ROBERT BENFER
Professor
Ph.D., University of Texas, 1969

Taking early retirement at the age of 63 (Jan. 1, 2003) in order to have more time for field work with my graduate and undergraduate students in Perú, China, and Mexico was an easy choice for me, a self-identified methodologist who understands anthropology to be a holistic, field discipline. I now can spend three months excavating and working in labs in Perú (May-August), three months mostly writing in Mexico (January-March) and, next year, possibly a month studying additional northern Chinese Neolithic skeletal materials in China. I will be teaching Human Identification at MU in the fall of 2003 and possibly 2004, and a similar course at Federico Villarreal University in Lima in July 2004 as well as a 2-week workshop at the Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico, in February 2004.

Some recent manuscripts can be found at [http://rcp.missouri.edu/bobbenfer/index.html] where my full curriculum vitae is available. I am presently completing a number of papers on a study of cognitive beliefs and coronary heart disease in rural Mississippi while continuing a multiyear study of several Peruvian archaeological sites; a field school will be held in Perú at the Late Preceramic and Formative Period site of Buena Vista [http://web.missouri.edu/~nad2b1/BuenaVista/Index.html] the summers of 2003 and 2004.

Some examples of current research in progress with students and former students:

• "Parental Investment in Prehistory: Paloma, Perú" (with Dr. Julie Farnum).

• Dietary changes in the Late Neolithic of Northern China based on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios (CPI on grant proposal with Dr. Ekaterina Pechenkina).

• "Worldwide Human Responses to the End of the Global Climatic Optimum" (with Dr. Ekaterina Pechenkina).

• Buena Vista, a Cotton Preceramic Site in the Chillón Valley of Perú (with Neil Duncan).

• Quipa: a Late Pleistocene Fishing Camp in the Chilca Valley of Perú (with Neil Duncan).

• "Head Shape of Adult Males as a Possible Indicator of Economic Changes in Northern Jordan (1900-1978)" (last author with Ahmad Abu Dalou and Abdel Halim Al-Shiya).

During fall semesters I will be available to consult and collaborate with students in their research projects. Field work with me in Perú or China is possible for graduate students with those interests.

personal web: http://rcp.missouri.edu/bobbenfer/index.html

Contact: BenferR@missouri.edu