Anthropology (ANTH)
How to Read Course Descriptions
ANTH 1. Introduction to Biological Anthropology. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Life Forms (B2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Covers the concepts, methods of inquiry, and theory of biological evolution and their application to the human species. There is a specific focus on molecular, Mendelian and population genetics, mechanisms of evolution, primatology, paleoanthropology, biocultural adaptations, and human variation. The scientific method serves as the foundation to the course.
ANTH 1A. Biological Anthropology Laboratory. 1 Unit
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 (may be taken concurrently)
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Laboratory (B3), Life Forms (B2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Designed to familiarize the student with the materials and techniques of physical anthropology. Includes human and other primate osteology, anthropometric techniques, and allied methods in the gathering and analysis of physical anthropological data. Through working with the departmental collection of fossil casts and a wide variety of charts and models, the student also becomes familiar with the stages of human and primate evolution.
ANTH 2. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to anthropological approaches in the study of people and cultures. Using ethnographic case studies, the course contributes to a critical understanding of continuity and diversity in peoples' lifestyles, social institutions, and cultural practices in different societies around the world. The course also examines the impact of political, economic, and social changes, such as colonization, decolonization, and globalization on people and cultures over the last century.
ANTH 2H. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology - Honors. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall only
Introduction to anthropological approaches in the study of people and cultures. Using ethnographic case studies, contributes to a critical understanding of the continuity and diversity in peoples' lifestyles, social institutions, and cultural practices in different societies around the world. Examines the impact of political, economic, and social changes, such as colonization, decolonization, globalization, etc., on people and cultures over the last century. Intended for students enrolled in the University's GE Honors Program.
Note: Students must be admitted to the GE Honors Program.
ANTH 3. Introduction to Archaeology. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduces students to the methods and theories used by archaeologists to find, recover, and interpret such remains in an effort to reconstruct and understand the lives of earlier peoples. The class uses archaeological case studies, films, and hands-on examples of tools and other artifacts produced by simple stone age hunters and more complex civilizations that lived in California and other parts of the world.
ANTH 4. Language, Culture, and Critical Thinking. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Critical Thinking (A3)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the abstract and formal structures of language and cultural dimensions of human communication via major linguistic anthropological concepts, theoretical assumptions, and methodologies. Addresses the logical, formal relationship between underlying rules of natural languages while critically analyzing how speakers from different cultures use language to convey complex social and cultural information. Course illuminates how language is used to create and reinforce relationships of power (race, class, gender); develops ability to recognize linguistic fallacies; and instructs in basic critical thinking skills.
ANTH 13. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Humanities (Area C2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Cross-cultural study of the forms and functions of supernatural beliefs and associated rituals in various societies of Africa, Asia, aboriginal Australia, Oceania, South America, native North America and elsewhere. Emphasis is on understanding beliefs and rituals within given social contexts, and using broad comparisons to derive insight into the general functions of beliefs and rituals in human life.
ANTH 16. Comparative Early Civilizations. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Humanities (Area C2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines the emergence and development of early civilizations. Studies state formation, urbanization, market system development, and other processes relevant to the evolution of early civilizations from the standpoints of cross-cultural comparison and modern anthropological theory. The goal is to identify cross-cultural regularities as well as critical differences that can explain the various evolutionary trajectories of these societies. The civilizations that will be contrasted include societies from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, Andean South America, and other regions.
ANTH 21. Freshman Seminar: Becoming an Educated Person. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Understanding Personal Development (E)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the nature and possible meanings of higher education, and the functions and resources of the University. Designed to help students develop and exercise fundamental academic success strategies and to improve their basic learning skills. Provides students with the opportunity to interact with fellow classmates and the seminar leader to build a community of academic support and personal support.
ANTH 101. Cultural Diversity. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: United States History, Race & Ethnicity Graduation Requirement (RE), GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Focuses on analyzing the historically conditioned political, economic and social factors that have contributed to cultural diversity in the U.S; a critical anthropological approach is developed to explore the intersection of race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality; the political economy of institutions and ideas, such as racism, classism, sexual stereotyping, family, religion, state, color-blindness, multiculturalism, etc.; and, discourses of cultural diversity in the U.S.
ANTH 102. The Nature of Culture. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Junior standing; a WPJ Portfolio score OR ENGL 109M or ENGL 109W
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Writing Intensive Graduation Requirement (WI), GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
An upper division general introduction to cultural anthropology. Divided into two major parts: a survey of theories, methods and concepts of cultural anthropology, and an introduction to applied cultural anthropology.
ANTH 103. Psychological Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 2 or ANTH 102.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Cross-cultural comparative approach to human cognition, child-training practices, personality development, deviant behavior, cultural psychiatry, and data gathering techniques.
ANTH 104. The History of Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Anthropological theory in historical perspective.
ANTH 105. Anthropology of War. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examination of the nature of war, primarily as it occurs in pre-industrial societies, and a survey of the kinds of explanations of this phenomenon current in anthropology. Emphasis is on understanding the complexity, variability, and cultural imbeddedness of war as it occurs around the world.
ANTH 106. Culture and Personality of the Chicano Child. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Study of child growth and development patterns universal to all children with focus on the pressures and effects of the Mexican and Anglo cultures on the development of the Chicano child.
ANTH 107. Anthropology of Hunters and Gatherers. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of the rapidly disappearing life way which anthropologists call hunting and gathering, with economies based on the use of wild plant and animal resources. Using ethnographic examples from the Arctic, southern Africa, rainforests in South America, deserts of Australia, and western North America, explores variation in hunter-gatherer societies with respect to differences in environment, technology, social organization, and the historical effects of interaction with more complex cultural groups. Models that attempt to explain long-term changes in this life way are also explored.
