John Hoffecker will present “The Early Upper Paleolithic Archaeology of the East European Plain” at the San Juan Basin Archaeological Society meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College.

There will be a social at 6:30 p.m. before the talk.

Hoffecker’s primary research focus is the global dispersal of anatomically modern humans, which began more than 50,000 years ago in Africa. His specific geographic focus is Eastern Europe, where he has done field and lab research since the late 1980s.

Since 2001, he has been working at open-air sites on the East European Plain, in both Russia and Ukraine, which were occupied by modern humans more than 30,000 years ago. In 2012, he began a field project at Mira, on the lower Dniepr River. He has also worked for many years in Alaska, where his research has addressed questions about the emergence of Inupiaq settlement and economy on the coast of northwestern Alaska.

Hoffecker is currently a fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

For more information, visit www.sjbas.org.