Robert A. Brightman is an American anthropologist. He is Greenberg Professor of Native American Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Brightman is known for his work among the Cree Indians in Manitoba, Canada.
He received his undergraduate education at Reed College, graduating in 1973. He earned his MA (1976) and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1983. There he studied under Raymond D. Fogelson.
His 1993 book Grateful Prey is an examination of human-animal relationships, hunting cosmology, and spirituality among the Rock Cree.
Since approximately 2002, he has begun studying hunter-gatherer castes in South India.