ANTH 108. Economic Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines the fundamentals of economic anthropology through a focus on production, exchange, and consumption in a range of historical and ethnographic contexts. Introduces different frameworks for theorizing the economy and explaining human behavior and decision-making. Addresses central questions and issues in cultural anthropology on the origins of value, wealth and social stratification, the meanings of work, gift exchange and reciprocity, property regimes, morality and debt, marketing and desire.
ANTH 109. Ecological and Evolutionary Approaches to Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of anthropological research regarding the relationships between human behavior, ecology, and evolution. Reviews historic development of research in this field, and contrasts approaches based in ecological and evolutionary theory. Reviews and evaluates of case studies. Topics include hunter-gatherer and hominid economy and social organization, foraging theory, work effort, population growth and regulation, origins of agriculture, warfare, ritual and resource conservation, and origins of complex society.
ANTH 110. Archaeological Method and Theory. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Traces the development of archaeology from its inception in the eighteenth century up to the present time. Readings, lectures, and class assignments follow the evolution of archaeological method and theory in relation to changing ideas about the role of culture, environment, and technology within the broader discipline of anthropology.
ANTH 111. California Archaeology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Pre-contact California encompassed some of the most extensive environmental and cultural diversity ever to exist on the planet, containing widely divergent biota, many distinct languages and cultures, and among the densest hunter-gatherer populations ever recorded. At least 11,000-12,000 years of human occupation have been marked by multiple migrations and major shifts in technological and social organization. Explores long-term trends in cultural development across the state, and examines models used to explain why semi-permanent settlements, intensive subsistence strategies, and complex social institutions arose in some times/places and not others.
ANTH 112. Great Basin Archaeology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores the cultural and natural history of the Great Basin from the last glacial maximum into the historic era. Though largely arid, this region in fact manifests considerable environmental variability and has seen significant climatic alterations since the Pleistocene. Human occupation of the Great Basin witnessed major changes in demography, technology, subsistence practices, and sociopolitical organization over the last 10-12,000 years. The course looks to understand cultural and environmental variability across the region through examination of the long-term material record and consideration of anthropological and biological models.
ANTH 113. Prehistory of the Southwest. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of the prehistory of the Arizona, New Mexico, Western Colorado, Utah, and adjacent regions of Nevada, Texas and northwestern Mexico. Major prehistoric cultures of the Southwest (Hohokam, Anasazi, Mogollon, Fremont) are covered in detail. Focus on major transitions in subsistence and social organization emphasizing current issues of archaeological research. Cultural influences from outside areas are also considered.
ANTH 114. North American Prehistory. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Familiarizes students with the archaeological record of North America, and provides an analytical framework through which it may be understood in anthropologically meaningful terms. This will be accomplished by considering some of the explanations that have been proposed to account for the prehistory of the continent, and by examining the archaeological remains and cultural sequences found in various areas, including the North and Southeast, Great Plains, Pacific Northwest, and arctic/subarctic regions.
ANTH 115. Origins of Agriculture. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Surveys and evaluates worldwide anthropological perspectives of the origins of agriculture and the rise of complex society. Traces the development of major archaeological theories for the inception and spread of agriculture and civilization, acquainting students with groundbreaking archaeological research associated with each theoretical perspective. Current archaeological research is reviewed in-depth, providing a context for critique of the theories. Examples from North America, Latin America, the Middle East, India and China are compared and contrasted using movies, readings, and lectures.
ANTH 116. Old World Prehistory: Paleolithic Archaeology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Old World Paleolithic archaeology from the emergence of hominids until the development of agriculture and civilization. Cultural developments in Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia are examined with the aim of highlighting similarities and differences in the process of technological, demographic, and sociopolitical change within each region. Explanatory models are offered to account for cultural evolution in various parts of the Old World are explored and assessed.
ANTH 117. World Prehistory and the Evolution of Modern Humanity. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Any lower-division Area B2 GE course
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Further Studies in Area B (B5), Upper Division Further Studies in Area B5
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Covers human prehistory, from the emergence of culture through the domestication of plants and animals, and the origins of complex societies. Included are major cultural developments on every continent, emphasizing similarities and differences in the nature and timing of key technological, cultural, and sociological changes. Methodologies for learning about the past, major archaeological discoveries, important personalities, and contributions to the modern world are discussed in the context of understanding the strengths of a scientific approach to understanding the human past.
ANTH 118. The Anthropocene: Human Impacts on Ancient Environments. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Upper Division Further Studies in Area B5, Further Studies in Area B (B5)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Designed to challenge students to critically evaluate past human relationships with their environment at the local, regional, and global scale over the past 10,000 years. The diachronic perspective of the course provides students with a broader understanding of contemporary challenges, such as anthropogenic climate change and declining biodiversity, that is rooted in our prehistoric past.
ANTH 119. Analysis of Faunal Remains. 4 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3 and Anthropology (Archaeological and Biological Anthropology) concentration.
Seminar on techniques and methods employed in analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites, coupled with a laboratory providing hands-on identification of mammalian remains from these settings. Large focus on quantitative methods used in zooarchaeology to infer behavioral patterns of the human past and their paleoenvironments.
ANTH 120. Introductory Statistics for Anthropologists. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology (Archaeological and Biological Anthropology) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Covers the conceptual framework involved in quantitative methods of data analysis commonly employed in anthropology. The emphasis is primarily on understanding concepts and secondarily on learning techniques of data analysis. Topics include data description and distributions, estimation procedures, hypothesis testing, and model fitting. Illustration of concepts in lecture are made with data from archaeology, physical anthropology, and social/cultural anthropology.
ANTH 121. Archaeology of Mexico. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Humanities (Area C2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides an upper division introduction to the archeology of Mesoamerica for students not majoring in anthropology. Discusses the evolution of the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, including Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Examines the development of societies from the earliest inhabitants to the growth of empires. Includes coverage of the Olmecs, Monte Alban, Teotihuacan, the Classic Maya, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs.
Note: Cannot be used to meet the requirements of the Anthropology major; interested majors should take ANTH 122.
