Ian Hodder wins The 2016 Fyssen Foundation International Scientific Prize

Ian Hodder was recently awarded The 2016 Fyssen Foundation International Scientific Prize for his lifetime work in archaeology.

As a prehistoric archaeologist, Ian has been exploring material culture and its effects on social and human sciences as well as its influence in the overall directionality in human development.  He argues that entanglement theory provides a non-teleological framework for understanding the long-term directionality of humans towards greater entanglement and dependence on things.  While this dependence on things has allowed humans to evolve into more complex beings and take more energy from the environment, it also meant that humans are increasingly trapped and unable to solve global-scale problems.

Ian Hodder is the Dunlevie Family Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University.  In his recent work, Ian has focused on the entanglements between humans and material things.  His book, Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (Wiley and Blackwell, Oxford 2012), explores the complexity of human relationship with material things and argues that the interrelationship between humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture.   Ian draws much of his research from his excavation project of the 9000 year old Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, which was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.  This 25-year project has shed light on the development of one of the world's earliest societies, the social and economic organization of the settlement, and the transformation from hunting and gathering to agriculture and civilization.

Founded by Mr. H. Fyssen, the aim of the Fyssen Foundation is to encourage “all forms of scientific inquiry in cognitive mechanisms, including thought and reasoning, which underlie animal and human behavior; their biological and cultural bases, and phylogenetic and ontogenetic development”.   The International Scientific Prize is an annual prize that is awarded to a scientist who has conducted distinguished research in the areas supported by the foundation, including ethology, paleontology, archaeology, anthropology, psychology, epistemology, logic, and the neurosciences.

For more information about the Fyssen Foundation International Scientific Prize and Ian's laureate speech, please see Fondation Fyssen.