David J. Meltzer began in archaeology as a 15-year old high school student, and has been at it ever since. His undergraduate education was in Anthropology (with a minor in soils) at the University of Maryland, followed by a Masters and PhD at the University of Washington, doing coursework in archaeology and Quaternary sciences. He joined the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University as an Assistant Professor, where he is now the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory, and the Executive Director of the Quest Archaeological Research Program. Along the way, he has had extramural research appointments in the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution; the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University; and as a Beaufort Scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge University. He is currently an Affiliate Professor in Prehistory, Climate and Environment, at the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.