ANTH 122. The Evolution of Early Mesoamerican States. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Traces the emergence of pre-hispanic state societies in Mesoamerica from the growth of the earliest settlements to the collapse of the Aztec empire. Analyzes how complex societies evolved in Mesoamerica, focusing on such evidence as household and village social organization, craft specialization and interregional exchange, religion and ideology, and the logistics of state management and imperial expansion.
ANTH 123. Ancient Technology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines the importance of various preindustrial technologies, and the techniques and methods involved in their manufacture and use. Topics include stone, bone, wood, and hide working, ceramics, weaving, metallurgy, and other crafts essential to human survival in ancient and contemporary societies around the world.
ANTH 124. Environmental Archaeology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3 and Anthropology (Archaeological and Biological Anthropology) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
All human societies depend on their natural surroundings, and so the reconstruction of prehistoric environments is an essential part of archaeological interpretation. Three interrelated aspects of environmental archaeology are considered: (1) general approaches to paleoenvironmental reconstruction, employing various biological and geological indicators; (2) the analysis of human plant and animal food remains; and (3) the geological and other processes that are responsible for the formation of archaeological deposits.
ANTH 125. Historical Archaeology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Written history only records a small portion of human activities that occurred in the recent past. Explores the numerous methods of investigation, analysis and interpretation that are available to aid the historical archaeologist in discovering missing information and in some cases correcting erroneous statements, assumptions and interpretations about the past.
ANTH 126. Techniques of Archaeological Analysis. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3 and Anthropology (Archaeological and Biological Anthropology) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduces students to various approaches to archaeological analysis, focusing on how different classes of data are collected, classified, and interpreted to resolve research issues. Includes such topics as the handling, treatment, and analysis of flaked and ground stone tools, plant and animal food remains, and other types of archaeological materials. Lecture one hour, laboratory six hours.
Note: May be repeated once for credit.
ANTH 127. Cultural Resource Management in Theory and Practice. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Takes a wide-ranging look at how cultural resources are managed and preserved in California, the greater U.S., and other parts of the world. More than just a review of applicable laws and regulations, it is designed to offer a history of historic preservation, examine its role in our society, and explore the prospects for its continued presence. Practical aspects of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) are reviewed with respect to designing, budgeting, and performing archaeological surveys, site evaluation studies, and data recovery or mitigation programs.
ANTH 128. Indians of California. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides a survey of the traditional cultures of California Native American groups as they existed immediately after Western contact. Exploration of the ecological linguistic, economic, social, political, and religious diversity of California Native American groups provides a background for analysis of current anthropological theories of hunter-gatherer adaptations, subsistence intensification, political economy, cultural complexity, and California prehistory.
ANTH 130. Social Justice in Interdisciplinary Perspective. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines the nature and forms of social justice and injustice. Addresses key philosophical and theoretical models and debates over the meaning of social justice, using historical and contemporary examples to highlight important concepts and controversies. Faculty from different departments within SSIS, and occasionally from other colleges, will address how their discipline understands and analyzes issues of social justice. Students will be encouraged to critically assess the assumptions of various perspectives on social justice, and to address the relationship of academe and social activism in achieving social justice.
Cross listed as ID 124, ENVS 124, ETHN 124, FACS 124 and SOC 124. Only one may be counted for credit.
ANTH 131. Europe in the Ethnographic Imagination. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
More than a place or "continent," Europe is a social and ideological construction employed to unite diverse linguistic and cultural communities. Focuses on major themes in contemporary Europeanist anthropology, including transformations within and between local communities and regions (especially with regards to Northern Ireland, the former Society bloc, and Yugoslav federation), immigration, neo-nationalist extremism, the changing character of religious institutions, and the European Union as a framework for organizing identity and society.
ANTH 132. Health, Culture, Power: Topics in Medical Anthropology. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Upper Division Further Studies in Area B5
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines the relationship between health, culture, and power, from the perspective of critical medical anthropology. Students will develop cross-cultural, historical, and ethical perspectives on health and explore the socio-cultural factors that contribute to health inequity. We will explore various health-oriented social movements to understand how injustice is embodied, as health has become a key vernacular of justice in a biopolitical era.
ANTH 133. Life of Primates. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Any lower-division Area B2 GE course
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Upper Division Further Studies in Area B5
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Introduction to the biology of non-human primates - our closest living relatives with evolutionary histories that are simultaneously linked with and independent of our own, leading to a startling diversity of species and lifeways. Covers the living diversity of primates, their evolutionary origins and the relationships among living and fossil species, the social and ecological pressures selecting for anatomical/physiological and cognitive adaptations, the structures of their communities, and the existential threats faced by non-human primate species in a human-impacted world.
ANTH 134. Japanese Culture and Society. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Humanities (Area C2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Culture of the Japanese: traditional and modern, rural and urban, cultural and social institutions; village and urban organization; and family structure. Aspects of social change in contemporary rural and urban Japan.
ANTH 135. Indians of North America. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides a survey of traditional Native American societies and culture areas north of Mexico. Readings, lectures, and discussions emphasize primary ethnographic and historic data that provide the richest accounts of Amerindian cultures at the time of European contact and shortly thereafter.
ANTH 138. Peopling of North America. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the earliest evidence of human occupation of North America. Covered topics include the origins of the indigenous populations, the timing of the initial colonization, the number of migration events, paleoenvironment reconstruction, and causes for megafaunal extinctions. A variety of evidence will be discussed in detail, including chronology, paleoenvironmental data, the material culture, modern and ancient genetics, and linguistic prehistory. Political and social dimensions of conducting research on origins of Native Americans are also reviewed.
ANTH 140. Social Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Cross-cultural comparisons of the structures and functions of non-literate and complex societies; the diversity of social and territorial units, their analysis and classification; and the study of social organization and control and social change in relation to kinship, marriage and family, lineage and clan, law, politics, economics and religion in diverse societies.
