Andrew Zipkin
Andrew M. Zipkin is an Adjunct Professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate (2018-2020) and Assistant Research Scientist (2020-2021) with SHESC. Although he now works as an industrial analytical chemist and materials scientist with Eurofins EAG Laboratories in Liverpool, New York, Zipkin maintains an ASU affiliation to faciliate ongoing research collaborations there with graduate students and other faculty. He is currently a Co-Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation-supported project "Isotopic provenience of ostrich eggshell beads to uncover social networks of the past in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana" with Professor Polly Wiessner.
Before joining ASU, Zipkin was a National Science Foundation SBE Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a PhD in Hominid Paleobiology from The George Washington University in 2015, where he was supervised by Prof. Alison Brooks. In both his PhD research and postdoctoral work at UIUC, Zipkin focused on the compositional analysis, material characterization, and geochemical provenience of ochre mineral pigments. As a field scientist, Zipkin planned and executed archaeological, geological, and botanical surveys in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia between 2009 and 2019. In the laboratory, his instrumental specialty is Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry and its variants (e.g., single quadrupole, triple quad, magnetic sector multicollector), with an emphasis on in situ analyses of non-traditional materials by laser ablation. He has also conducted archaeological materials science research on plant resin adhesives and visible reflectance spectroscopy-based classification studies of heat treated lithic materials. His main areas of academic research at present are the construction of radiogenic strontium isotope ratio geostatistical models (i.e., isoscapes) and the detection of post-depositional chemical diagenesis in avian eggshell and other hard tissue.
The George Washington University
Doctor of Philosophy in Hominid Paleobiology
Dissertation: Material symbolism and ochre exploitation in Middle Stone Age East-Central Africa
Graduate advisor: Prof. Alison S. Brooks
August 2009 - August 2015
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Cornell University
Bachelor of Science with Research Honors, Magna Cum Laude
Major: Biology and Society
August 2005 - May 2009
Alex Bertacchi, Andrew M. Zipkin, Julia Giblin, Gwyneth Gordon, Tyler Goepfert, Dan Asael, and Kelly J. Knudson. (2024) Trace element concentrations as proxies for diagenetic alteration in the African archaeofaunal record: Implications for isotope analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (53): 104403.
John K. Murray, Simen Oestmo, and Andrew M. Zipkin. (2022) Portable, non-destructive colorimetry and visible reflectance spectroscopy paired with machine learning can classify experimentally heat-treated silcrete from three South African sources. PLOS ONE 17 (4): e0266389.
Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff and Andrew M. Zipkin. (2022) The archaeometry of ochre sensu lato: A review. Journal of Archaeological Science 137: 105530.
Mark Lipson, Elizabeth Sawchuk, Jessica Thompson, Jonas Oppenheimer, Christian Tryon, Kathryn Ranhorn, Kathryn de Luna, Kendra Sirak, Iñigo Olalde, Stanley Ambrose, John Arthur, Kathryn Arthur…Andrew Zipkin, Ron Pinhasi, Douglas Kennett, Fredrick Kyalo Manthi, Nadin Rohland, Nick Patterson, David Reich, and Mary Prendergast. Ancient DNA and deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers. Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04430-9
Andrew M. Zipkin, Gideon Bartov, Craig Lundstrom, Alex Taylor, Alyssa Dwyer, and Stanley Ambrose. (2020) Red earth, green glass, and compositional data: A new procedure for solid-state elemental characterization, source discrimination, and provenience analysis of ochres. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 27: 930-970
Andrew Du, Andrew M. Zipkin, Kevin G. Hatala, Elizabeth Renner, Jennifer L. Baker, Serena Bianchi, Kallista H. Bernal, and Bernard A. Wood. (2018) Tempo and mode of brain size evolution in the hominin clade. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285: 20172738.
Alison S. Brooks, John E. Yellen, Richard Potts, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Alan L. Deino, David E. Leslie, Stanley H. Ambrose, Jeffrey R. Ferguson, Francesco d’Errico, Andrew M. Zipkin, Scott Whittaker, Jeffrey Post, Elizabeth G. Veatch, Kimberly Foecke, and Jennifer B. Clark (2018) Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age. Science 360: 90-94.
Andrew M. Zipkin, Stanley H. Ambrose, John M. Hanchar, Philip Piccoli, Alison S. Brooks, and Elizabeth Y. Anthony. (2017) Elemental fingerprinting of Kenya Rift Valley ochre deposits for provenance studies of rock art and archaeological pigments. Quaternary International 430: 42-59
Andrew M. Zipkin, John M. Hanchar, Alison S. Brooks, Mark W. Grabowski, Jessica C. Thompson, and Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu. (2015) Ochre fingerprints: Distinguishing among Malawian mineral pigment sources with Homogenized Ochre Chip LA-ICP-MS. Archaeometry 57 (2): 297–317.
Andrew M. Zipkin, Mark Wagner, Kate McGrath, Alison S. Brooks, and Peter W. Lucas. (2014) An Experimental Study of Hafting Adhesives and the Implications for Compound Tool Technology. PLoS ONE 9 (11): e112560.
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
The Register of Professional Archaeologists
American Chemical Society: Analytical Chemistry Technical Division
Adjunct Professor
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
July 2021 - Present
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Assistant Research Scientist
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
July 2020 - August 2021
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Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
July 2018 - June 2020
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Postdoctoral Research Associate
Department of Anthropology
University of Ilinois at Urbana-Champaign
June 2015 - June 2018
President Elect
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
May 2023 - Present
https://www.socarchsci.org/board.html
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Vice President for Intersociety Relations
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
August 2020 - May 2023
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Governing Board Delegate
Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS)
May 2019 - Present
https://www.facss.org/governing-board
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Vice President for Social Media and Outreach
The Society for Archaeological Sciences
January 2017 - August 2020
Scientist, Purity Survey, Materials Sciences
Eurofins | EAG Laboratories, Liverpool, New York
December 2022 - Present
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Associate Scientist, Purity Survey, Materials Science
Eurofins | EAG Laboratories, Liverpool, New York
August 2021 - December 2022