Alison S. Brooks

Alison Spence Brooks is an American paleoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work focuses on the Paleolithic, particularly the Middle Stone Age of Africa. She is one of the most prominent figures in the debate over where Homo sapiens evolved and when.

Biography Brooks received her BA in 1965 from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1979. She has joined George Washington University since 1972 and has been Professor of Anthropology since 1988

Brooks has conducted extensive field research in the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia, and in the Olorgesailie Basin, Southern Kenya Rift. Modern human behavior was once generally thought of as beginning in Europe with the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, but Brooks and Sally McBrearty have challenged this idea.

Anatomically modern Homo sapiens were widespread by 50,000 years ago, though Neanderthals were still dominant in the colder climates of Europe, Asia, and Siberia until 35,000 years ago. They found traces they found of obsidian and pigment from distances of ~20 to ~50 kilometers, from about ~320,000 years ago, during the Middle Stone Age. The use of pigments and transport of raw materials is considered part of complex symbolic behavior and technological planning associated with modern humans.