ANTH 141. Culture Theory. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Exploration of the concepts, dimensions and dynamics of culture theory, viewing culture as an adaptive, comparative, cognitive, structural and symbolic system.
ANTH 142. Political Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores political anthropology as a specialized field of anthropological inquiry. Analyzes the articulation of power, authority, and legitimacy in non-state and state based societies. Contributes to an understanding of the transforming powers of modernity and resistance to it and develops a critical appreciation of how age, status, class, ethnicity, race, gender and religious ideologies shape political order within various societies around the world.
ANTH 143. Culture and Society in Mexico. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the cultural and social institutions of the Mexican people. The changing patterns of family, economic, political, religious, and educational systems in Mexico.
ANTH 144. Contemporary American Culture in Anthropological Perspective. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Anthropological analysis of contemporary American culture viewed from the perspective of both internal and external observers, with emphasis on such subjects as cultural myths and social realities, values, ideology and world view, family and cultural transmission, social institutions and structures, religious ceremonies and magical rituals, and other customs and practices that establish American culture as one of the more bizarre and exotic in the world ethnographic literature.
ANTH 145. Peoples and Cultures of Latin America. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Exploration of diversity of peoples and cultures in Latin America and the common experiences such as colonialism, ethnicity, and economy that shape their lives. Aspects of culture examined include: race and ethnicity, colonialism and its implications, the state and political institutions, religious systems, kinship and social organization, gender, economic processes, and issues pertaining to environment, urbanization, globalization, nationalism, and transnationalism.
ANTH 146. Ethnographic Analysis. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 2.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduces students to current techniques, theories, and debates in ethnographic research and analysis through the use of ethnographies and related works. Critically examines the production of ethnographic knowledge in socio-cultural anthropology from historical and contemporary perspectives.
ANTH 147. Peoples of Southeast Asia. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Survey of the native peoples of Southeast Asia (Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma and Singapore). Emphasis is on examining the forms of social and cultural pluralism in contemporary Southeast Asian societies.
ANTH 148. Anthropology of Chinese Societies. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Exploration of the cultures of three Chinese societies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People's Republic of China) in each of their unique historical contexts. A comparison and contrast of how these societies, though sharing a common cultural heritage, have had different paths of development in recent times. Aspects of culture examined include: the state and political institutions; religious systems; kinship and social organization; economic processes; and issues of regional integration, nationalism and transnationalism.
ANTH 149. Cultures of South Asia. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Exploration of cultural practices in different South Asian societies. Analyzes the impact of colonialism, post-colonialism and discourses of modernity on South Asian societies. Examines the process of state formation, nation-building, communal conflict, economic transformations and the politics of caste, gender and class in contemporary South Asia.
ANTH 150. Human Osteology. 4 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 and ANTH 1A, or BIO 22; and Anthropology (Archaeological and Biological Anthropology) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall only
Provides students a hands-on, in-depth study of human osteology. Learn growth and development of the skeletal tissues and identification of the individual skeletal elements, and practice basic measurements, sexing and aging of skeletal material. A prerequisite for advanced techniques in forensic anthropology. Students will work with the department's osteological materials.
ANTH 151. Human Paleontology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 and ANTH 1A.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of the field of human evolution from primate beginnings to modern humans. Emphasizes the interpretation of the fossil evidence and the major trends in hominid evolution, including the origins and relationships of the extinct forms of humans.
ANTH 152. Comparative Primate Morphology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 & ANTH 1A
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Study of skeletal and soft-anatomical components of living non-human apes in the context of evolution and development. Covers evolutionary theory, embryology, growth and development, taxonomy, systematics, and basic functional morphology of the skeletal system in primates. Three-hour seminar, with some lecture and hands-on experience with skeletons and casts.
ANTH 153. Evolutionary Medicine. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the application of evolutionary theory to human health and disease. Evolutionary medicine is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary specialization utilizing insights from evolutionary theory and human evolutionary ecology to inform understandings of human health, development and disease; and also to critique existing biomedical theory about the human condition. Topics include reproduction, child birth, lactation, growth and development, infectious diseases, parasites, diet and nutrition, mental and behavioral disorders, and substance use and addiction.
ANTH 154. Primate Behavior. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 or instructor approval
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides an introduction to primate social systems and the factors that influence their maintenance and evolution, including foraging strategies, demographic processes, mating and rearing strategies, conflicts and coalitions, and communication. Discussion of the theory guiding primate behavioral research will be supplemented with readings emphasizing current research in the field, to provide an understanding of how behavioral research is conducted and the diversity of primate behavior.
ANTH 155. Fundamentals of Biological Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 and ANTH 1A.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of the development of method and theory in physical anthropology from its origins in zoology, anatomy, and medicine, to the various approaches currently used in the study of human biology and evolution. Concepts considered include the scientific method, modern genetics, evolutionary theory, the race concept and other approaches to explaining human variation, taxonomy and systematics, and macro-evolutionary models. Critical reading and analytical skills will be emphasized.
ANTH 156. Evolution of Human Behavior. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1, BIO 10, or PSYC 2 recommended.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the application of evolutionary theory to human behavior and psychology. Reviews and contrasts contemporary perspectives of human behavioral evolution with emphasis on insights from the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Topics include human behavior and cognition as adaptations, "selfish genes," game theory, evolution of social behavior, evolution of altruism, human mating strategies, parenting, behavioral disorders, evolution of the life cycle, human behavioral ecology, Darwinian medicine, and evolutionary psychology.
ANTH 157. Human Variation. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1, BIO 10, or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of the basic principles of human genetics with emphasis on the mechanisms that shape human evolution and the development of human races. Analyzes the laws of heredity as exhibited in modern human populations and human adaptability to climatic extremes. Historical development of concepts. Discussion of most current research.
