Department
Department of Anthropology and Maxwell Museum of Anthropology
Organization
University of New Mexico
Email
jdixon@unm.edu

Location

Albuquerque , New Mexico 87131
United States

Bio

E. JAMES DIXON served as Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Archeology at
the University of Alaska Museum from (1974–1993). He became curator of archeology
at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 1993 and subsequently (2001–2007) and
subsequently joined the faculty at the University of Colorado as Professor of
Anthropology and Research Fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. He
served as Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Maxwell Museum of
Anthropology at the University of New Mexico (2007–2016). After attending Fairleigh
Dickenson University, he enrolled in the University of Alaska, Fairbanks where he
received his B.A. and M.A., and then attended Brown University where he received his
Ph.D. He was a Marshall Fellow for research at the National Museum of Denmark in
1972, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in 1996-97, and awarded the
Alaska Anthropological Association’s Professional Achievement Award in 2007. He
specializes in North American archeology with particular focus on human colonization,
high altitude and high latitude human adaptations, and early cultural development in the
Americas. He has led many large research projects and advised and participated in
numerous educational films, videos, and museum exhibitions. He also has lectured and
published extensively including three books, "Quest for the Origins of the First Americans"
(1993), "Bones, Boats, & Bison: Archaeology and the First Colonization of Western North
America" (1999), and "Arrows and Atl Atls: A guide to the Archeology of Beringia" (2013).

Interests

Land Ice/Glaciers, Social Science

Science Specialties

Arctic and paleoindian archaeology
Quaternary paleoecology and climate change

Current Research

Glacial archeology
Late Pleistocene archeology of southeast Alaska
Paleoindian archeology of Beringia and North America