Chasing Mummies

Meet the Archaeologists

Meet the Archaeologists > Dr. Allan Morton

Dr. Allan Morton

Fellowship Coordinator

Dr. Allan Morton was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, and has worked as a professional archaeologist for 20 years. He holds a master's degree in historic preservation and museums and a Ph.D. in prehistoric archaeology from Cambridge University in England.

Drawn to the archaeology of human origins, Morton spent eight years working for Harvard University in the deserts of northern Kenya. He then conducted research on the remote and dangerous shores of the Jade Sea, a beautiful desert lake writhing with Nile crocodiles and seething with volcanoes on Kenya's border with Ethiopia. He discovered an early human fossil that later became identified as a new species of hominid: Australopithecus anamensis. Morton has also worked as an archaeological manager for the U.S. Army in Texas and for the British Army at Salisbury Plain Training Area and Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England.

A world traveler who has conducted research on five continents, Morton is fascinated by what artifacts can tell us about the past. "When I hold an ancient stone tool in my hands, I thrill at the fact that I am literally the first person in a million years to touch it after it was discarded by our distant human ancestors," he explains.

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