Currently Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Near Eastern and Biblical Archaeology Lab, and Coordinator of Judaic Studies at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He is an anthropological archaeologist whose research focuses on the evolution of early agricultural and early complex societies in the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia) from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Geographically, his research covers a large swath of Old World societies, from Europe through the Near East and into Africa. He is currently co-director (with Prof. Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University, Israel) of the excavations of the Early Bronze Age city at Tell es-Safi, Israel, the Canaanite precursor of the famous Philistine site of ancient Gath (home of Biblical Goliath).