Anthropology
Welcome to Anthropology
Anthropology contributes to a multidisciplinary understanding of the human condition through study of human biological, cultural, and linguistic variation. Because of its breadth, anthropology has been described as the "most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities." At the University of Alberta, archaeologists and biological anthropologists explore the deep history of human diversity through the archaeological record. Cultural and linguistic anthropologists combine philosophical questions with in-depth ethnographic research to explore the diversity of contemporary societies.
Academic Programs and Collections
Undergraduate Program
In a globalized world, understanding the stunning diversity in humans’ experiences, livelihoods, ways of communicating, and environmental relationships is crucial. Anthropology majors and minors learn to think holistically about people’s complex lives, past and present. Four subfields—archaeology and biological, sociocultural, and linguistic anthropology—provide complementary lenses for studying how people are distinct yet interconnected in many ways.
Graduate Program
Our thesis-based MA and PhD programs provide an opportunity to explore a research problem independently following a preparatory year of coursework. Students engage with diverse topics in field, lab, and community settings to develop robust scholarship with impacts beyond the thesis. Our graduate students receive material and professional development supports to complete programs effectively, and to translate Anthropology to future careers.
Our Collections
The Department of Anthropology is home to five different archaeological and anthropological collections, ranging from zooarchaeology and human osteology to ethnographic and archaeological material from around the world. All collections are used extensively for research and teaching, offering students hands-on experience working with the material legacies of human histories and providing opportunities to explore the interconnections between humans and the spaces they inhabit in the past and the present.
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13
The Department of Anthropology can be found on the 13th floor of the Tory Building. The Chair's office number is 13-13.
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1200+
The number of the order Primate fossil casts in our collection. Fossil casts represent primates from the Paleocene through to the Holocene and emphasize the ancestral line to humans.
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200,000
The oldest artefact in the Bryan/Gruhn Archaeology Collection is an Acheulean handaxe that is more than 200,000 years old! It is part of the Ami Collection, a large assemblage of items excavated from sites in France in the 1920s by Henri-Marc Ami, a Canadian Geographer and Archaeologist.
News + Events
Recognizing the importance of intangible cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation in Brazil
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has officially approved “Shade-grown erva-mate: a traditional agroforestry system in the Araucaria Forest of Paraná, Brazil” as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). This project, coordinated by Dr. Eve Nimmo, Curator of the Bryan/Gruhn Archaeology and Ethnographic Collections in the Department of Anthropology, is a historic milestone for family farming, agroecology and the valorization of traditional knowledge in southern Brazil.
Giving
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