Rate My Professor Joseph Reti

Joseph (Jay) Reti is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research examines the origins of human reliance on technology and cultural transmission through experimental studies of stone tools dating back 2-3 million years from East Africa. Reti investigates hominin economic decisions, stone tool production strategies, raw material transport, and evidence of active teaching among early hominins. He directs the Human Evolution and Lithics Experimental Lab (HELEX), which supports experimental archaeology projects from diverse periods and regions, with a focus on human preferences for environmental raw materials. HELEX also trains UC Santa Cruz undergraduates in public outreach, enabling them to deliver lessons on human evolution to local high school biology classrooms. Previously, Reti served as Director of the Santa Cruz Island Reserve, part of the University of California Natural Reserve System managed through UC Santa Barbara. In this role and beyond, he collaborates with Native American communities on the cultural preservation of archaeological materials and develops strategies to mitigate the erosion of cultural sites exacerbated by climate change. Reti engages with indigenous leadership across California to shape archaeological policy.

Reti teaches core courses in biological anthropology, including ANTH 100: History and Theory of Biological Anthropology, ANTH 101: Human Evolution, ANTH 107E: Lithic Technology, ANTH 108: Neanderthals, ANTH 194H: Paleoanthropology Senior Seminar, and ANTH 195 Senior Thesis Seminars. He earned his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2013, with a dissertation titled Methods for Determining Differential Behaviors in Stone Tool Production and Application to the Oldowan of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and Koobi Fora, Kenya. A key publication is Quantifying Oldowan Stone Tool Production at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (PLoS ONE, 2016). Reti received a Leakey Foundation research grant in 2010 for his work on differential lithic production behaviors among Oldowan hominins.