Thomas E. Levy

Thomas Levy is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) where he holds the Norma Kershaw Endowed Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and the Neighboring Lands.  Formerly, assistant director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, Levy has had a distinguished career as a field archaeologist working in Israel and Jordan.  Since joining the faculty at UCSD in 1992, he has served as the chair of the Department of Anthropology and director of the Judaic Studies Program.  He is currently serving his second term as director of that program and is a research associate of UCSD’s California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) and the University of Bergen (Norway) Global Moments in the Levant research initiative.

Levy’s interests include anthropological archaeology, Biblical and Near Eastern archaeology, ethnoarchaeology in India and the application of digital methods in archaeology.  He has served as the principal investigator of major excavation projects in Israel and Jordan including Shiqmim, Gilat, and Nahal Tillah in Israel and the Jabal Hamrat Fidan and the Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Projects in Jordan.  These projects have been generously supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, private foundations and other institutions.  In 2007 he served as the guest curator for the San Diego Museum of Man’s exhibition ‘Journey to the Copper Age’ carried out in association with the National Geographic Society (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKKL4GMeJQM ).

Dr. Levy’s research focuses primarily on the evolution of complex societies, especially chiefdoms, in the southern Levant and deep-time studies of the role of technology on the evolution of societies from the Neolithic (ca. 7,500 BCE) to the Iron Age (ca. 1200 to 500 BCE).  He has published widely on these topics.  His most recent books are; The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating – Archaeology, Text and Science, London: Equinox, edited with T. Higham 2005) for which they won the Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award, Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology for 2007; Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult - The Sanctuary at Gilat (Israel),2006, Editor, London: Equinox.   London: Equinox; Crossing Jordan – North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan.  London: Equinox (Levy et al 2007 editors); and Journey to the Copper Age – Archaeology in the Holy Land.  San Diego: San Diego Museum of Man (2007).