Adam T. Smith

Adam T. Smith is Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University.  He is a co-founder of the joint American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Project ArAGATS). Smith holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Arizona's Department of Anthropology (1996) and an M.Phil. from the Social and Political Science Faculty at Cambridge University (1991). His research is currently focused on the emergence of complex societies in the South Caucasus and the materiality of political authority more broadly.  He is the author of The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities (California, 2003) and co-editor of Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond (with Karen S. Rubinson, Cotsen Institute, 2003), and Social Orders and Social Landscapes (with Laura Popova and Charles Hartley, CSP, 2007). Most recently, he is a co-author, with Ruben Badalyan and Pavel Avetisyan, of The Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies, volume I: Regional Investigations in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia (Oriental Institute Press, 2009).  Smith’s research has been supported by grants from diverse institutions including the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the National Geographic Society. In addition, he has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, the Howard Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, among others.  

https://anthropology.cornell.edu/adam-t-smith