. James L. Phillips Office Hours Professor Emeritus Ph.D. Southern Methodist University 1971 Office: 3118 BSB  Lab: 3141 BSB (312) 413-3731   jphillip@uic.edu
Return to Faculty Anthropology Department Home Contacts Anthropology Program Geography Program Faculty Staff Graduate Students UIC Home Page			Old World Prehistory, Prehistoric Agriculture, Lithics; Middle East, Upper and Epipaleolithic of the Near East and North Africa    Personal Statement    My research revolves around the understanding of modern human behavior, and its development in the Levantine corridor. To this end I have, with colleagues, surveyed several present day desertic regions of the southern Levant, namely in sections of the Negev and the Sinai, in order to investigate settlement systems and variability in the developing Upper Palaeolithic traditions. Excavation of a number of open-air Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic sites in Sinai has yielded a large amount of interpretable and unique data, some of which has been published, the remainder to be published in the near future. At present, our project is directed toward survey and excavation in the Judean desert, specifically in the Wadi Khareitun and the Wadi Jihar and their tributaries, dry streams flowing from the Judean hills southeast of Bethlehem toward the present day Dead Sea. A group of cave and rockshelter sites from the Upper and Epipalaeolithic periods are being evaluated and tested in order to determine their suitability for excavation.