Biological Anthropology
The biological anthropology faculty research and teach courses on evolutionary and ecological aspects of human biology and its interaction with culture including: human biological variation, genetics, growth and development, infectious diseases, demography, medical anthropology, the human fossil record, skeletal biology, functional morphology, and forensic anthropology. Ongoing research involves historical epidemiology in Newfoundland and the use of computer simulation models to study the geographic spread of infectious diseases, growth and development of the human skeleton including behavioral inference from long bone cross-sectional geometry, and quantitative genetics of female macaque life history traits.
Cultural Anthropology
The cultural anthropology program emphasizes scientific approaches to the study of human culture and behavior. Our areas of strength include biocultural anthropology, medical anthropology, and human behavioral ecology. The program is closely integrated with evolutionary studies and the life sciences at MU. Interests of the faculty include health, religion, marriage, reproduction, family, kinship, childhood, migration, and stress. We offer students research opportunities at our field sites in the Caribbean, India, Bangladesh, Canada and Amazonia. Faculty and students in the cultural program collaborate extensively with colleagues in other departments and programs at MU, including psychological sciences, rural sociology, biological sciences, geography, folklore, functional anatomy & evolution, religious studies, South Asian studies, and Canadian studies.
Archaeological Anthropology
Archaeology at the University of Missouri-Columbia is unabashedly Americanist. That is, the archaeology professoriate has experience in, and train students in, a number of sometimes unique, sometimes overlapping and complementary approaches to studying the archaeological record. Several individuals focus on the application of Darwinian approaches; some study culture history or take processualist/middle range approaches; still others are attuned to processualism plus. As well, faculty provide specialized training in lithic analysis, ceramic analysis, paleoethnobotany, and zooarchaeology. Geographic regions where faculty focus their research include the American Midwest; the American Southwest and northern Mexico; the American Pacific Northwest; and the lowland Neotropics, including the Caribbean, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru.
