,
is the first in a series of planned historical works on French Paleolithic
archaeology in the crucial period immediately prior to World War
I. He is currently working on a second, more massive volume entitled,
Préhistoire et patrie : l’affaire
Hauser et la politique de l’avant-guerre.
Downloadable cv
Recent
and Selected Publications:
- White,
R. 2007. Systems of Personal
Ornamentation in the Early Upper Palaeolithic:
Methodological Challenges and New Observations. In, Mellars,
Paul, Boyle, Katie, Bar-Yosef, Ofer and Stringer, Chris (eds.)
Rethinking the Human Revolution: New Behavioural and Biological
Perspectives on the Origin and Dispersal of Modern Humans. Cambridge,
UK, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 287-302.
(McDonald Institute Monographs).
- White,
R.W. 2007.
From
Puente Viesgo to Central Park West : Hugo Obermaier, Nels Nelson
and the American Museum of Natural History’s collections
from Cantabrian Spain. in Maillo,
J. and Baquedano eds., Miscelánea en Homenaje a Victoria
Cabrera, Vol.
I. Madrid : Zona Arqueológica 7, pp. 58-77.
- Henry-Gambier,
D & R. W. White. 2006. Modifications
artificielles des vestiges humains aurignaciens de la grotte
des Hyènes et de la
galerie Dubalen. Quelle signification. El centenario de la
cueva de El Castillo : el ocaso de los Neandertales. V. Cabrera
and F. Bernaldo de
Quiros (eds.)
Madrid:
Madrid: Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia.
- White,
R. W. 2006. L'affaire de l'abri du Poisson:
Patrie et préhistoire. Périgueux: Editions
Fanlac.
(abstract)
- White,
R. W. 2006.
The
Women of Brassempouy: A Century of Research and Interpretation.
Journal of archaeological Method and Theory, 13: 251-304.
- White,
R. W. 2004. La
parure en ivoire des hommes de Cro-Magnon.
Pour la Science. April-June.
- Henry-Gambier,
H., B. Maureille and R. W. White. 2004. Vestiges
humains des niveaux de l’Aurignacien ancien du site de
Brassempouy (Landes).Bulletins
et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie
de Paris, n.s., 16 : 49-87.
- White,
R. W., D. Henry-Gambier and C. Normand. 2003. Human-tooth
ornaments from the French early Aurignacian: implications for early Upper Paleolithic
treatment of the dead. Annual Meetings
of the Paleoanthropology Society, Tempe, Arizona.
- Henry-Gambier,
D. and R. W. White. 2003. New
chrono-cultural data on the Cro-Magnon and Combe-Capelle human
remains (Dordogne,
France): consequences for the biocultural
origins of modern humans in Europe. Annual Meetings of the Paleoanthropology
Society, Tempe, Arizona.
- White,
R. W. and
A. Roussot. 2003. Résumé de
ma vie : une note autobiographique de Denis Peyrony. Bulletin
de la Société Historique
et Archéologique du Périgord. 125 : 34-49.
- White,
R. W. 2002.
Observations
technologiques sur les objets de parure in B. Schmider (ed.)
L'Aurignacien de la grotte de Renne:
Les fouilles
d'André Leroi-Gourhan à Arcy-sur-Cure
(Yonne). XXXIVe Supplément à Gallia Préhistoire,
257-266.
- White,
R. W. 2002.
Une
nouvelle statuette phallo-féminine paléolithique
: la « Vénus des Milandes (commune de Castelnaud-la-Chapelle),
Dordogne Paléo. 14 : 177-198.
- White, R. W. 2002.
The
historic and legal context of foreign acquisitions of Paleolithic
artifacts from the Périgord: 1900-1941. In
L. Straus (ed.) The Rôle of American Archaeologists in
the Study of the European Upper Paleolithic. Oxford: British
Archaeological
Reports, pp. 71-83.
- White, R. W. 2000.
Un
big bang socioculturel: Une nouvelle façon
d'apprehender le monde est née voici 40,000 ans La
Recherche, hors série no. 4, pp. 10-16.
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