ANTH 158. Human Skeletal Analysis. 4 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 150. Paired Course
Term Typically Offered: Spring only
Provides advanced techniques in osteology and forensic anthropology essential for many practicing physical anthropologists. Discussion and survey of the primary literature, followed by intensive hands-on experience with human skeletal remains. Included: techniques for determining age, sex and ethnicity; measurement; pathology; and trauma. The role of the forensic anthropologist and archaeologist, ethical considerations, and human rights issues are also covered. Two-hour seminar, and a six-hour lab involving substantial hands-on experience with human skeletal remains.
ANTH 159. Forensic Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Any lower-division GE Area B2 course.
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Further Studies in Area B (B5), Upper Division Further Studies in Area B5
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Overview of forensic anthropology - an applied field of biological anthropology that works with law enforcement, medical examiners, and human rights agencies. Forensic anthropologists answer questions of medico-legal significance by applying techniques designed for analysis of human skeletal remains. Includes determining time since death, the biological profile, trauma analysis and the role of the forensic anthropologist in human rights investigations.
ANTH 160. Linguistic Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 4 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to language and linguistics for anthropologists with emphasis on the role of linguistic anthropology in the development of theory and method within the discipline; non-human communication systems, language acquisition, and culture theory; the fundamentals of descriptive and structural linguistics; types of human languages; the diversity and distribution of languages from prehistoric to modern times; fundamentals of historical linguistics and proto-cultural studies.
ANTH 161. African Cultures and Societies. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor approval
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores the cultural richness and regional variation of African societies. Engages students with central issues and debates pertaining to Africa in relation to the deepening global interconnectedness of the human socio-cultural worlds. Topical discussions include: colonial legacy, the postcolonial state and traditional authority; ethnic identity and cultural diversity; family, kinship and the African youth; masculinity, sexuality and women; Islam, Christianity and indigenous spirituality; health, poverty and development; migration and globalization; ecotourism and African cultures.
ANTH 162. Language and Culture. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 4 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Relationship between language and culture; historical relationships between languages; language families and major cultural traditions; cross-cultural studies of how the language influences perception and the organization of reality; the ways in which language is embedded in social life and practices, and the ways in which various cultural patterns and values are reflected in language.
ANTH 163. Urban Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Overview of both anthropological method and theory applied to research of urban environments and a survey of significant anthropological studies that have been conducted in these settings. Examines such topics as the urbanization process, the culture of cities, urban sub-cultures, social problems in urban areas, social networks and adaptive kinship strategies in cities, and the concentration and exercise of power, wealth and influence in urban centers.
ANTH 164. Culture Change. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Anthropological study of mechanisms and process of social and culture change; basic theories of ecological adaptation and cultural evolution; action chains and cultural patterns; technological innovation, migration, acculturation, cultural dissonance, conflict, and cultural revitalization; analysis of case studies emphasizing contemporary conditions and problems; rapid technological innovation, population control, immigration and acculturation, social diversification, ethnic conflict.
ANTH 165. Applied Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 105 or ANTH 108 or ANTH 140 or ANTH 141 or ANTH 142 or ANTH 167 or ANTH 168 or ANTH 176; and Anthropology (Culture, Language, and Society) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides tools for exploring the application of an anthropological paradigm to various aspects of culture change and conflict. Content is organized into a series of critical topical areas such as modernization, economic development, human services, and urbanization.
ANTH 166. Rise of Religious Cults. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Humanities (Area C2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Examination of cult movements, involving comparisons of the ideals, objectives and symbolic processes common to ecstatic religious movements throughout the world -- from Melanesian cargo cults to the Peoples' Temple. Anthropological perspectives are used to examine religious cults as conscious attempts to perpetuate traditional values and social goals or to radically change the status quo; millenarian movements, crisis cults, nature communes, exotic religious importations, and cult characteristics of modern secular movements.
ANTH 167. Religion and Culture. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines ethnographic perspectives on the character and intersections of religion, ritual, and culture. Surveys the thought of "classical" social theorists (e.g., Durkheim, Tylor, Weber, and Evans-Pritchard), and concentrates on central topics in the anthropology of religion. Including the political nature of embodiment and trance, religion and nationalism, the significance of language and performance, the gendered character of many religious phenomena, and science and religion as competing epistemologies.
ANTH 168. Folklore in Anthropological Perspective. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 160 or ANTH 162 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Anthropological contributions to the study of folklore; survey of oral literature and other folklore forms, such as myth, folktale, legend, proverb, riddle, and games, in their social contexts; folklore as "autobiographical ethnography," folklore in everyday life, survey and comparison of folklore traditions in several culture areas.
ANTH 169. Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 160 or ANTH 162, and Anthropology (Culture, Language, and Society) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Consideration of language in its social context: language and power, language and gender, interethnic communication, language and race, pidgins and creoles, multilingualism, standardization, language ideology. Instruction in ethnographic and linguistic methods of data collection and analysis; identification of socially significant linguistic variables. Contributions of the study of contextualized speech to linguistic theory.
ANTH 170. The Religious Landscape of the Sacramento Valley. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Junior standing; a WPJ Portfolio score OR ENGL 109M or ENGL 109W
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Writing Intensive Graduation Requirement (WI), Humanities (Area C2)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to the field study of religious communities. Addresses the nature of religious pluralism in the U.S. today. The practice and belief systems of at least five different religious communities will be studied each semester. Students are required to do an in-depth term project based on research in one or more religious communities.
Cross Listed: HRS 170; only one may be counted for credit.
ANTH 171. Bioarchaeology: Analyzing Human Remains from Archaeology Sites. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 and ANTH 1A or instructor permission
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
An exploration of research conducted on human remains from archaeological sites, including historical and ethical perspectives. Examines the effects of funerary context and preservation on skeletal remains. Demonstrates relevance of human skeletal analysis to understanding demography, causes of human skeletal variation, dietary patterns, and relevant themes in paleopathological research. Special emphasis placed on infectious disease, growth and development, activity patterns, injury and trauma, craniofacial adaptations, and methods for identifying genetic relationships in human skeletal remains.
