George W. Gill: Difference between revisions
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'''George W. Gill''' is an [[United States of America|American]] [[anthropology|anthropologist]]. He is [[Professor Emeritus]] at the [[University of Wyoming]]<ref name="Gill faculty profile">{{cite web |author=University of Wyoming | year=2009 |month= |url=http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/anthropology/displayfaculty.asp?facultyid=2103 |title=George Gill |work= |accessdate=2009-02-03 |format=}}</ref> and is "widely recognized as an expert in skeletal biology".<ref name="Gill Easter Island">{{cite web |author=University of Wyoming | year=2007 |month=October |url=http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/anthropology/showrelease.asp?id=18623 |title=UW professor, former students work on Easter Island book |work= |accessdate=2009-02-03 |format=}}</ref> |
'''George W. Gill''' is an [[United States of America|American]] [[anthropology|anthropologist]]. He is [[Professor Emeritus]] at the [[University of Wyoming]]<ref name="Gill faculty profile">{{cite web |author=University of Wyoming | year=2009 |month= |url=http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/anthropology/displayfaculty.asp?facultyid=2103 |title=George Gill |work= |accessdate=2009-02-03 |format=}}</ref> and is "widely recognized as an expert in skeletal biology".<ref name="Gill Easter Island">{{cite web |author=University of Wyoming | year=2007 |month=October |url=http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/anthropology/showrelease.asp?id=18623 |title=UW professor, former students work on Easter Island book |work= |accessdate=2009-02-03 |format=}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 20:54, 17 November 2012
George W. Gill is an American anthropologist. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wyoming[1] and is "widely recognized as an expert in skeletal biology".[2]
Research
Easter Island
Gill has researched human osteology on the Polynesian island and Chilean territory of Easter Island,[2] and in 1981 led the National Geographic Society's Easter Island Anthropological Expedition.[3] Materials that he has gathered form part of the osteological collection of Chile's national museum.[1] He is collaborating with former students on a book about the island, which will aim to "explain the origins of the people and the decline of their ancient advanced culture".[2]
Kennewick Man
Gill has studied Kennewick Man, the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found near Kennewick in the U.S. state of Washington. Gill was among the scientists who successfully sued the United States in order to gain access to the remains, which had been claimed by the Umatilla and other American Indian tribes under a contested interpretation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.[4]
Race
In the late 1980s, partly in response to demands from American forensic anthropology organizations to scrutinize methods of racial identification in order to ensure accuracy in legal cases, Gill tested, supported, and developed craniofacial anthropometric and other means of estimating the racial origins of skeletal remains. He found that the employment of multiple criteria can yield very high rates of accuracy, and even that individual methods can be accurate more than 80 percent of the time.[5]
Gill cites these findings in arguing against the prevailing tendency among American anthropologists[6] to treat human races as social constructs. Gill suggests that "race denial" can stem from overstatements of the importance of clinal variation among human phenotypes, and from "politically motivated censorship" in the mistaken but "politically correct" belief that "race promotes racism". Gill argues that "we can often function within systems that we do not believe in": Categories can have practical utility, even if they also seem conceptually problematic.[5]
Gill served on a NOVA-sponsored panel in which he and five others debated the reality of race. Among Gill's opponents was American anthropologist C. Loring Brace[5]—a fellow plaintiff in the Kennewick Man case[4]—who maintains that the term "race" is not warranted by "a biological entity".[7]
References
- ^ a b University of Wyoming (2009). "George Gill". Retrieved 2009-02-03.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - ^ a b c University of Wyoming (2007). "UW professor, former students work on Easter Island book". Retrieved 2009-02-03.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ University of Wyoming (2001). "Gill profiled in Who's Who". Retrieved 2009-02-03.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) [dead link] - ^ a b United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2004). "Bonnichsen v. United States" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-02-03.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - ^ a b c Gill GW (2000). "Does race exist? A proponent's perspective". NOVA Online. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm
- ^ Brace CL (2000). "Does race exist? An antagonist's perspective". NOVA Online. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help)