Birdsell, Joseph Bernard (Joe) (1908 - 1994)

Summary

Joseph Birdsell was a physical anthropologist who early in his career worked as a financial analyst and later served with the U.S. Army during WWII. In 1947 he became a lecturer in anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles, retiring from there as Professor in 1974. He started his anthropological studies at Harvard University in 1935. Birdsell was noted for his trihybrid theory of Australian Aboriginal origins. This was widely accepted for some years but eventually was debunked. He used as the basis for this theory data collected during two extended field trips to Australia. The first in 1938 - 1939 was under the auspices of Harvard University and the University of Adelaide, and the second in 1952 - 1954. His field companion on both occasions was Norman Tindale, Curator of Anthropology at the South Australian Museum: their wives also accompanied them, acting as research assistants and secretaries. While Tindale's focus was the collection of ethnographic data, Birdsell concentrated on anthropometrics - the invasive collection of physiological measurements, and blood and hair samples, from thousands of individuals. Data collected in Australia during the first period of fieldwork became the basis of his doctoral thesis. Tindale and Birdsell remained close colleagues for many years. Birdsell bequeathed to the South Australian Museum his Australian field notes with related journals, correspondence, and photographs.

Details

Chronology

? - 1974

Career position - Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

1931

Education - Bachelor of Science (BSc), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

May 1938 - July 1938

Career event - Field work in Australia, with Norman Tindale, under the auspices of the University of Adelaide and Harvard University

1941

Career position - Lecturer, State College of Washington, Pullman, Washington, U.S.A.

1942

Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

1942 - 1945?

Career position - Served with the U.S. Army at the Personal Equipment Laboratory, Wright Field, Ohio

1946

Career position - Guggenheim Fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

1947 - ?

Career position - Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

1948 - 1951

Career position - Associate Editor, American journal of physical anthropology

1952

Career position - Guggenheim Fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

1952 - 1954

Career event - Fieldwork in Australia with Norman Tindale

1973

Career position - Research Fellowship, Australian National University

1974 -

Career position - Professor Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Related entries

Published resources

Books

• Birdsell, Joseph B., Microevolutionary patterns in Aboriginal Australia: a gradient analysis of clines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 469 pp. Details
• Coon, Carleton S.; and Garn, Stanley M.; and Birdsell, Joseph B., Races: a study of the problems of race formation in man (Springfield, Ill.: C.C. Thomas, 1950), 153 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Littlewood, Robert A., 'Jo Birdsell: a brief memoir' in The perception of evolution: essays honoring Joseph B. Birdsell, Mai, Larry L.; Shanklin, Eugenia; and Sussman, Robert W., eds (Los Angeles: Department of Anthropology, University of California, 1981), pp. 15-20. Details
• Reidy, Nell, 'Birdsell, Joseph Bernard (Joe) (1908 - 1994), physical anthropologist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 19: 1991 - 1995 A-Z, Melanie Nolan, ed. (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2021), pp. 61-3. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/birdsell-joseph-bernard-joe-28321. Details

Journal Articles

• Birdsell, J. B., 'Obituary: Roy Thomas Simmons 1906-1975', American journal of physical anthropology, 45 (1) (1976), 1-4. Details
• Birdsell, Joseph, 'Results of the Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, 1938-39: the racial origins of the extinct Tasmanians', Records of the Queen Victoria Museum, 11 (3) (1949), 105-22. Details
• Birdsell, Joseph, 'Preliminary data on the trihybrid origin of the Australian Aborigines', Archaeology & physical anthropology in Oceania, 2 (2) (1967), 100-55. Details
• Birdsell, Joseph, 'Some reflections on fifty years in biological anthropology', Annual review of anthropology, 16 (1) (1987), 1-12. Details
• Birdsell, Joseph; and Boyd, William C., 'Blood groups in the Australian Aborigines', American journal of physical anthropology, 27 (1) (1940), 69-90. Details
• Horton, David; and Moser, Stephanie, 'Joseph Bernard Birdsell 1908 - 1994', Australian Aboriginal studies, 1 (1994), 96-8. Details
• McGregor, Russell, 'Making the rainforest Aboriginal: Tindale and Birdsell's foray into deep time', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - culture, 10 (2016), 9-21. Details
• Tindale, Norman B.; and Birdsell, Joseph B., 'Tasmanoid tribes in north Queensland : results of the Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, 1938 - 1939', Records of the South Australian Museum, 7 (1) (1941), 1-9. Details