ANTH 172. Anthropologies of Music. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or Instructor Permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduces students to current anthropological research on social groups and cultural practices that orient around and draw inspiration from music, wherever and however it is conceived. Course focus is not on music theory or structure; rather, it critically examines anthropological and ethnographic works that focus on the relations among such social domains and features as visual and aural aesthetics, political belief, gender, ritual, religion, race, and ethnicity.
ANTH 173. Anthropology of Contemporary Asia. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
This course examines contemporary Asia as an articulation of intersecting historical, cultural, political and economic processes. The course will focus on postcolonial developments and critically explore the manner in which process of globalization and neoliberal strategies embed themselves within, and the responses they elicit from societies across Asia.
ANTH 174. Anthropology of Food. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines food and eating from an anthropological perspective. Demonstrates how food communicates social messages about individual or group identity, creates social boundaries or forges belonging, and can reflect one's politics, values, and ethics. Through ethnographic examples and attention to global processes, this course explores food production, circulation, and consumption.
ANTH 175. Anthropology of Globalization. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
The course introduces students to major themes that inform anthropological understanding of globalization. This course will explore theoretical perspectives, topics, and methods of analysis developed in anthropology to capture the effects of intermingling global/local cultural forces and the diverse relations of power that structure them and in which they are embedded.
ANTH 176. Museums, Culture, and Society. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides an introduction to museum anthropology. Surveys the emergence of modern anthropology from its origins in 17th century natural history to its late 19th century institutionalization in museums. Explores the role of collectors, curators and financial patrons in the development of museums and social theory. Examines the contemporary poetics and politics of museums and cultural interpretation, including cultural property rights, cultural self-representation, collaborative exhibit development, and the ethnography of museums.
ANTH 177. Museum Methods. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 176 and Anthropology (Culture, Language, and Society) concentration.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Combined lecture and laboratory course designed to teach basic museum methods. Surveys contemporary issues and practices in museum governance, management, interpretation, and evaluation. Provides hands-on collections and exhibit experience, including participation in the design, fabrication and installation of an exhibition.
ANTH 178. Internship. 3 - 4 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Practical experience in an approved professional environment. Student intern will work directly with professionals in public and private agencies where opportunities exist for anthropological work. Supervision and evaluation are provided by a faculty internship director and the on-site supervisor. Placements require from 15-20 hours per week.
Note: May be repeated for credit.
Credit/No Credit
ANTH 179. Observing Primate Behavior. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 and ANTH 1A and Anthropology (Archaeological and Biological Anthropology) concentration or instructor permission. Field trip
Term Typically Offered: Spring only – odd years
Introduces research design and methods employed in the study of non-human primate behavior. Topics covered include developing ethograms, behavioral and ecological sampling techniques, and basic methods for data analysis, including simple descriptive and analytical statistics. Culminates in a research report to address a specific research question through behavioral observations conducted at the Sacramento Zoo.
ANTH 181. Anthropology of Human Rights. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines multiple dimensions of human rights from an anthropological perspective. Explores the history and development of human rights ideas and legal conventions, and how these ideas and conventions are appropriated, adapted, contested or rejected in different cultural and political contexts. Using ethnographic case studies from around the world, addresses how the human rights discourse mediates the relationship between specific groups of people, their national states and international conventions and institutions.
ANTH 183. Women Cross-Culturally. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Position of women in various societies, preliterate through contemporary industrial; the evolution of women's roles and rights cross-culturally.
ANTH 186. Culture and Poverty. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Junior standing; a WPJ Portfolio score OR ENGL 109M or ENGL 109W
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: GE AREA D, Writing Intensive Graduation Requirement (WI), Race & Ethnicity Graduation Requirement (RE)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Analyzes poverty in American society: the cross-cultural context, social inequality in the U.S., theoretical perspectives and their influence on policy, present trends and implications for the future.
ANTH 187. Health Research in Biological Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 1 and instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Spring only – even years
A laboratory-based introduction to health research methods in biological anthropology, with an emphasis on biological and behavioral health indicators in populations of living humans. The course will introduce students to health research design, measurement methods, and analysis. Lab topics will include biomarkers, survey methods, qualitative approaches, anatomical measurement, energetics and diet, vital statistics, and the use of behavioral health research instruments.
ANTH 188. Anthropology of the Body. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Study of the diverse ways that humans explain and attempt to alter the human body. Focus is on the meanings and implications of our own bodily experiences through objective comparison of the experiences, explanations and techniques found in our society with those in others.
ANTH 189. Critical Medical Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 146
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Critical Medical Anthropology examines the interplay of cultural, environmental, and biological processes in diverse experiences of health and illness. Students will develop an understanding of the history of Medical Anthropology, its key themes and theoretical perspectives, and its present concerns. We will consider biomedicine as a cultural sphere, track the persistence of `alternative¿ healing practices and the impact of social determinants on health, and analyze the formation of new demands on states and subjects in the name of suffering.
ANTH 190. Advanced Topics in Linguistic Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 160 or ANTH 162 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Seminar examining contemporary developments in theories and methods of linguistic anthropology.
Note: May be repeated for credit providing the topic and instructor are not the same.
ANTH 191. Anthropology Practicum. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 165 or ANTH 169 or ANTH 177 or ANTH 192B; and senior level
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Students work 3-6 hours per week off campus in one of several research institutions under the supervision of institutional personnel. Students are required to become familiar with the scholarly literature relevant to their placement, to participate in on-campus meetings, and to write a research paper integrating the research and fieldwork aspects of the practicum. Permission of instructor and ANTH coordinator required prior to registration. Open to seniors only.
