With the passing of Ofer Bar-Yosef, prehistoric archaeology lost one of its most visionary and wide-ranging thinkers. Within his long career, Bar-Yosef reshaped how scholars understand the evolution and dispersal of humankind, the relationships between early human species, and the long, intricate process that gave rise to agriculture and settled life.
Born in Jerusalem in 1937, Bar-Yosef’s fascination with the past began early, when he explored the hills near his home and uncovered his first archaeological feature as a child. After serving in the Israeli Defense Forces and studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he completed his Ph.D. in 1970 with a landmark synthesis of the Levantine Epipaleolithic. His early excavations, including work at Kebara and Nahal Oren Caves under Moshe Stekelis, set the stage for a lifetime of research that connected local discoveries in the Near East with the broader story of human evolution.
Following Stekelis’s death, Bar-Yosef assumed leadership of the ‘Ubeidiya project — then the oldest known archaeological site outside Africa — and was mentored by Louis and Mary Leakey, who encouraged him to adopt a comparative, global perspective. That worldview came to define his career.
At sites such as Qafzeh, Kebara, and Hayonim Caves, Bar-Yosef and his collaborators unearthed fossils and artifacts that fundamentally changed ideas about early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. These excavations demonstrated that both species used similar Middle Paleolithic technologies, showing that modern humans did not descend from Neanderthals but coexisted and likely interacted with them. His work became central to understanding the expansion of modern humans from Africa and their encounters with other hominin populations.
Bar-Yosef was equally influential in redefining how archaeologists think about the origins of agriculture. Through decades of excavation and analysis in the Levant, he demonstrated that farming and village life emerged gradually from earlier hunter-gatherer societies, influenced by shifts in climate, resource availability, and population dynamics. This nuanced view replaced the once-dominant model of a sudden “Neolithic Revolution.”
After joining Harvard University in 1988, Bar-Yosef served as Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Paleolithic Archaeology at the Peabody Museum. He published more than 400 papers and two dozen books and mentored students from around the world, many of whom now lead major archaeological projects of their own. Known for his intellectual rigor, curiosity, and humor, he fostered a collaborative spirit that bridged disciplines from geology to genetics.
Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the British Academy, and honored by institutions in Israel, France, and beyond, Bar-Yosef remained active long after his formal retirement in 2013. In his later years, he focused on East Asia, collaborating with Chinese archaeologists to investigate the earliest ceramics and agricultural origins in the region — including 18,000-year-old pottery predating farming by millennia.
Ofer Bar-Yosef’s legacy endures in the countless discoveries he inspired and the generations of scholars he trained. His work permanently broadened the horizons of prehistoric archaeology and deepened our understanding of what it means to be human.