Penn Arts and Sciences Names Harold Dibble as Johnston Chair

Steven J. Fluharty, Dean of Penn Arts and Sciences, is pleased to name Harold L. Dibble, professor of anthropology and curator-in-charge of European archaeology in the Penn Museum, the Francis E. Johnston Endowed Term Professor.  

Dibble studies the origins and evolution of human culture and cognition in the Near East, North Africa, and Western Europe during the Paleolithic era. He serves as the director of Paleolithic excavations at Pech de l’Azé IV and La Ferrassie, both in France, and is the director of the Laboratory for the Study of Ancient Technology at Penn. Dibble is a recipient of the Society for American Archaeology’s 2014 award for Excellence in Archaeological Analysis and was a 2015 Fellow of the School of Archaeological Science, University of Wollongong, Australia. His recent books include Excavations at Pech de l’Azé IV, currently in press; Préhistoire de la Région de Rabat-Témara, The Cave of Fontéchevade, and Handbook of Paleolithic Typology.  

Dibble has chaired the Penn Museum Laboratory Committee and the Penn Arts and Sciences Committee on Undergraduate Academic Standing, and has served as a member of the School’s Personnel Committee.

This chair was created through the bequest of G. Frederick Roll, W’34 and is named in honor of Francis E. Johnston, a biological anthropologist and an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University. Professor Johnston, who completed his Ph.D. at Penn in 1962, has been teaching in the Department of Anthropology for more than three decades and served as department chair from 1982 to 1994. He also founded the Center for Community Partnerships' Urban Nutrition Initiative, a project which has helped to improve community nutrition and wellness in West Philadelphia.