Merrick Posnansky

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Professor Emeritus

Department: Department of History, Anthropology
341 Haines Hall
Box 951553
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553
Campus Mail Code: 155303
Phone: 310-825-6160
Email: merrick@history.ucla.edu
Website

Keywords: Africa, History, Archaeology

After taking his Ph.D. in Archaeology at Nottingham University (1956), Professor Posnansky conducted research and taught in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana for 20 years. He was successively Curator of the Uganda Museum, Director of the African Studies Programme at Makerere University College, Uganda and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Ghana. He joined the faculty of UCLA in 1977. He has conducted research or served as a consultant in 14 African countries. He is a former Chair of the Archaeology Program, Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center. In 1998 he was honored with the Leadership award of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. He has particular interests in Education Abroad and initiated and directed UC programs in both Ghana and Togo. He is presently engaged in research on the meaning and impact of Africa postal stamps as well as writing up the backlog of his Ghanaian research which involved a 30 year ethno-archaeological longitudinal study of the village of Hani. Though he formally retired in 1994 he still teaches occasional courses including in 2000 an Honors Collegium course on "Reinventing African History". His most recent papers have been on Dam Archaeology in West Africa, Cultural Conservation in West Africa and on African American archaeology.