Dr. Posnansky is renowned as a retired African history and archaeology educator with some 50 years of excellence in his field.
ENCINO, CA, December 23, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Merrick Posnansky, PhD, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Posnansky celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Dr. Posnansky is renowned as a retired African history and archaeology educator with some 50 years of excellence in his field. Born in England he was fascinated by coins and found objects as a child, he initially planned on a career as a numismatist, but broadened his focus to archaeology when he realized the scarcity of numismatists in academia, He later pursued an education at the university of Nottingham, earning a BA in 1952 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1956 and where in 1951 he helped to establish a students' society in archaeology, the first outside of Oxford and Cambridge. He obtained a diploma in archaeology from Cambridge University in 1953.
From 1956 to 1958, Dr. Posnansky began his career as warden of the prehistoric sites for the Royal National Parks of Kenya in Nairobi. He served as the curator of the Uganda Museum in Kampala from 1958 to 1962, at which point he accepted the post of assistant director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. In 1959 he helped found the African Museums Association. Of which he was Chair, and later served as Vice President when it was reorganized with the help of UNESCO in 1961. He departed the British Institute in 1964 when appointed lecturer in African history and archaeology at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda, where he later was director of the newly established African Studies Program. Between 1967 and 1976 Dr. Posnansky served as Professor of archaeology at the University of Ghana.
Professor Posnansky flourished at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) as a professor of history anthropology and the chairman of the Archaeology program from 1979 to 1981. From 1984-1987 he was the director of the Institute of Archaeology and director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center from 1988-1992 and continued to teach until his retirement in 1994. He has conducted research in East Africa, Ethiopia, Somalia, Ghana, Togo and Benin.
Dr. Posnansky is the author of six books and edited volumes concerned with East African history and Archaeology and the archaeology of Begho, the first town in Ghana, where he excavated from 1970-79 and where he conducted ethno-archaeological surveys from 1970-98. He is the author of some 240 papers, chapters, notes and reviews of African Archaeology and in 2009 published his memoir Africa and Archaeology: Empowering an Expatriate Life. He is a past board member of many publications dealing with Africa including the Uganda Journal, the Journal of African History, African Arts, the West African Journal of Archaeology, and Backdirt, the annual for the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology of which he was the founding editor. He has twice served as a Fulbright Professor in Africa and has received travel and research grants from UNESCO, the National Geographic Society. the British Academy as well as other foundations and universities in Africa. In 2003 he was the recipient of the Harrington Medal from the Society for Historical Archaeology, the first time the award was made to a non-Americanist. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Society for African Archaeology of which he served as President in 1992. In 1998 he was honored with the Leadership Award of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association.
His major contribution to African archaeology has consisted of his work in establishing teaching programs in various African universities, including the University of Ghana where students can read archaeology from the bachelor's level to doctorates. From 1957 he began field schools in archaeology in Kenya, Tanganyika and later in Jamaica, Ghana and Togo that provided opportunities for volunteers from high schools up to the post-graduate university level, to participate in archaeological work and learn all the necessary practical skills to conduct their own research. From the late 1950's he began to combine both archaeological field research with oral history and ethno-archaeology. His initiatives have encouraged local initiatives and empowered heritage studies and helped develop closer cooperation between African traditional cultures and archaeologists. He supervised 15 doctoral scholars and many students at the masters level, who have helped establish vigorous programs in African Diasporan archaeology in West Africa, the Caribbean and the United States.
In addition to his archaeological work Professor Posnansky has been involved in University of California Education Abroad activities directing 4 programs in Ghana and Togo. From 1982-87 he also conducted research in Togo on the last of the narrow strip weavers of indigo dyed cloth thus recording one of Africa's near extinct crafts. From 1998 he has been involved in Philatelic research. In recent years his work has been acknowledged by the invitations he has received to be a keynote speaker at major international conferences on Africa including the Pan African Congress on Archaeology in Dakar and the conference to commemorate Black History month held at Howard University in 2010.
Dr. Posnansky and his wife Eunice Lubega, Uganda's first woman to graduate in East Africa, were married 42 years before her death in 2003, they had three daughters, Sheba, Tessa and Helen and six grandchildren.
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