Rick Potts

{{short description|American archaeologist, prehistorian, anthropologist, and paleoanthropologist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Rick Potts

| image = Rick_Potts_of_the_Smithsonian_in_his_office.jpg

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| caption = Potts displaying Oldowan stone choppers, roughly 2 million years old. These are the oldest hominin tools in the Smithsonian.

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| field = Paleoanthropology

| work_institution = Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History

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Richard B. Potts is a paleoanthropologist and has been the director of the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History's Human Origins Program since 1985. He is the curator of the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian.{{Cite web

| title = The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program – Rick Potts

| accessdate = 2014-10-21

| date = 2010-01-29

| url = http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/hop-team/rick-potts

}}

Life

Potts graduated from Temple University in his hometown of Philadelphia.{{Cite web|url = http://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/anthnote/Summer99/anthnote.html|title = Human Origins: One Man's Search for the Causes in Time|date = Spring–Summer 1999|accessdate = October 17, 2014|website = Anthro Notes Museum of Natural History Publication for Educators|publisher = Museum of Natural History|last = Selig|first = Ruth Osterweis}} In 1982 Potts received his doctorate in biological anthropology from Harvard University. Prior to joining the Smithsonian Institution he taught at Yale University and was its Peabody Museum of Natural History curator of Physical Anthropology.

He has been involved with early human excavation sites in Africa and Asia. His focus is on how human adaptation and evolution were in response to continuous changes in their environment over time.