Graduate Program in Anthropology

revised August 2008

Introduction

Anthropology is the study of humans and their primate relatives, both living and fossil forms. Anthropologists are concerned with past and present cultures - objects, behaviors, and ideas that characterize human populations; languages, both written and unwritten; and biological variability of past and present populations. The application of specialized knowledge to questions regarding variability within and between human populations and their cultures is the unifying goal of anthropology.

The University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) Department of Anthropology offers graduate work leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. The master’s degree program of study is designed to provide broad training in anthropology. At the doctoral level, the student pursues individual, specialized study. The graduate program provides rigorous coursework in combination with hands-on field and laboratory research experience. Our department has a broad scientific approach, with emphasis on theoretical grounding in ecological and evolutionary theory.

Graduate training is offered in three traditional research areas of anthropology: cultural anthropology, physical/biological anthropology, and archaeology. The doctoral candidate normally specializes in one of the recognized subfields of anthropology or, in consultation with his/her doctoral program committee, chooses an area of specialization that either cuts across some of the recognized divisions or includes some area outside traditional anthropology. Areas of specialization reflect the active research interests of the MU Anthropology faculty and currently include:

• Social/cultural anthropology: human behavioral ecology, medical anthropology, biocultural anthropology.
• Biological anthropology: skeletal biology, human osteology, demography, epidemiology, primate genetics.
• Archaeology: archaeological theory, evolutionary archaeology, zooarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, lithic artifact analysis, ceramic analysis, material sourcing studies.

In addition, the Museum of Anthropology provides opportunities for museum-oriented studies. The department also participates in the graduate minor in Ancient Studies.

Departmental research facilities/collections include a paleoethnobotany laboratory, a comparative faunal collection, a skeletal biology laboratory, extensive holdings of archaeological and skeletal materials from Missouri and ethnographic specimens from many parts of the world. The Museum Support Center, an archaeological research and curation facility, is located on the edge of campus. The University of Missouri Herbarium is also housed in this facility. (See Facilities for more information about departmental facilities.) Resources in other departments or research units available by arrangement include the Archaeometrics Laboratory of the Research Reactor, the Electron Microscopy Facility, the Life Sciences Center, and the Stable Isotope Laboratory of the Department of Geological Sciences.

Regular faculty members of the department conduct research in the following geographical areas:

• the Northwest (archaeology)
• the American Southwest and northern Mesoamerica (archaeology)
• the Mississippi River Valley (archaeology)
• Canada (biological and cultural anthropology)
• Ecuador and Peru (archaeology)
• South Asia (cultural anthropology)
• the Caribbean, and Amazonia (biological & cultural anthropology)

Refer to Faculty for interests of emeritus faculty.

Contact

Dr Todd VanPool , Director of Graduate Studies
573-884-8118
201 Swallow Hall
vanpoolt@missouri.edu

107 Swallow Hall | 573-882-4731 (phone) | 573-884-5450 (fax)
general inquiries: Cynthia Irsik - irsikc@missouri.edu

Department of Anthropology | College of Arts and Science | University of Missouri
copyright © The Curators of the University of Missouri | an equal opportunity/ADA institution