About Anthropology
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
Anthropology is the study of people and their evolution. Anthropologists study human origins and human culture from a comparative perspective. This allows them to understand why people look the way they do, why they make the things they make, and why their societies run as they do. Anthropologists formulate generaliizations about human diversity based on comparative biological, archaeological, and cultural studies. Anthropologists at Penn State study many aspects of the human condition, from genetic variation among living peoples, to the human and nonhuman primate fossil record, to the history and manifestations of human material culture throughout the world, to modern human social organization and demography.
ANTHROPOLOGY AT PENN STATE
The Department of Anthropology is world renowned for its innovative, empirical research, particularly in the areas of human evolution and variation, the evolution of complex societies, and cultural demography. For undergraduates, the department offers a range of courses leading to a B.A. in Anthropology and a B.Sc. in Archaeological Sciences. For graduate students, the department's doctoral program provides innovative and integrative training in biological anthropology, archaeology, and cultural demography, as well as opportunities to engage in cross- and interdisciplinary research aimed at understanding the interface between human biological, technological, and cultural evolution. Students at all levels have opportunities to engage in laboratory and field work, to develop individual research projects that will enrich their educations and lives.
Faculty in the Department of Anthropology utilize a variety of sophisticated methods and techniques to study human diversity in the present and past, from investigating gene function using transgenic organisms, to the study of bone shape using high resolution CT scanning and automated morphometrics, to visualization of patterns of human settlement using geographic information systems, to investigations of the earliest domesticated plants, to demographic studies of past and present human populations, and much more.
The Department of Anthropology at Penn State not only studies human diversity but is committed to maintaining and increasing the diversity of its faculty and students for the enrichment of all.
INNOVATION IN ANTHROPOLOGY AT PENN STATE
STATEMENT FROM THE HEAD OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Welcome to the Department of Anthropology at Penn State! This is an exciting time to be an anthropologist and to study anthropology because the discipline is evolving as new types of data and new methods for analyzing data become available. Anthropology has always been a wide-ranging discipline, which has drawn upon many types of information and many methodologies to shed light on all aspects of the evolution of the human condition. Over the last fifty years, anthropologists at Penn State have made major contributions to our knowledge of human evolution, human biological adaptation, human genetic diversity, and the evolution of complex societies and its demographic consequences. The Department hopes to continue to undertake path-breaking research in these areas, and to expand into new frontiers of knowledge that lie at the interface between the traditional sub-disciplines of archaeology, and biological and cultural anthropology.
MAJOR AREAS OF DEPARTMENTAL RESEARCH:
Faculty in the Department of Anthropology at Penn State conduct research in several different subject areas, which cut across traditional subdisciplinary boundaries. Many faculty are involved in research in more than one of these areas. Learn more about the research programs of individual faculty members on their web sites.
EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
Within the rubric of evolutionary biology, members of our department are involved in paleoanthropology (Jablonski, Richtsmeier, Walker), primatology (Jablonski, Kurland), genetic studies of population history (Shriver, Weiss), variation and adaptation (Jablonski, Richtsmeier, Shriver), evolutionary-developmental interactions (Richtsmeier, Weiss), developmental-environmental interactions (Richtsmeier, Walker, Weiss) paleoecology including paleobotany (Newsom), morphometrics (Richtsmeier), forensic anthropology (Milner, Snow), and osteology (Milner, Richtsmeier, Walker).
EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL COMPLEXITY INCLUDING ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES:
The department has long nurtured an expertise in the nature and evolution of complex societies (Hirth, Snow, Milner, Webster), paleosocieties and paleodemography (Milner, Snow, Wood), cultural evolution (Durrenberger, Johnson), cultural ecology (Beckerman, Johnson), complex cultures (Durrenberger, Johnson, Wood), warfare and conflict (Beckerman, Milner, Webster), political ecology (Beckerman), economic anthropology (Durrenberger), the rise of domestication and farming (Newsom, Webster), and spatial theories of settlement and urbanism (Wood).
ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT STUDIES:
Many faculty members concern themselves with human-environmental relationships (Jablonski, Newsom, Wood), spatial demography (Hirth, Johnson, Milner, Webster, Wood), epidemiology (Wood), and human biology and adaptation (Jablonski, Shriver, Walker).
