Our regional expertise is strongest in Africa, Australia, New Guinea, Latin America and western North America. We have a small but influential faculty, three of whom (Hawkes, O'Connell, Wiessner) are members of the National Academy of Sciences. Many faculty members do research that crosses disciplinary and sub-disciplinary lines, and we encourage students to do the same.

The Anthropology Department's mission is to advance understanding about the evolution and cross-cultural diversity of human nature and culture, and to share that knowledge with students and the wider community.

Learning Outcomes

• Describe variation among humans and their closest relatives across the world and through time.

• Specify each of the major sub-fields in anthropology and Contrast each of their approaches to studying and measuring variation.

• Apply anthropological research methods to answer a question or solve a problem.

• Explain aspects of human variation using evolutionary and social theory.

• Evaluate and Synthesize scientific hypotheses about human variation using empirical data.