Ph.D., Anthropology, City University of New York-Graduate Center, 1980.
B.A., Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1972.

Coeditor, Journal of Archaeological Research (Kluwer).

Complex human societies

Complex human societies – how and why they arose, the different ways they were organized and changed over time, and how the economies of these ancient social formations were organized.

Gary Feinman has conducted archaeological field research in Oaxaca, Mexico, for over 30 years. Feinman has led regional settlement pattern surveys in the Valley of Oaxaca and several smaller, neighboring valleys and directed excavation of Classic period (A.D. 200-800) houses at two sites. He currently leads excavations of prehispanic houses at El Palmillo, a large hilltop terrace site in the eastern Valley of Oaxaca.

Since 1995, he also has been part of a collaborative team of North American and Chinese scholars studying the Late Neolithic through Han periods in Shandong, China.

Feinman's interests include change and variation in political and economic organization with a focus on early civilizations. He long has focused his studies on craft production.