Fragment of Chunkey stone used in games played by Mississippian native peoples (GSU/Fernbank Museum Field School) .
Thank you for your interest in the Department of Anthropology at Georgia State University. Anthropology is the study of humanity across time and space. The discipline encompasses anthropological archaeology, biological anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. These sub-disciplines inform applied anthropology, the use of anthropological knowledge, skills, and strategies in understanding and solving human problems. Unique among other disciplines in its focus on ALL matters human, anthropology may be viewed as “the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities.” To Alfred Kroeber's definition we would add, “and the most critical of the professions.”
Our department, at a glance:
We currently have nine regular faculty, 193 majors and 38 graduate students. Our areas of focus include applied anthropology, bioarchaeology, medical anthropology, Mesoamerican archaeology, paleoanthropology and urban anthropology. The Department maintains two field schools. One of these, the Field School in Applied Anthropology, takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the other one, the Field School in Archaeology, takes place in Calhoun and Telfair counties in Georgia. The Department also hosts two exchange programs in Europe: at Ca’Foscari University in Venice, Italy and at the University of Aristotle in Thessaloniki, Greece. Faculty members maintain active research agendas in Brazil, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa and the US.
In summer 2011, several of our majors were involved in field schools, internships, lab work and independent research both locally and abroad. For example, seven students participated in a bioarchaeology field schools in Italy, Belize and Poland. Three students worked with a faculty member in Mexico on the archaeology of the ancient Maya. Student internships included one at ACCESS which assists individuals with HIV-AIDS, and another at Zoo Atlanta with a focus on orangutan sociality. Four students worked in the dental microwear laboratory at GSU to infer paleoecology and diet in fossil primates. Another student interviewed heart-transplant patients and their families in Iraq.
