Undergraduate

Anthropology is concerned with how humans and human societies evolve culturally and biologically. Anthropology explores the differences and similarities among human cultures and the evolutionary and biocultural processes that influence human biological diversity. It integrates a wide range of perspectives on human behavior, culture, and society. Students in the Anthropology Major will become familiar with the basic concerns of archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology.

The anthropology program offers archaeology courses that explore how past peoples lived, adapted, and shaped their worlds. Courses cover topics such as the rise of inequality, food production, urbanism, environmental change, migration, and societal collapse and cover many geographic regions (Latin America, Africa, Europe, North America, among others). Students also may engage in archaeological methods such as lithic analysis, archaeobotany, GIS, remote sensing technologies, and isotope analysis.

Course offerings in biological anthropology focus on human biological diversity and adaptability from evolutionary and biocultural perspectives. Several courses explore the behaviors and biocultural adaptations of our primate relatives (e.g., monkeys and apes) and our evolutionary ancestors and relatives (e.g., Homo erectus, Neanderthals). Other courses focus on the Homo sapiens species, including human variation, bioarcheology, forensic anthropology, and paleopathology.

Cultural anthropology is represented by a wide variety of courses on culture areas including the Pacific, Caribbean, Latin America, China, Japan, South Asia, Eastern Europe and the United States. Classes provide cross-cultural studies of topics such as medical anthropology, social and political organization, power and resistance, gender, food, folklore, religion, and multispecies relationships.

Linguistic anthropology courses examine language and other sign systems (semiotics) in context, focusing on the complex relationship between language, society, and culture. Courses include issues surrounding language and power, resistance, decolonization, identity, media and society, and migration. Topics also include poetics and storytelling and semiotic anthropology.

Opportunities for student field work and research are provided through museum collections, participation in independent studies with faculty and graduate students, internships with local organizations, and summer field school experiences.