Stony Brook Experts

An archaeologist, John Shea’s research investigates human evolution during the Pleistocene Ice Ages. His most recent research asks what stone tools can tell about prehistoric human and earlier hominin behavior.  This research uses insights from his decades of making and using stone tools and from other "ancestral" survival skills.  Shea's most recent book, The Unstoppable Human Species (2023) examines prehistoric human population movements over the last 300,000 years. His forthcoming work, Surviving Prehistory, investigates how our ancestors overcame survival difficulties.  Shea has conducted research in Israel, Jordan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.  Born in Hamilton, Massachusetts, Shea lives in Stony Brook, New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico.