Kent V. Flannery

Kent Vaughn Flannery (born 1934) is an American archaeologist who has conducted and published extensive research on the pre-Columbian cultures and civilizations of Mesoamerica, and in particular those of central and southern Mexico. He has also worked in Iran and Peru.

Flannery grew up in Maryland on a farm near the Susquehanna River, and attended the Gilman School in Baltimore. His father was artist Vaughn Flannery. In the 1960s and 70s, Flannery was a leading proponent of Processual Archaeology and the use of Systems Theory in archaeology.

At the University of Michigan, Flannery is the James B. Griffin Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Curator of Human Ecology and Archaeobiology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology.

Flannery was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996, and the American Philosophical Society in 2005. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pennsylvania in 1987,

In 1973 Flannery married fellow archaeologist and frequent collaborator Joyce Marcus.

Major publications

Flannery, Kent V. (1972) The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3:399-426. Flannery, Kent V. (editor) (1976) The Early Mesoamerican Village. Academic Press, New York. Flannery, Kent V. (1985) Guila Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. Academic Press, New York. Flannery, Kent V. (2006) On the Resilience of Anthropological Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:1-13. Flannery, Kent V. and Joyce Marcus (editors) (1983) The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations. Academic Press, New York. Flannery, Kent V. and Joyce Marcus (1994) Early Formative Pottery in the Valley of Oaxaca. Memoirs vol. 27. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Flannery, Kent V. and Joyce Marcus (2005) Excavations at San José Mogote 1: The Household Archaeology. Memoirs vol. 40. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Hole, Frank/Flannery, Kent V./Neely, James A.(1969) Prehistory and human ecology of the Deh Luran plain. An early village sequence from Khuzistan, Iran. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan 1. Ann Arbor. Marcus, Joyce and Kent V. Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley. Thames and Hudson, New York. Flannery, Kent V. and Joyce Marcus (2012) The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Fiction Flannery, Kent V. "The Golden Marshalltown: A Parable for the Archeology of the 1980s." American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Jun., 1982)