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Department of Anthropology

 

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Undergraduate Programs


Anthropology Major

Anthropology is the comparative, evolutionary and historical study of human, and nonhuman primates. 

 EXPLORE MAJORS AND EMPHASES 

Anthropology Minor

Because we study all aspects of humans, anthropology is holistic and inter-disciplinary and anthropologists work hand-in-hand with other sciences such as biology, physiology, sociology and psychology—just to name a few.

 

Integrative Human Biology Minor (IHB)

Engage in research in human form and function, human evolution and biological variation, human behavior, and the roles humans play in local and global ecosystems. Students will acquire the broad but rigorous background they will need as professionals in the 21st-century health sciences and many other fields that engage directly with aspects of human adaptation and welfare.

EXPLORE ANTHROPOLOGY MINORS 

 

Have a question about anthropology? Ready to declare?

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Upcoming Events

 

Anthropology Fall 2024 Colloquium Speaker Series


 Alex NorwoodAlexandra Norwood, Ph.D.

 

"A seasonal-scale approach to megafaunal extinction"

 

Thursday, October 3, 2024

 

 

Click here to RSVP
*Seating is limited

"A seasonal-scale approach to megafaunal extinction"

Abstract:

The catastrophic extinction of Earth’s megafauna (animals > 45 kg) over the past 50,000 years has profoundly altered terrestrial ecosystems, but the drivers of these losses in Africa are understudied. In southern Africa, which provides the most detailed fossil record of these extinctions on the continent, changes in rainfall seasonality (the timing and amount of rainfall across the year) are hypothesized to have contributed to the disappearance of several large-bodied herbivores ~12,000 years ago. However, seasonality is notoriously difficult to reconstruct from the fossil record, so these hypotheses have been challenging to test. This talk will address these methodological challenges and the broader question of late Quaternary extinction in three parts. First, I will present an analysis of bulk ungulate enamel isotope data from sites that span the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and highlight both the complexity of controls on vegetation and faunal distributions across the distinct climatic regimes that divide southern Africa and the limitations of the existing stable isotope record to resolve paleoclimatic questions. Second, I will discuss additional inconsistencies between paleoenvironmental proxies during this time interval that implicate changing seasonality as a driver of ecosystem change. Lastly, I will outline my research agenda for my postdoc, which develops enamel serial sampling methodology for tracking seasonality in fossil ungulate teeth and then generates enamel isotope data to reconstruct changes in seasonality across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in southern Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: 9/30/24