Obituary: Professor Lawrence H. Keeley

August 24th 1948 – October 11th 2017

“With sadness we report that another one of our colleagues, archaeologist Larry Keeley (U. Illinois, Chicago Circle), passed away this week. I overlapped with Larry at Oxford University in the 70’s and we collaborated in the 1980’s on his pioneering microwear analysis of stone tools from Koobi Fora, Kenya (1.9-1.4 million years old). He was a good friend and would visit us in Bloomington on occasion, and advised several of our Chinese and Algerian colleagues on microscopic use-wear studies at their Early Stone Age sites. He was also interested in the Neolithic of northwest Europe (especially Belgium) and defensive features at sites, and on the anthropological origins of warfare, for which he wrote a book, “War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage” (1996). He was famous for telling his students, who proposed overly ambitious research projects, “Yeah, YOU AND WHAT ARMY?” This has been a rough year- we have lost several people we have worked closely with in the past, including Duane Rumbaugh (Psychology/Primatology, Georgia State U.), Frank Brown (Geology, U. Utah), and now Larry Keeley”.

Written by Nicholas Toth