ANTH 192A. Laboratory Work in Archaeology. 1 Unit
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Corequisite(s): ANTH 195A; may be waived with instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduces methods used in the basic laboratory preservation, cataloging, and initial analysis of various materials recovered through ANTH 195A survey and excavation projects; always offered in conjunction with ANTH 195A.
Note: May be repeated for credit.
ANTH 192B. Laboratory in Ethnographic Techniques. 1 Unit
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 105 or ANTH 108 or ANTH 140 or ANTH 141 or ANTH 142 or ANTH 167 or ANTH 168 or ANTH 176, and Anthropology (Culture, Language, and Society) concentration.
Corequisite(s): ANTH 195B.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Design and discussion of research strategies, primary ethnographic techniques, the development of interviewing skills, and practice in the use of various recording technologies.
ANTH 195A. Fieldwork in Archaeology. 2 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Corequisite(s): ANTH 192B
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Introduction to archaeological field methods, covering practical aspects of how to identify and investigate isolated artifact finds, particular sites and features, and entire landscapes. Covering survey and excavation techniques, basic approaches to sampling, mapping and navigation, stratigraphic excavation, artifact and feature recording, and recovery methods.
Note: May be repeated for credit.
ANTH 195B. Fieldwork in Ethnology. 2 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 105 or ANTH 108 or ANTH 140 or ANTH 141 or ANTH 142 or ANTH 167 or ANTH 168 or ANTH 176, and Anthropology (Culture, Language, and Society) concentration.
Corequisite(s): ANTH 192B
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Directed team fieldwork in ethnology.
ANTH 195C. Fieldwork in Physical Anthropology. 2 - 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Individual or group fieldwork in various areas of physical anthropology, under the supervision of individual faculty members; may involve related supervised laboratory work.
ANTH 196S. Senior Seminar in Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology majors with senior standing
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Anthropology approaches knowledge about the human condition from multidisciplinary perspectives. This senior seminar synthesizes fundamental themes from among the sub-disciplines. Students will engage with concepts and issues from different anthropological perspectives, and then work to identify common historical, methodological and theoretical anthropological themes. On completion of the course, students will have learned to seek and interpret anthropological knowledge in a holistic fashion.
ANTH 196T. Zooarchaeology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 3
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
An examination of past and recent research conducted on animal remains from archaeological sites. Discussion and survey of the primary literature in evaluating the role animal exploitation plays in human evolution and among small scale foraging, pastoralist, and complex societies. Emphasis on vertebrate taphonomy, reconstruction of diet from faunal remains, and ecological and evolutionary theory to understand human-animal relationships through time.
ANTH 196Z. Language, Digital Literacies, & the Self. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH4
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores ethnographic approaches to digitally-mediated language and the self, examining how social actors acquire the digital skills and communicative norms that make up `digital literacies¿ across cultural contexts and media ecologies. Topics include linguistic interaction in virtual worlds, media ideologies, technological constraints on digitally-mediated conversation, the role of language in the maintenance of digital communities and protest movements, new forms of meaning-making and affect enabled by the acquisition of digital literacies, and digital research methods.
ANTH 198. Biology and Feminism: A Co-Evolution. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Examines key feminist and anthropological texts on the integral role of women, gender, and feminism in scientific inquiry and the production of scientific knowledge. Emphasis is placed on feminist perspectives in human evolutionary biology, and on what feminism and science have to offer one another.
ANTH 199. Special Problems. 1 - 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Approval of the faculty member under whom the individual work is to be conducted and the Department chair.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Individual projects or directed reading.
Note: Open only to students who appear competent to carry on individual work. May be repeated for credit.
Credit/No Credit
ANTH 200. General Methods in Anthropology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores uses of scientific methodology in anthropology through the examination of specific case studies in the various specialties. Focus is on the relationship among techniques, methods, and methodology; hypothesis and theory; units of analysis and comparison; deductive and inductive reasoning; inferential processes; various types of comparison (casual, controlled, hologeistic); limitations of, and objections to, ''the comparative method."
ANTH 201. Anthropological Theory. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Graduate status in anthropology or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Intensive reading and seminar discussion in topics on anthropological theory and research.
Note: May be repeated for credit provided topic is not repeated.
ANTH 202. Biological Anthropology Seminar. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Survey of contemporary issues in physical anthropology.
ANTH 203. Archaeology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores the intellectual development of archaeological method and theory; examines the history of archaeological thought from its advent to the present day, looking in detail at pre-scientific, culture-historical, processual, and post-processual approaches to the discipline; emphasis is placed on the role of archaeology as a branch of anthropology and as a historical, humanistic, and/or scientific enterprise.
ANTH 204. Current Problems in Archaeological Method and Theory. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Explores recent methodological and theoretical developments within archaeology; focus is on contemporary debates within the discipline; topical coverage varies; examines conceptual and practical concerns, highlighting possibilities and limitations of new approaches to archaeological problems.
Note: May be repeated for credit provided topic and instructor are not repeated.
ANTH 205. Ethnology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Seminar is designed for students to develop a working knowledge of anthropological approaches to a number of major issues in ethnology. The focus is on the analysis of case studies.
Note: May be repeated once for credit with different instructor.
ANTH 207. Language and Culture. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Critical examination of contemporary studies in the relationship between language and culture; nonhuman primate communication and the origin of speech; non-verbal communication; historical linguistics; comparative semiology; ethnosemantics; applications of linguistic models of analysis in the study of culture.
Note: May be repeated for credit given that the instructor changes.
ANTH 210. Research Design in Anthropology Seminar. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): instructor permission,
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Emphasizes research design in anthropology with a focus on proposal writing in the discipline. Centers on the development of the thesis research proposal while gaining insight on the process of acquiring competitive funding from government agencies and private foundations. Covers the fundamentals of identifying a research question, developing hypotheses, comprehensive literature reviews, intellectual merit and broader impacts of research, and budget justification.
