Alan Lyle Bryan was an American-born Canadian archaeologist who's research interests centred on the peopling of the Americas and pre-Clovis occupation. Bryan was born on San Juan Island, Washington on June 21, 1928. He studied at the University of Washington for both his undergraduate and master's degrees. Bryan continued his studies at Harvard, where he completed his PhD dissertation on Paleoamerican prehistory.
With his wife, fellow archaeologist Dr. Ruth Gruhn, he joined the University of Alberta's anthropology department in 1965 and served as a curator for the department from 1966 - 1993. He worked to establish the Bryan/Gruhn Archaeology Collection and Ethnographic Collection. Alan Bryan repeatedly conducted archaeological work in British Columbia and assisted Dr. Charles E. Borden with excavations at the Whalen Farm site in Tsawwassen, Chunlac [Chinlac] Village, and the Nechako River survey. He continued to be involved in archaeological fieldwork after his retirement in 1993, with his last field project taking place in Baja California, Mexico in 2004.