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Ofer Bar-Yosef

Ofer Bar-Yosef was an Israeli archaeologist and anthropologist who studied the Palaeolithic period and taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Harvard University.

1937 to 2020Palaeolithic research in the LevantExcavations at Kebara CaveStudy of the origins of agriculture

Born: 29 August 1937, Jerusalem
Died: 14 March 2020, Kfar Saba
Occupation: prehistorian, university teacher, archaeologist, anthropologist
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ofer Bar-Yosef was born in 1937 in Jerusalem

Bar-Yosef was born in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, the eldest of 4 children. His father's family came from Morocco, and his mother's family came from Riga and was among the founders of Hadera. His father's collection of antiquities drew him to archaeology at a young age.

At 17 he joined a kibbutz, and he later enlisted in the IDF. During his service he took part in Moshe Stekelis's excavations at Kebara Cave.

He studied archaeology and geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 1960s. As a student he dug at Ubeidiya, Nahal Oren and Kebara Cave, and he took over the Ubeidiya excavation after Stekelis died.

From 1967 he was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the Hebrew University. In 1988 he moved to the United States to become a professor at Harvard University and curator of Palaeolithic archaeology at the Peabody Museum. He excavated sites such as Hayonim Cave, Netiv HaGdud and Kebara Cave, and also worked in Georgia, Turkey, Eastern Europe and China.

His research dealt with the spread of humans across the earth, the development of human societies and the origins of agriculture. In 2018 the University of Bordeaux gave him an honorary doctorate. He died in 2020.