Remembering Jim Sackett

Dear friends and colleagues,

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you of the passing of Emeritus Professor James Robert Sackett on December 21st, 2019.  Professor Sackett received a B.A. in Anthropology from Lawrence College in 1955 (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and his Ph.D. in Archaeology from Harvard University in 1965.  Professor Sackett joined our Department as an Acting Instructor in 1962, three years before he had finished his dissertation. In 1965, with his Ph.D. in hand, Professor Sackett was offered a position as an Assistant Professor in our Department. Still only an Associate Professor, he served as Chair of our Department from 1976 through 1979 before being promoted to Full Professor in 1981.  Serving at various times as Chair of the Interdisciplinary Degree Program in Archaeology as well as Director of the UCLA Institute of Archaeology, Professor Sacket’s important contributions to our Department, the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, and the broader community at UCLA lasted long beyond his official retirement in 1994.  For more on his contributions to research on paleolithic France and to the history of the field of archaeology, please see the published obituary in the LA times, as well as the recent tribute on the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology website.  The University Flag (located in Pauley Pavilion) will be lowered to half-mast for Professor Sackett on Thursday, February 2020.

 

-C. Jason Throop
Professor & Chair, Department of Anthropology