Mary C. Stiner

Mary C. Stiner is the Regents' Professor of Anthropology (emerita) in the School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson and Curator of Zooarchaeology (emerita) at the Arizona State Museum. , as well as her analysis of burial rituals of early hominids.

Education Ph.D. Anthropology (Archaeology), University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico ;

Studies of changes in the predatory econiche of humans and human ancestors over the past 500,000 years based on prey mortality patterns, prey species composition, bone modification, and other faunal evidence. Her work tracks shifts in early humans' position in Pleistocene food webs and in large predator guilds , early marine foraging , resource intensification, and innovations in tool-assisted food processing methods including fire ;

Theoretical and empirical exploration of symbolic expression by Neanderthals in the form of burial practices and uses of body ornaments as proxies for expanding scales of social interaction ;

Confirmation of an early (and largely independent) center of sheep and goat domestication at Aşıklı Höyük in central Anatolia, supporting a multi-regional model of how animal domestication arose, and elucidating the mechanisms and stages of in-situ sheep and goat domestication at this site ; Examining evolving social relations in early humans over the course of the Pleistocene geological epoch, particularly in connection with the development of residential camp sites .

Stiner has also been instrumental in developing widely emulated methods for the study of age structures in the prey populations of human hunters , and inter-disciplinary work on early animal management practices

2010 Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship, University College London, UK

2014 Elected Regents Professor, University of Arizona, Tucson.

2025 Elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.