Jan Simek is a faculty member in the department of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests include Paleolithic archaeology, human evolution, quantitative analysis, spatial analysis, archaeology of the Southeastern United States, and cave archaeology. He has been involved in the exploration of numerous “unnamed caves,” a naming practice used to protect their location, in the Cumberland Plateau. Simek has been instrumental in the investigation of ancient artwork dating back thousands of years. He has also conducted research in France at Neanderthal habitation sites.