Robert Foley

Foley has carried out research in many aspects of evolutionary theory, human evolution, prehistory and more recently human evolutionary genetics. His early work was on the Later Stone Age of East Africa, where he developed methods and ideas to study the landscape distributions of artefacts, giving rise to the sub-field of Off-Site Archaeology. In his work on human evolution he has emphasized an evolutionary ecological approach, seeing human adaptations as solutions to the problems faced by hominins in the environments in which they were living. This evolutionary research has also explored the relationship between climate and evolutionary change, the evolution of social behavior (finite social space model), and patterns of hominin diversity. This approach was summarized in two books – Another Unique Species, and Humans Before Humanity.

In 2007, Foley was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).

Since the 1990s, Foley has collaborated with Marta Mirazón Lahr on research relating to the evolution of modern humans and their diversity. Their work has argued for multiple dispersals of early humans out of Africa, and the use of the ‘southern route’. Their approach has emphasized the role of geographical factors in shaping human evolution, and a central role for dispersals as the process by which diversity evolves.

From 1977 to 1985, Foley was a Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Durham. He then returned to the University of Cambridge to take up a post in the Department of Biological Anthropology. From 1986 to 1998, he was a lecturer in Biological Anthropology. Since 1987, he has been a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. From 1998 to 2003, he was Reader in Evolutionary Anthropology. He co-founded the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies in 2001 with Marta Mirazón Lahr, and has been its director since its inception. The Centre was designed to provide a home for the Duckworth Collection, and first class laboratories and facilities to support research in human evolution which integrated genetics, anthropology, and other fields. In 2003, he was appointed Leverhulme Professor of Human Evolution.

Robert Andrew Foley, FBA (born 18 March 1953) is a British anthropologist, archaeologist, and academic, specialising in human evolution. From 1977 to 1985, he was a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Durham. He has been a fellow of King's College, Cambridge since 1987, and Leverhulme Professor of Human Evolution at the University of Cambridge since 2003.

Foley was born on 18 March 1953 in Sussex, England, to Nelson and Jean Foley. He was educated at Ardingly College and Peterhouse, Cambridge where he earned an MA and PhD in archaeology.