Richard G. Cooke (28 October 1946 – 22 February 2023) was an archaeologist who specialized in the archaeology of Panama and, more generally, the Isthmo-Colombian Area.[1]
Cooke was born in Guildford, Surrey, southern England.He studied at Bristol and got his doctorate from the University of London in 1972.[2]
Among his areas of concentration were zooarchaeology and the “Greater Coclé semiotic tradition" of central Panama. He did extensive research on ancient fishing [3] He was also interested in Panamanian paleo-ecology, the original settlement of the tropical-forest region of the Americas, the development of agriculture, and general social development in the area. For some ten years, he led an archaeological project in Cerro Juan Díaz. [1] His contributions to Central American archaeology were celebrated in a conference held in San José, Costa Rica in 2017: “Tras una Herencia Cultural Milenaria: Contribuciones de Richard Cooke a la Arqueología del Área Istmo- Colombiana.”Cooke established a modern reference collection of fauna species of tropical America, for use by archaeologists and others.
A Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute staff scientist for the Smithsonian Institution,[3] he spent most of his career working in Panama.
In 2017, Cooke was designated a Member of the Order of the British Empire.[4] [5]
Sugiyama, Nawa, M. F. Martínez-Polanco, C. A. France, & R. G. Cooke. "Domesticated landscapes of the neotropics: Isotope signatures of human-animal relationships in pre-Columbian Panama." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 59 (2020): 101195.
Smith-Guzmán, N., & R. Cooke. “Cold-water diving in the tropics? External auditory exotoses among the Pre-Colombian inhabitants of Panama,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, doi:SI-659-2018 (2018)
Cooke, Richard, A. Ranere, G. Pearson, & R. Dickau. "Radiocarbon chronology of early human settlement on the Isthmus of Panama (13,000–7000 BP) with comments on cultural affinities, environments, subsistence, and technological change." Quaternary International 301 (2013): 3-22. (2013)
Cooke, Richard G. "Arqueología en Panamá (1888-2002)." Panama: cien años de República (2004).
Cooke, Richard G. "Rich, poor, shaman, child: Animals, rank, and status in the ‘Gran Coclé’culture area of pre-Columbian Panama." Behaviour behind Bones. The Zooarchaeology of Ritual, Religion, Status and Identity (2004): 271-284.
Cooke, Richard G., and Anthony J. Ranere. "Precolumbian fishing on the Pacific coast of Panama." Pacific Latin America in Prehistory: the evolution of archaic and formative cultures (1999).
Cooke, Richard, and Anthony J. Ranere. "Prehistoric human adaptations to the seasonally dry forests of Panama." World Archaeology 24.1 (1992): 114-133.
Piperno, D. R., Clary, K. H., Cooke, R. G., Ranere, A. J., & Weiland, D. "Preceramic maize in central Panama: phytolith and pollen evidence." American Anthropologist 87.4 (1985): 871-878.
Extensive bibliography: Richard Cooke