John Lawrence Angel

{{Short description|British-American biological anthropologist (1915–1986)}} {{use American English|date=September 2025}} {{use mdy|date=September 2025}} {{no footnotes|date=March 2018}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix =  | name = | honorific_suffix = | image = J. Lawrence Angel (1915-1986) (4405614807) (cropped).jpg | image_size = | alt = Balding man in a striped bowtie standing in front of a skeleton | caption = Angel in 1967 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth date|1915|3|21}} | birth_place = London, United Kingdom | death_date = {{death date and age|1986|11|3|1915|3|21}} | death_place = [[Washington, D.C.]], United States | nationality =  | citizenship =  | other_names = | occupation = | period = | known_for = | title = | boards =  | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | awards =  | website = | education = | alma_mater = [[Harvard University]] | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences =  | era = | discipline =  | sub_discipline =  | workplaces = {{hlist|[[University of Minnesota]]|[[University of California at Berkeley]]|[[Jefferson Medical College]]|[[Smithsonian Institution]]}} | doctoral_students =  | notable_students = | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced =  | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }}

'''John Lawrence Angel''' (March 21, 1915 – November 3, 1986) was a British-American [[biological anthropology|biological anthropologist]]. His writings have had the biggest impact on [[paleodemography]].

==Education== His mother, Elizabeth, was an American [[classicist]], and his father, [[John Angel (sculptor)|John]], was a British sculptor. The family emigrated to the United States in 1928. Angel completed his undergraduate degree at [[Harvard]] College in 1936 where he studied under [[Clyde Kluckhohn]], [[Carleton S. Coon]] and [[Earnest A. Hooton]]. Hooton had a particular influence on Angel and arranged for him to conduct field work in [[Greece]] early in his career as a graduate student. While in Greece he collected data on archaeological human remains from various sites. These data became the basis of his dissertation and he received his Ph.D. degree from Harvard in 1942.

==Career== After completing his degree he taught briefly at the [[University of Minnesota]] and the [[University of California at Berkeley]]. In 1943 he accepted a post in the anatomy department of [[Jefferson Medical College]] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he taught and conducted research until his appointment in 1962 as Curator of Physical (Biological) Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, [[Smithsonian Institution]].

During his career at the Smithsonian he broadened his research emphasis to include [[forensic anthropology]]. He was a consultant to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] but also assisted many regional police units in identifying human remains from forensic cases. Angel had a major influence on research in [[biological anthropology]] in emphasizing the importance of combining cultural and biological data in interpreting human skeletal samples from past human groups. He worked closely with archaeologists in his effort to reconstruct what he called the social biology of archaeological human populations. Although Greece remained the focus of much of his research throughout his life he extended this focus to include archaeological human remains from Turkey. His research on human skeletal [[paleopathology]] laid the groundwork for much of the research being conducted in that field of research today.

==Death== Angel contracted [[hepatitis]] after undergoing [[coronary bypass surgery]] in 1982 and died of that disease in 1986. Throughout his declining health he remained active and completed work on a forensic case shortly before his death.

==References== *{{cite web|last=Buikstra |first=Jane E. |title=A Life in Science: Papers in Honor of J. Lawrence Angel |publisher=Center for American Archeology |year=1990 |url=http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/angel_john.html |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101074904/http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/angel_john.html |archivedate=2009-11-01 }} *Yaşar İşcan, M, ''John Lawrence Angel, Ph.D., 1915–1986, a Tribute and Remembrance'', Journal of Forensic Sciences (JOFS) Volume 32, Issue 5 (September 1987). *Ortner, Donald J. and Jennifer O. Kelley "J. Lawrence Angel (1915-1986). American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 90, No. 1, pp. 145–148 (March 1988). *Redman, Samuel. Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2016.

==External links== *{{cite web |url=http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fa/angel.pdf |title=Register to the Papers of John Lawrence Angel |first1=Robert Lynn |last1=Montgomery |year=1994–2006 |first2=Jennifer |last2=Chen |first3=Jill |last3=Fri |first4=Gayle |last4=Yiotis |work=[[National Anthropological Archives]] |publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]] |accessdate=September 7, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081030162950/http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fa/angel.pdf |archive-date=October 30, 2008 |url-status=dead }} *{{Google Scholar id|dhaUldkAAAAJ}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angel, John Lawrence}} [[Category:1915 births]] [[Category:1986 deaths]] [[Category:British emigrants to the United States]] [[Category:Forensic anthropologists]] [[Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]] [[Category:Paleopathologists]] [[Category:Physical anthropologists]] [[Category:20th-century British anthropologists]] [[Category:20th-century American anthropologists]]