Tim D. White

Tim D. White (born August 24, 1950, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is an American paleoanthropologist whose findings of ancient hominid remains in Africa helped clarify the early stages of human evolution.

Career and discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus

The passion for hunting ancient remains came to White at a young age. He spent much time in his early years around Lake Arrowhead, California, scouring Native American campsites for artifacts. After studying anthropology and biology at the University of California, Riverside, he earned a Ph.D. in biological anthropology in 1977 from the University of Michigan and went on to become a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

White developed his interest in Africa during his years as a graduate student, when he took part in an expedition to Tanzania headed by anthropologist Richard Leakey. He later worked with Leakey’s mother, Mary Douglas Leakey, studying fossilized hominin footprints. White continued his engagement with Africa, returning to the continent many times over the following decades. Some of his most significant finds were made in the early 1990s in the middle Awash River valley of northern Ethiopia; in Maka, a town to the west of the archaeological site of Aramis, he uncovered the 3.4-million-year-old remains of Australopithecus afarensis, a hominin species of which specimens (including the famous partial skeleton Lucy) had been discovered earlier in Ethiopia and Tanzania. White’s find helped quell the controversy over whether the specimens from the two countries were indeed of one species.

In 1994 White and his research team discovered—again near Aramis—what they initially believed to be the oldest, most apelike hominin fossils yet found. White named the 4.4-million-year-old bones Australopithecus ramidus, which classified the new primate among the australopithecine hominins and gave it the status of a potential root species for the human family. In May 1995, however, after finding more bones and hearing his colleagues’ criticisms, White appeared less sure and changed its name to Ardipithecus ramidus, thus creating a new genus for it. Although “Ardi” proved to not be a direct human ancestor, it presented a significant piece of the puzzle of human evolution. Working again in the middle Awash River valley in the early 21st century, White’s team unearthed the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens.

Later career and controversy

In 1995 White changed departments at the University of California, Berkeley, leaving the department of anthropology, where he had worked as a professor since 1978, to become distinguished chair in life and physical sciences and professor of integrative biology. He also became a research paleoanthropologist and director for the Human Evolution Research Center. White was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000.

In 2020 White disclosed to the university a collection of human remains he and previous professors had used for teaching. The disclosure came during a search for human remains for possible repatriation in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The university’s analysis concluded that the decades-old teaching collection contained the remains of a number of individuals who were likely to have been Native American, leading some to criticize White for not disclosing the collection prior to the search. However, White contended that he acted correctly according to the law since the bones in the collection lacked the documentation necessary to confirm their origin.

White retired in 2022, holding the titles of distinguished professor in life and physical sciences and professor emeritus.