Hallam L. Movius

Hallam Leonard Movius (1907–1987) was an American archaeologist most famous for his work on the Palaeolithic period.

He was born in Newton, Massachusetts and attended Harvard College, graduating in 1930. After receiving his PhD from Harvard and serving in the 12th Air Force in North Africa and Italy during World War II, he returned to Harvard and became a professor of archaeology there. Eventually he also became curator of Paleolithic Archaeology at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

The Movius Line

In 1948 he proposed the existence of a Movius Line dividing the Acheulean tool users of Europe, Africa and western Asia from the chopping tool industries of East Asia.

He also studied the Perigordian and Aurignacian cultures of Palaeolithic France, excavating at the rock shelter of Abri Pataud in Les Eyzies (Dordogne) from 1958 to 1973.

He is the father of the American poet Geoffrey Movius.