What makes us different is what makes us human..
The Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh covers a wide range of geographical and topical specialties in all four subfields of anthropology (social and cultural anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology, and anthropological linguistics). Three special programs focus academic activities on particular faculty strengths—the Archaeology of Prehistoric Complex Societies; Medical Anthropology; and Ethnicity, Nationalism and the State—and are joined by a newly enhanced program in Physical Anthropology. All three are embedded in a context of anthropological training of broad theoretical and geographical scope.
The Social and Cultural Anthropology faculty conduct research and offer courses on a wide variety of methodological, theoretical, and ethnographic topics. The societies covered range from tribal and peasant societies to pluralistic nation states. Topical specializations include urban and development studies, medical anthropology, demography, economics, ecology, kinship and social organization, law and conflict management, folklore, ethnicity, nationalism and the state, political economy, historical anthropology, and colonialism. Students are trained in methods of collecting and analyzing data, research design, and proposal writing. In geographical terms there is particular emphasis on South and East Asia and the Pacific and on Latin America. Cultural anthropologists collaborate with cognitive and medical scientists, linguists, historians, sociologists, political scientists, and scholars in urban, legal, and women's studies (among others) in other departments and schools in the University.
The Department of Anthropology supports a broad-based program in Physical Anthropology which provides students with the background to study morphology, systematics, bio-archaeology, anatomy, and evolution. The students then define more specific foci for their own research. The faculty share joint appointments with the School of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Several extensive collections of casts of fossil primates and skeletal material are located within the department. A wide variety of facilites for the study of functional, comparative, and developmental anatomy are available. These include a laboratory for experimental studies of functional morphology, a complete surgery suite, animal facilities, and image analysis equipment for structural analysis. Students are encouraged to use the resources and courses available in the School of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, the Graduate School of Public Health, and other health and biology-related schools and departments within the University. Close ties are also maintained with University-affiliated hospitals.
The broad Archaeology offerings, with both New World and Old World coverages, stress the use of empirical archaeological data to evaluate theoretical approaches to the dynamics of change in human societies. Particular emphasis is placed on developing a comparative perspective on prehistoric complex societies in general, based on field research currently underway in several Latin American countries, China, and Russia. Faculty specialties include household archaeology, settlement patterns, origins of agriculture, development of tribes, chiefdoms and states, the rise of cities, human ecology, maritime adaptations, contact period studies, historical archaeology, cultural resource management, statistical analysis and computer applications (including Geographic Information Systems), and geoarchaeology. Affiliated faculty provide training in analysis of human skeletal remains, faunal remains, and ceramics.
An annual summer field school in archaeology investigates prehistoric/protohistoric (Iroquois) sites. Archaeology laboratories include facilities for computerized drafting, spatial analysis, and statistical research. Computers with extensive software are available in all of the subdisciplinary research quarters. Physical Anthropology facilities include a paleontology and osteology lab, environmental studies labs, and primate research labs in addition to a complete histology laboratory and computer facility.
A cooperative relationship with the Linguistics Department provides opportunities for study and research in many areas, including phonology, grammar, historical linguistics, Gypsy language and culture, field methods in linguistics, Mayan languages and culture, and American Indian languages in general (especially those of Latin America).
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