Anthropology PhD graduate makes an impact in the study of human origins
Patrick Fahey is graduating this May with his anthropology PhD from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Fahey was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and went to South Africa to uncover how ancient humans adapted their diets in response to climate change, shedding light on pivotal moments in human evolution. Courtesy photo
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable spring 2026 graduates.
How did humans get to where we are today? What is our place in the natural world? Why do we seem so different from other species?
These are questions Patrick Fahey, Arizona State University anthropology PhD graduate, has always found to be most compelling. After taking an introductory anthropology course as an undergraduate, he realized he could study these questions directly while simultaneously getting his hands dirty doing fieldwork all over the world.
“Sign me up!” Fahey said.
Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Fahey is graduating this May from ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change. He said he chose ASU to pursue his PhD due to the number of scientists studying the origins of humans, making it an unparalleled place to get a broad training in all things paleoanthropology.
One archaeological site that Fahey was drawn to in particular was Pinnacle Point, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site on the southern coast of South Africa consisting of caves and rock shelters where modern humans’ earliest ancestors lived 50,000 to 160,000 years ago.
“I was drawn to studying the Middle Stone Age because I was very curious about why humans are so different from other animals,” said Fahey, who is also an affiliated graduate student with ASU’s Institute of Human Origins.
“There are lots of things that make us different (we walk on two legs, have big brains, etc.), but I was particularly interested in how we evolved the behaviors that make us so unique, like our propensity for cooperation in large groups, our drive to create art and how we developed such complex tools like bows and arrows.”
Fahey said he was interested in how human ecology evolved alongside behavioral shifts, particularly how changes in the environment may have influenced the development of new behaviors.
“Pinnacle Point had a massive collection of animal remains that I could study to start addressing these questions,” Fahey said.
He was soon given the opportunity to study at this site himself after being awarded a Fulbright fellowship, an opportunity he said largely impacted his research and career.
“Living and conducting research in South Africa was hugely influential for me, both as a scientist and beyond,” Fahey said. “During that time, I worked mostly in a lab analyzing fossils from an early Homo sapiens site, with the goal of building a large enough sample to track changes in environment and human diet at a really fine temporal scale. Because zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis is so time-intensive, having a full year to work in this South African lab allowed me to analyze about 30,000 specimens. That scale of data has been critical for identifying patterns I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise.”
Fahey said the opportunity to live in South Africa also exposed him to a new cultural and scientific environment, allowing him to build strong relationships with local researchers who are now long-term collaborators.
“It really expanded my professional network and opened the door for ongoing international research partnerships,” he said.
One of those partnerships that formed was with local archaeology students, many of whom shared a similar concern.
“International research teams often come to South Africa to run excavations, and local students have lots of opportunities to participate in excavation, but they’re much less often included in the next phase: lab analysis of the excavated material. As a result, they felt they were missing training that’s essential for building a career in archaeology,” Fahey said.
As a result, Fahey used his Fulbright funds to start the ARTIFACT program, or Archaeological Research Training and Faunal Analysis and Cultural Technologies.
“I worked with a cohort of students, trained them in lab methods, and then brought them into the analysis of material from the site I was working on, Pinnacle Point, so they could gain hands-on experience with real assemblages,” Fahey said. “It ended up being a win-win. They gained technical training, and I gained both help working through a large assemblage and valuable teaching experience.”
As he worked through that large assemblage of material at Pinnacle Point, Fahey ran into a problem faced by many archaeologists working at Stone Age sites: The excavated animal bones are extremely fragmented, with single bones being broken into dozens of pieces.
“Most of what we recover are dense fragments like long bone midshafts that are very difficult to identify to species,” Fahey said. “That creates a problem, because these fragments are incredibly abundant and contain important information about site formation and human behavior, but we need better ways to extract information about what type of animal they came from.”
As a solution, Fahey built a mathematical model that will make it easier to identify animal species from the fragmented remains. Fahey then published an article on the discovery in the Journal of Archaeological Science with faculty advisor Curtis Marean, marking an important contribution to the field of paleoanthropology.
All together, Fahey has established himself as an accomplished archaeologist and made a significant impact in the field of paleoanthropology during his time at ASU. However, he attributes the mentorship opportunities from faculty at ASU as influential markers for his research and career.
“I’ve benefited tremendously from so much amazing mentorship in this program that has really shaped the way I approach science and understanding human evolution,” Fahey said.
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