Philip L. Kohl received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1974.  Currently he is Professor of Anthropology and the first Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He teaches courses in physical anthropology, archaeology and on the peoples and cultures of Eurasia and the Middle East. He is particularly concerned with how the remote past is utilized for contemporary political purposes and on the historical development of archaeology and its role in the formation of nation-states and the construction of national identities.

Dr. Kohl is the author of more than 120 articles and reviews on the archaeology of the ancient Near East and in archaeological theory, including "L'Asie Centrale; des origines a l'age du Fer (Central Asia: Palaeolithic Beginnings to the Iron Age) "(Paris, 1984), editor of "The Bronze Age Civilization of Central Asia: Recent Soviet Discoveries" (M.E. Sharpe, 1981) and "Recent Discoveries in Transcaucasia" (special issue of Soviet Anthropology and Archaeology (M.E. Sharpe, 1992)), and co-editor of "Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology" (Cambridge 1995) with Clare Fawcett.

Dr. Kohl has taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, at the New School for Social Research in New York, and in La Plata and Olavarria, Argentina. He received an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to work at the Institut für Ur-und Frühgeschichte in Heidelberg and, more recently in 1999 at the Eurasien-Abteilung, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Berlin, Germany. He also received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship to teach and conduct research in Argentina in spring 2000 and was a Foreign Research Scholar at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Lyon and Paris, France in 2001. He has been designated a Fulbright Senior Specialist. He has been a Fellow at the Russian Research Center, Harvard University and a Research Associate of the Peabody Museum at Harvard and was selected to be a permanent Corresponding Member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in 1997. He has participated in and led archaeological investigations in Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. He has directed the International Program for Anthropological Research in the Caucasus (IPARC).