George Gumerman

Dr. Gumerman is a Senior Scholar at the School of American Research, prior to which he served as interim President and CEO of the School. From 2002 to 2004 he was the Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Santa Fe Institute. From1997 until 2002, he was the Director of the Arizona State Museum and a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona in 1969, Dr. Gumerman spent more than thirty years researching the archaeology of the Southwestern United States and Oceania. Early in his career he was the Curator of Anthropology at the Museum of Northern Arizona. He taught at Prescott College and at Southern Illinois University, where he was Chairman of the Anthropology Department and Founding Director of the Center for Archaeological Investigations. Dr. Gumerman was a Resident Scholar at the School of American Research in Santa Fe in 1979 and 1980. For many years he has been associated with the Santa Fe Institute as a member of the External Faculty, Resident Faculty, and the Science Steering Committee. Gumerman has authored or edited more than twenty books on archaeology and published numerous scholarly articles. He has been presented the Emil W. Haury Award by the Western National Parks Association and the Distinguished Service Award by the Society for American Archaeology. Gumerman’s research interests focuses on evolving cultural complexity and past human adaptation to the environment in the American Southwest. Much of his research has involved working with teams of natural scientists in detailed reconstruction of former environments and understanding the social adaptation of prehistoric peoples to those landscapes. More recently he has worked with computer modelers and social scientists creating agent-based simulations that compare the evolutionary trajectory of an actual prehistoric group with a simulated artificial group. The agent-based modeling efforts provide new insights into the role of various natural and cultural factors in the evolution of culture.