Brian Fagan
Brian Fagan was born in England and educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied archaeology and anthropology (BA 1959, MA 1962, PhD 1965). He spent six years as Keeper of Prehistory at the Livingstone Museum in Zambia, Central Africa, and came to the U.S. in 1966. He was Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1966/67, and has been Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, since 1967. He is now a leading archaeological generalist, with a recognized expertise in the broad issues of human prehistory. At the same time, he has specialized in teaching, writing, and lecturing about American and general archaeology to the public. Regarded as one of the world's leading archaeological writers, he is the author or editor of 46 books, including seven widely used undergraduate college texts. Fagan has contributed over 100 specialist papers to many national and international journals. He is a Contributing Editor to American Archaeology and Discover Archaeology magazines, and formerly wrote a regular column for Archaeology Magazine. He serves on the Editorial Boards of six academic and general periodicals and has many popular magazine credits, including Scientific American and Gentleman's Quarterly. He has been an archaeological consultant for many organizations, including National Geographic Society, Time/Life, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Microsoft Encarta. Fagan has lectured extensively about archaeology and other subjects throughout the world at many venues, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the National Geographic Society, the San Francisco City Lecture Program, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Getty Conservation Institute. He gives an average of 8 public lectures a year and turns down many other invitations. Beyond regular appearances on TV talk shows and radio programs, he has extensive experience with the development of Public Television programs and was the developer/writer of Patterns of the Past, an NPR series in 1984-86. He has worked as a consultant for the BBC, RKO, and many Hollywood production companies on documentaries. In 1995 he was Senior Series Consultant for Time/Life Television's Lost Civilizations Emmy-winning series, which has been aired several times on NBC and the Learning Channel and around the world. He currently involved in a National Geographic Society TV series called "Treasure Seekers." He was awarded the 1996 Society of Professional Archaeologists' Distinguished Service Award for his "untiring efforts to bring archaeology in front of the public." He also received a Presidential Citation Award from the Society for American Archaeology in 1996 for his work in textbook, general writing and media activities. He received the Society's first Public Education Award in 1997.