Carleton S. Coon

Carlton S. Coon

Carlton Steven Coon, eminent American anthropologist, born June 23,1904 in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Attended post secondary education at Harvard University, earning his A.B., A.M., and Ph. D.. After completion of his degree up to 1948, Coon taught at Harvard, later that year becoming Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania until 1963. He also became Curator of Ethnology at the University Museum in Philadelphia. Coon was active in both archaeology and cultural/physical anthropology. He conducted controversial studies of the origins and modern variations of human racial types.

His books include The Origins of Race, The Story of Man, Culture Wars and the Global Village: A Diplomat’s Perspective, The Races of Europe, Races: A study of the Problems of Race Formation in Man, The Hunting Peoples, Living Races of Man, Seven Caves: Archaeological Exploration in the Middle East. Others are his autobiography, Adventures and Discoveries: The Autobiography of Carleton S. Coon, Mountains of Giants: A Racial and Cultural Study of the North Albanian Mountain Ghegs, Yengema Cave Report, and Caravan. Starting in the 1960's, his work increasingly attracted the ire of younger anthropologists, most notably Ashley Montagu, who believed it essentially racist. However, Coon's work was characterized by careful, fully documented field observation and measurement while that of his detractors tended toward abstraction and polemic.

Coon served in the Air Force in 1956-1957 and in the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He was a member of the National Academy of Science and served as President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in 1961-1962 (Academic American Encyclopedia,1995). In 1981, Coon served as the United States Ambassador to Nepal before his death on June 6, 1981, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.