John D. Bengtson (born 1948) is an American historical and anthropological linguist. He is a past president and currently a vice-president of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, and has served as editor (or co-editor) of the journal Mother Tongue (1996–2003, 2007-2015). His areas of specialization include Scandinavian languages and linguistics, Indo-European linguistics, African languages, Dené–Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) languages, and paleolinguistics (the study of prehistory through linguistic evidence).