Paul Bohannan (1920-2007) was an American social and cultural anthropologist known for his ethnographic work among the Tiv people of Nigeria and Cameroon, and his study on the nature of divorce in the western world seen through the lens of Tiv cultural practices.

In 1947 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with his bachelor’s degree in German from the University of Arizona. He attended Queen’s College, Oxford, thereafter as a Rhodes scholar, receiving a Bachelor of Science in anthropology in 1949 and his PhD in anthropology in 1951. He spent time in Africa observing the Tiv people during 1949-1953. Bohannan was lecturer in social anthropology at Oxford University until 1956, he then taught at Princeton University and Northwestern University, where he focused on African ethnography and helped to build the anthropology department’s study of economic anthropology. He then taught at UC Santa Barbara before joining USC. Bohannan served as dean of social sciences and communications at USC from 1984-1987.

Bohannan’s major works include The Tiv: An African People From 1949 to 1953 (Ethnografics Press, 2000) co-authored with USC associate professor Gary Seaman, We, the Alien: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Waveland Press, 1992), How Culture Works (Free Press, 1994), Justice and Judgment Among the Tiv (Waveland Press, 1989), Africa & Africans (Natural History Press, 1973) and African Homicide and Suicide (Holiday House, 1972).