Henry Harpending

Henry Cosad Harpending (January 13, 1944 – April 3, 2016) was an American anthropologist, population geneticist and Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah. Harpending received his A.B. degree from Hamilton College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1972. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Harpending studied genetic and morphometric variation within and between human populations with mathematical models, examining hypotheses such as population growth, divergence, and gene flow. Harpending did extensive fieldwork in Southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia) and spoke the !Kung language fluently.  In The 10,000 Year Explosion, which he co-authored with Gregory Cochran, Harpending suggests a common belief that human genetic adaptation stopped 40,000 years ago is incorrect and that humans evolved increasingly rapidly in response to the new challenges presented by agriculture and civilization. The result was accelerating evolution which has varied according to new niches or environments that particular populations inhabit.