Department of Anthropology

MAJOR DESCRIPTION AND RESOURCES:

What is Anthropology?
Of all the human sciences, anthropology is the broadest. Anthropologists study how human beings have come to be as they are: a physically distinct species, communicating through language, adapted to every habitat on earth, and living in an amazing variety of lifeways. As anthropologists become increasingly engaged with the world of the 1990's, they have led in the development of a global focus on how culturally different peoples interact and how humans change their customary ways of life.

Anthropology consists of four (some would say five) subdisciplines:

• Biological Anthropology deals with the evolution of the human body, mind and behavior as inferred through study of fossils and comparisons with behavior of other primate species.
  
• Archaeology examines our past ways of life through the interpretation of material remains, written records, and oral traditions.
  
• Cultural Anthropology explores the diversity of existing human ways of life, how they work, how they change, and how they interrelate in the modern world.
  
• Linguistic Anthropology examines the structure and diversity of language and related human communication systems.
  
• In addition, Applied Anthropology emphasizes how the theories, techniques and methods of anthropology can be employed to facilitate stability or change and solve problems in real world situations which for this faculty includes preserving Native American and early Californian cultural heritages, aiding indigenous specialists to collaborate in the planning of development, encouraging ethnographic understanding of schooling in its cultural context, and solving problems of housing.

Anthropology at SSU - Building Knowledge and Skills

For the members of Sonoma State University's anthropology faculty, research and teaching are inseparable, and the Anthropology Department encourages both graduate and undergraduate students to meet professional standards of achievement in their work and research. The faculty assists students in developing and executing individual research projects. Students often present the results of their work in professional meetings, juried research publications, and public documents.

Through training in anthropology students learn of many different cultures throughout the world, how they developed, the significance of their differences, and how they change. Students are thus equipped with a broad perspective for viewing both themselves and others.

Students of anthropology acquire skill in the formulation of both theoretical and practical questions regarding human life, in collecting and organizing data on many levels of human behavior, and in constructing appropriate interpretations and generalizations based on well thought out procedures. The combination of knowledge about human ways of life and training in analytic skills provides training valuable in virtually all fields of endeavor that deal with human society and culture. This perspective is invaluable in preparing students for careers either in research professions or in vocations involving human services or planned change. Some of these are cultural resources management, environmental planning, nursing, teaching, public health administration, business, public relations, law, community development, and international service.

After Graduation - Anthropologists at Work
Inevitably, students of anthropology face being asked what they can do with their major. For professional anthropologists, many of whom are not academics lodged in universities and research institutions, opportunities for employment in government, in the business world, in education, and in social service are surprisingly diverse:

Cultural anthropologists helped the government of Venezuela to plan an entire new city in a previously little occupied region. Working for Xerox, cultural anthropologists assist in product development by studying the problems office workers encounter when working with new equipment.

Uncovering prehistoric cultivation systems, archaeologists have suggested how techniques from the past may be re-employed in the present to achieve sustainable agricultural systems. Archaeologists are employed by a host of federal and state agencies charged with locating and preserving sites which contain information about our own prehistoric and historic past.

Biological anthropologists work in a variety of settings, including medical schools (as anatomists) and medical research facilities (as medical geneticists and physiologists), in crime laboratories (as forensic anthropologists and expert witnesses), in industrial and military facilities (as designers of appropriate environments), and in zoos and nature conservancies (as keepers and students of primates).

Anthropological linguists are active in the design of curricula for teaching national languages to immigrants and indigenous populations. In Japan, where female speakers are expected to use complex terms of subservience and respect, anthropological linguists have studied how female scientists manipulate their language to achieve clear communication in technical laboratories.

Degrees Offered at SSU
The Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology provides a balanced grounding in the theoretical approaches and the body of knowledge central to the discipline of anthropology. The general major may be modified through a Special Emphasis in Anthropology Major, which provides students with an opportunity to design an individualized course of study emphasizing a particular subfield of anthropology. The minor in Anthropology recognizes basic training in anthropology as an adjunct to a major in other subjects.

The Department also offers a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Resources Management, which involves the identification, evaluation, and preservation of cultural resources, as mandated by cultural resources legislation and guided by scientific standards within the planning process. The primary objective of the Master's program in Cultural Resources Management is to produce professionals competent in the methods and techniques appropriate for filling cultural resources management and related positions, and with the theoretical background necessary for research design and data collection and analysis.

Department Resources - Physical and Social
The department's Anthropological Studies Center provides students with the opportunity to participate in prehistoric and historical archaeology, the conservation and analysis of archaeological materials, local and architectural history, and public outreach in the context of grant and contract aided research projects. The Center has more than 4,000 square feet of archaeological laboratory and curation facilities, as well as an Obsidian Hydration Lab, and is supported by a professional staff.

Other resources include an active Anthropology Club, a physical anthropology laboratory, an ethnographic and primate film library, Human Relations Area Files and computer services.

Scholarships and Awards
The faculty of the department offers an Anthropology scholarship, awarded each academic year to an undergraduate major, on the basis of academic achievement and commitment to the discipline. For further details, contact the Department office. The University offers another Anthropology scholarship, the Conni Miller Memorial Scholarship. Contact the Scholarship Office for information. Students interested in the David A. Fredrickson Research Award should contact the Anthropological Studies Center. This award is awarded on a rotating basis to one or more individuals pursuing education or independent research in the Cultural Resources Management Program at Sonoma State University.