ANTH 211. Communicating Anthropology Graduate Colloquium. 1 Unit
Prerequisite(s): Graduate status in anthropology.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Seminar for graduate students to develop oral and written communication skills within the discipline, to discuss current topics in the four fields of anthropology, and to introduce students to professional standards in the discipline. Specific topics covered in presentations and workshops will vary each semester.
Note: May be repeated for credit; no more than 3 units may count towards degree.
ANTH 219. Analysis of Faunal Remains. 4 Units
Prerequisite(s): Graduate status in Anthropology or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall only – even years
Seminar on techniques and methods employed in analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites, coupled with a laboratory providing hands-on identification of mammalian remains from these settings. Large focus on quantitative methods used in zooarchaeology to infer behavioral patterns of the human past and their paleoenvironments.
ANTH 222. Bioarchaeology Seminar. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Graduate status in anthropology.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides an intensive, detailed discussion of method and theory in the skeletal biology of past human populations. Topics discussed include: demography, dietary analysis, mortuary dimensions, health and disease, biological distance and DNA analysis. Focuses on the interaction of biology and behavior, particularly the influence of culture and the environment on the skeletal and dental tissues.
ANTH 223. Areal Archaeology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides an intensive examination of archaeological problems within a selected regional or topical area. Through general readings and case studies, students will critically assess how current perspectives regarding relevant issues have evolved and determine how contemporary viewpoints might be improved or expanded.
Note: May be repeated for credit provided topic and instructor are not repeated.
ANTH 226. Advanced Techniques of Archaeological Analysis. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 126 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines more refined approaches to archaeological analysis, focusing on how various classes of data are collected, classified, and interpreted to resolve directed research problems. Emphasis is on such topics as sampling procedures and statistical assessment of data rather than descriptive analysis and interpretation. Lecture one hour; laboratory six hours.
ANTH 251. Human Paleontology. 3 Units
Survey of the field of human evolution from primate beginnings to modern humans. Emphasizes the interpretation of the fossil evidence and the major trends in hominid evolution, including the origins and the relationships of the extinct forms of humans.
ANTH 254. Primate Behavioral Ecology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Graduate status in Anthropology or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Provides an intensive, detailed discussion of theoretical models and empirical studies of the behavior of non-human primates. Topics discussed include: grouping patterns, mating strategies, dominance, cooperation, and the adaptive values of social bonds. Focuses on the interaction of ecology and social behavior, particularly the influence of behavioral strategies that enhance reproductive success, and corresponding emergent group-level properties.
ANTH 258. Human Skeletal Analysis. 4 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 150 or instructor permission. Paired course
Term Typically Offered: Spring only
Provides advanced techniques in osteology and forensic anthropology essential for many practicing physical anthropologists. Discussion and survey of the primary literature, followed by intensive hands-on experience with human skeletal remains. Included: techniques for determining age, sex and ancestry; measurement; pathology; and trauma. The role of the forensic anthropologist and archaeologist, ethical considerations, and human rights issues are also covered. Course format is a two-hour seminar, and a six-hourlab involving substantial hands-on experience with human skeletal remains.
ANTH 274. Environmental Anthropology. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Examines the mutual constitution of nature-culture, society-environment in diverse ethnographic settings. Demonstrates that ideas about nature and material engagements with it are shaped by the dynamics of social, political, and economic relations in historical contexts. Surveys a range of environmental issues and the cultural politics of environmental struggles through different conceptual, theoretical, analytical approaches in cultural anthropology.
ANTH 276. Museum Anthropology. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Graduate status in Anthropology or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Surveys the practical, theoretical, and historical dimensions of museum anthropology and material culture studies, with particular emphasis on the U.S. and California. Situates contemporary issues related to the collection, exhibition, and repatriation of ethnographic and archaeological materials within the sociopolitical context of the globally based indigenous rights movement.
Note: Recommended for graduate students who plan to intern in the Anthropology Museum.
ANTH 278. Internship. 3 - 4 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Practical graduate level experience in an approved professional environment. Student intern will work directly with professionals in public and private agencies where opportunities exist for anthropological work. Supervision and evaluation are provided by a faculty internship director and the on-site supervisor. Placements require from 15-20 hours per week.
Note: May be repeated for credit given that topic and instructor changes.
Credit/No Credit
ANTH 292A. Laboratory Work in Archaeology. 1 Unit
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 192A.
Corequisite(s): ANTH 295A.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Laboratory preservation, cataloging and initial analysis of materials recovered through archaeological fieldwork. Graduate students are expected to help supervise undergraduate students and complete a self-directed project under the supervision of the instructor.
Note: Participant must have already completed ANTH 192A or its equivalent. May be repeated once for credit.
ANTH 295A. Fieldwork in Archaeology. 2 Units
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 195A or equivalent.
Corequisite(s): ANTH 292A.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Students will assist the instructor in supervising undergraduate students or complete an assigned project in addition to the required fieldwork.
Note: May be repeated given that the topic and instructor changes.
ANTH 295B. Fieldwork in Ethnology. 2 - 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Supervised graduate level fieldwork in ethnology and ethnography.
ANTH 295C. Fieldwork in Physical Anthropology. 2 - 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Supervised graduate level fieldwork in physical anthropology. May include laboratory research.
ANTH 299. Special Problems. 1 - 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Approval of faculty member under whom individual work is to be conducted and the Department chair.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Individual projects or directed reading.
Note: Open only to students who appear competent to carry on individual work at the graduate level; May be repeated given that topic and instructor changes; May be taken twice in the same semester.
Credit/No Credit
ANTH 500. Master's Thesis. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Advanced to Candidacy, successful completion of thesis research proposal, and chair permission of his/her thesis committee.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Completion of a thesis approved for the master's degree. Number of units of credit is determined by the candidate's Master's degree advisory committee. Should be taken in final semester prior to the completion of all requirements for the degree.