S. Boyd Eaton (b. Old Town, Maine, 1938) graduated with honors from Duke University (1960) and Harvard Medical School (1964). His residency and fellowship in diagnostic radiology were at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1965-69) and he has been a diagnostic radiologist in Atlanta, Georgia, since 1972. His practice has increasingly focused on orthopedic radiology: for years his group has provided services for Georgia Tech athletes as well as the Atlanta Braves, Hawks, and Thrashers. In 1966 he was medical director of the Olympic Village Polyclinic during the Centennial Olympic Games. He has academic appointments (in radiology and anthropology) at Emory University.
Eaton's fascination with evolutionary medicine and Paleolithic nutrition dates from the late 1970's -a time when there was little understanding of Preagricultural human diets or appreciation of their implications for contemporary health. In conjunction with talented collaborators, he has endeavored to characterize ancestral eating patterns, especially those of the earliest behaviorly modern humans who are thought to have appeared in Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. The lifestyle of these individuals might logically be advanced as a candidate paradigm for contemporary health promotion research.