John W. Olsen


John W. Olsen, Ph.D., is an American archaeologist and paleoanthropologist specializing in the early Stone Age prehistory and Pleistocene paleoecology of eastern Eurasia. Olsen is Regents' Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Executive Director of the Je Tsongkhapa Endowment for Central and Inner Asian Archaeology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, USA. He is also a Leading Scientific Researcher at the of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch in Novosibirsk and Guest Research Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing where he is Co-Director of the Zhoukoudian International Paleoanthropological Research Center. Olsen is also a Foreign Expert affiliated with in Lhasa, Tibet.
Olsen's role as Co-Director of the has been the nexus of his research activities since 1995, even as the Expedition's geographical focus has expanded to include Xinjiang and Tibet in China as well as other ethnic Mongol and ethnic Tibetan territories in Russia, the independent Central Asian republics of the former USSR, and the Himalayan region.
Olsen's research emphasizes the Paleolithic archaeology of arid lands and high elevations in Central and Inner Asia, especially Mongolia and Tibet. His interests include Quaternary paleoecology and the impact of environmental degradation on prehistoric societies; cultural ecology and environmental archaeology with emphasis on zooarchaeology, especially animal husbandry among pastoral and nomadic societies; and spatial analysis in archaeology, including applications of remote sensing and geographic information systems. Olsen has conducted collaborative archaeological fieldwork in the United States, Colombia, Belize, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, the People's Republic of China, Việt Nam, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and Mongolia. As of 2018, he has been director or co-director of 19 interdisciplinary archaeological field expeditions.

Early life and education

John Olsen was born in Concord, Massachusetts, the only offspring of Stanley John Olsen and Eleanor Louise Vinez Olsen.
Olsen spent his formative years in Tallahassee, Florida where he lived until he moved to Tucson, Arizona with his parents in 1973.
Following his early graduation from Florida High School in Tallahassee after completing the eleventh grade, Olsen attended Florida State University as a freshman and subsequently received Bachelor of Arts degrees with Highest Distinction and Honors in Anthropology and Oriental Studies from the University of Arizona. Olsen holds Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley where his principal advisors were Glynn Ll. Isaac, J. Desmond Clark, F. Clark Howell, and William A. Clemens, Jr.

Career

After completing his doctoral degree at Berkeley in 1980, Olsen was appointed visiting assistant professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Oriental Studies at the University of Arizona, where he taught until 1982. From 1982 to 1984, Olsen was a post-doctoral research associate of the at University College, London where he taught courses, planned and carried out research expeditions in China and North Africa, and translated and co-edited a book on Chinese paleoanthropology published by Academic Press in 1985.
Olsen joined the permanent faculty of the University of Arizona as an assistant professor of Anthropology in 1984. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1988 and to full professor in 1994. In 2005, Olsen was awarded a Regents' Professorship.
Olsen retired from teaching at the University of Arizona in 2016 to accept research positions with the Chinese and Russian Academies of Sciences.
In 1991–1992 Olsen held a Fulbright Research and Lecturing Award at Kazakh State University in Almaty.
Olsen's administrative appointments have included Resident Representative in Beijing for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Head of the at the University of Arizona.
Over the past three decades, Olsen has accrued slightly more than US$1.9 million in sponsored support of his and his students' research as well as spearheading successful development and fundraising activities on behalf of the University of Arizona's School of Anthropology.

Principal awards, honorary degrees, and elected memberships