Demography
Program description
Questions about population are fundamental in all areas of Anthropology, and Penn State’s Demography and Population Studies Program is designed to cut across and unify all the traditional subdisciplines of Anthropology. While activities in the Program can be classified loosely under the headings Cultural Demography, Biodemography, and Archaeological Demography, in practice these subfields overlap extensively.
RESEARCH EMPHASES
Cultural Demography at Penn State includes research on social, cultural, and economic factors influencing patterns of fertility, mortality, and migration. Recent fieldwork has included studies of changing patterns of fertility and access to health care in rural and urban Bangladesh, and economic factors influencing the modern decline in fertility and subsequent depopulation in the northernmost islands of Orkney, off the northern tip of Scotland. The fieldwork in Orkney is part of a larger project on the history of population change – a project that includes archaeologists and biological anthropologists as well as cultural anthropologists.
Biodemography studies genetic, developmental, epidemiological, ecological, and other biological factors that interact with population, both as cause and as effect. Recent research has included the use of DNA markers to reconstruct population history, the role of infectious diseases in influencing population dynamics in the past, population processes and their effects on genetic diversity, the ecology and demography of preindustrial systems of agriculture, the health consequences of gene-environment interaction, the demographic implications of biological development and aging, the genetics of human diseases, and the role of ecological and epidemiological variables in causing the modern decline in mortality. Active field projects include a long-term study of the health consequences of traditional farming in the Orkney Islands, and research on the admixture history of Ireland, Brazil, and other populations with complex histories.
Archaeological demography is the study of long-term trends in population, community structure, settlement patterns, spatial distribution, and movements of people in the ancient world. Recent research at Penn State focuses on long-term population histories, including patterns of population growth under different socioeconomic systems, as well as migration, the demographic structure of ancient communities, and skeletal age estimation methods. These studies include the traditional fields of paleodemography and paleoepidemiology (the reconstruction of ancient population and health from archaeological skeletal samples), as well as research on regional and household settlement. This work has been conducted in North America, Mesoamerica, Denmark, Great Britain, and Egypt.
The Option of a Dual Degree in Anthropology and Demography
Many of the activities of Anthropology’s Demography and Population Studies Program are done with the support and collaboration of Penn State’s Population Research Institute (PRI). In fact, PRI and Anthropology offer the option of joint M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. This option allows the graduate student (in consultation with his/her advisor) to design a special course of graduate study, and provides access to additional resources, both financial and computational. The dual degree has demonstrably increased job opportunities for many of our graduates. Students interested in this program should simply apply for admission to the Department of Anthropology following the usual procedure (click on Application Link below). Application to the Dual-Degree Program can be done after the student has arrived at Penn State.
DEPARTMENT ANTHROPOLOGISTS
Anne V. Buchanan, Research Associate in Anthropology and Science, Technology, and Society
Kenneth G. Hirth, Professor, archaeological demography, settlement demography and ecology
Patricia L. Johnson, Associate Professor, cultural demography, economic change, household demography, Orkney Islands
Stephen A. Matthews, Associate Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Demography, spatial demography, GIS, spatial analysis, health and well-being, Orkney Islands
George R. Milner, Professor, paleodemography, paleoepidemiology, osteology, North America
Mark D. Shriver, molecular genetics, population genetics, population history, Ireland, Brazil
Kenneth M. Weiss, Evan Pugh Professor of Biological Anthropology and Genetics and Science, Technology, and Society
James W. Wood, population ecology, historical demography, reproductive biology and fertility, infectious disease dynamics, Orkney Islands
DEPARTMENT FACILITIES AND RESOURCES
Morphometrics Lab, with microscopy and high-throughput computing
Anthropological Genomics Lab
Evolutionary and Developmental Genetics Lab
Bioarchaeology Lab
Demography Laboratory
COURSES
Anth 408 Anthropological Demography
Anth 410 Osteology
Anth 450 Comparative Social Organization
Anth 456 Cultural Ecology
Anth 462 The Biometry of Human
Reproduction
Anth 471 Genes, Evolution, and Society
Anth 473 Genetics of Human Disease
Anth 497A Settlement demography
Anth 497B Paleodemography
Anth 497C Population and Traditional Farming
Anth 565 Women and Development
Anth 566 Infectious Diseases in Anthropological Populations
GRADUATE APPLICATION AND UNDERGRADUATE REGISTRATION INFORMATION
LINKS
Population Research Institute
Anthropology/Demography Dual-Degree ProgramInstitute for Molecular and Evolutionary Genetics (IMEG)
Micro CT-scanning facility
Bioinformatics Program and computing resources
Population Resource Institute
Social Survey Research Institute
Rock Ethics Institute
Department of Science, Technology, and Society
