George Armelagos believed every skeleton had a story to tell.
Over nearly a half-century as an anthropologist, his last 21 years on the Emory University faculty, he made it his business to unravel those stories.
For example, in analyzing the bones of Nubians who inhabited southern Egypt and northern Sudan 2,000 years ago, he found traces of tetracycline, a naturally occurring antibiotic. He went on to determine that the tetracycline came from beer the Nubians brewed in clay pots, the strongest indication yet that these ancients produced what may be considered a modern healing potion.
Alan Goodman, former president of the American Anthropological Association and a professor of anthropology at Hampshire (Mass.) College, said Armelagos was one of the most influential, innovative and inspiring anthropologists of the last half century.
“Of special note,” Goodman added, “is his work on the intersection of biology, culture and archaeology. He pioneered the study of health and nutrition in past populations, relating changes in biology to changes in culture and economy. At the same time, he tirelessly promoted a non-racial view of human biological variation. He saw how the old idea of biological races was scientifically inadequate and socially harmful.”
Goodman knows the work of Armelagos well, having co-authored 30 scholarly articles with him.
An Emory colleague and longtime friend, Peter Brown, said Armelagos was a leader in raising modern anthropological understanding of human bio-cultural evolution, the history of health and the changes over time in food use.
“Best known for his work with mummies and skeletons from ancient Nubia, George was an anthropologist in the widest sense of the word,” Brown said.
George J. Armelagos, 77, died May 15 at his Atlanta home of pancreatic cancer. A memorial service is scheduled for Aug. 29 at Emory University. A private interment will be held at St. Catherine’s Island off the Georgia coast this summer. SouthCare Cremation Society is in charge of arrangements.
The son of Greek immigrants, Armelagos was born and raised outside Detroit. He graduated with honors from the University of Michigan and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado. He then taught anthropology at the University of Utah for three years, at the University of Massachusetts for 22 years and at the University of Florida for three years. He joined the Emory faculty in 1993.
Bethany Turner, a professor of anthropology at Georgia State University and a former student of Armelagos, said he was an outstanding teacher and mentor. His guidance, she added, was a principal reason so many of his students found jobs in the field of anthropology.
She also said Armelagos took a strong ethical position about taking the bones of someone’s ancestor out of the ground only to have them gather dust on a laboratory shelf. She said he felt those remains were to be studied to learn more about the past, “and for every hour he spent digging for bones he would spend a month in the lab examining them.”
Another former student, Dennis Van Garen, now a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, said he became an anthropology major because of Armelagos.
“George filled my life with a zest for work and with joy,” Van Garen said. “He was never happier than when he was with his students, and that’s what made him so beloved to us all.”
He is survived by two brothers, Nick Armelagos and James Armelagos, both of Detroit.
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