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Professor, Anthropology
231-B West Hall, 1085 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107
Office Location(s): 231-B West Hall (office), 231 West Hall (lab) Phone: 734.764.7404 wolpoff@umich.edu webpage View Curriculum Vitae
Milford H. Wolpoff (born 1942 to Ruth (Silver) and Ben Wolpoff, Chicago) has been at the University of Michigan since 1971. He is the leading proponent of the multiregional evolution hypothesis and has published widely on Neandertal evolution and aspects of modern human origins, among other topics. Besides numerous published papers and presentations, he is the author of Paleoanthropology, 1980 and 1999 editions with McGraw-Hill, New York, and the co-author (with Rachel Caspari) of Race and Human Evolution: A Fatal Attraction, which reviews the scientific evidence and conflicting theories about how human evolution has been interpreted, and how its interpretation is related to views about race.
His research on the multiregional model of human evolution challenges the 'Out of Africa' theory, a model of evolution by species replacement. MRE proposes that evolution of the genus Homo was a worldwide phenomenon that did not involve speciation. Human evolutionary change spanned the species because populations were interconnected with population movements and gene flow, and all advantageous changes dispersed everywhere under selection.
He has graduated 20 PhD’s in Paleoanthropology, an equal number of women and men that include professional anthropologists and authors. Many have leading positions in anthropology including department chairmen/chairwomanships, presidencies of the American Association of Physical Anthropology, and (for one) membership in the National Academy of Sciences.
