Anthropology

As a student of anthropology devoted to the study of humankind, you will examine human origins, life in the ancient past and the unending diversity of contemporary human cultures. The program will provide you with a broad background in all of anthropology's major divisions – biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology and cultural anthropology. Required field work and research will give you the hands-on experience needed to prepare for graduate school in anthropology, as well as careers that require an understanding of cultural diversity – global and local – including international business, forensics, museum work and public policy.

Program Requirements Anthropology Anthropology Scholarships

Program Highlights

• Courses and fieldwork cover all subfields of anthropology: archaeology, biological, cultural and linguistic anthropology.
• Archaeology Lab and Biological Anthropology Lab available in Stewart Hall.
• Student-faculty collaboration encouraged.
• Unique fieldwork experiences available through field schools in cultural anthropology and archaeology.
• Teaching and research laboratories include comparative collections of human skeletal material and a modest faunal skeletal collection.
• Forensic anthropology course introduces students to law enforcement investigation.
• Select classes are available online.
• This discipline is available as a minor to complement another major. 

Program Distinctions

• Active repository agreement with Minnesota State Historical Society for long-term curation of archaeological collections.
• Anthropology Lab houses artifact collections from Minnesota sites and a comparative lithic and ceramic collection from various North America sites.
• Faculty established as experts in their field of study within anthropology and authors of key textbooks in the field. Among their published works: "Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition" by Emily Schultz and Robert Lavenda, which has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Bulgarian, Vietnamese and Macedonian; "The Bioarchaeology of Virginia Burial Mounds," by Debra L. Gold; and "Paleoindian Lifeways of the Cody Complex," co-edited by Mark P. Muniz.
• Master of Science program in Cultural Resource Management/Applied Archaeology. Examples of graduate student research include examination of former fur trading site buildings, episodes of human use at a Nebraska site, location of mound sites through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and 19^th Century maps in collaboration with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and early tool manufacturing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.