Mallory, J.P. 1945-

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Mallory, J.P. 1945-
(James Patrick Mallory)

PERSONAL:

Born October 25, 1945, in San Bernardino, CA; son of Clyde Francis and Rosemarie Mallory; divorced; children: Deirdre, Conall, Fintan, Tom. Education: Occidental College, A.B., 1967; University of California, Ph.D., 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Home—12 Lakeland Manor Grove, Hillsborough BT26 6SW, Northern Ireland. Office—School of Geography, Archaeology, and Palaeoecology, Queen's University, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland.

CAREER:

Affiliated with University of California Extension, 1975-77; Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, Northern Ireland, senior research fellow, 1978-79; Queen's University, Belfast, senior lecturer in archaeology, 1981—. Military service: U.S. Army, 1969-71; became sergeant.

MEMBER:

Royal Irish Academy.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Dmitriy Yakolevich Telegin, Dereivka, a Settlement and Cemetery of Copper Age Horse Keepers on the Middle Dnieper, translated by V.K. Pyatkovskiy, British Archaeological Reports (Oxford, England), 1986.

(Editor) Dmitriy Yakolevich Telegin and I.D. Potekhina, Neolithic Cemeteries and Populations in the Dnieper Basin, translated by V.A. Tikhomirov, British Archaeological Reports (Oxford, England), 1987.

In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, Thames & Hudson (New York, NY), 1989.

(With T.E. McNeill) The Archaeology of Ulster from Colonization to Plantation, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University of Belfast (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1991.

(Editor) Aspects of the Tain, December (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1992.

(Editor, with D.Q. Adams) Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn (Chicago, IL), 1997.

(With Victor H. Mair) The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, Thames & Hudson (New York, NY), 2000.

(With D.Q. Adams) The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-Europeans and the Proto-Indo-European World, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2006.

Also author (with Dmitriy Yakolevich Telegin), The Anthropomorphic Stelae of the Ukraine, 1994; editor (with G. Stockman), Ulidia, 1994.

SIDELIGHTS:

J.P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth is "one of the most reliable and well-balanced monographs on the Indo-Europeans to have appeared in many years," reported John A.C. Greppin in a Times Literary Supplement review. The book, according to Choice contributor C. Gabel, presents a "traditional … sound, seemingly balanced treatment of the evidence" addressing "the question of Indo-European origins." According to Greppin, Mallory "takes no odd stance, pleads no special cause, champions no unique view; instead, he lays out the evidence from linguistics, from comparative mythology, and most important, from archaeology." "The hypothesis that ‘cannot be avoided,’" indicated Philip Morrison in the Scientific American, "is that somewhere in Europe or Asia there was a place where long ago people spoke the protolanguage…. Somewhere between the Black Sea and the Bolga-Ural plains is the consensus choice." Mallory's "conclusion is startling," Greppin noted. "He says that in view of the enormously contradictory evidence which we possess, it is impossible to assign a particular place or time of origin for the Proto-Indo-Europeans; if we should insist on a precise location, we would have to suppress incompatible evidence, of which, as Mallory shows, we have plenty." Morrison praised Mallory for "argu[ing] explicitly and plausibly" in In Search of the Indo-Europeans.

Mallory also edited Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture with D.Q. Adams. A Booklist contributor described the encyclopedia as "an impressive work of collaborative scholarship … [which] most academic libraries would be remiss not to have." The volume presents "a snapshot of current scholarship … covering the major language stocks, their origins, some selected cultures, and a few of the major issues in the field," reported the Booklist reviewer.