UConn archaeology faculty conduct research at sites across several continents:

• The Americas - Canada and the United States, especially Connecticut, the Caribbean, California, and Hawaii
• Africa - Kenya and Tanzania
• Asia - Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Israel, Syria, and Turkey
• Europe - Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy

Their work examines events in human evolution, the origins of agriculture, early social complexity, and the complex series of colonial and Indigenous interactions that began in the 15th century. They train students in the theoretical, methodological, and practical tools needed to ethically address a wide range of questions related to changing human behaviors through time. They have particular expertise in the study of stone tools, faunal remains, macro- and micro-botanical analysis, and isotopic approaches to understanding the past.

Researchers prepare samples and conduct analyses in a variety of state-of-the-art laboratories, which also house extensive comparative collections, particularly for plants and animals from southwest Asia and stone tools from Europe and Africa.

Our faculty are engaged with a number of collaborators abroad and in the U.S., and maintain close connections with the Office of the State Archaeologist of Connecticut.

This subfield merges traditional areas of study in biological anthropology with interdisciplinary research methods and critical theoretical perspectives from the social sciences and humanities. Our research emphasizes innovative biocultural frameworks for understanding human biology, biodiversity, and adaptability, with a focus on integrating decolonial, anti-racist, feminist, queer, and other critical/marginalized perspectives into scientific practice.

Faculty in this area train students in social and scientific theory, emerging genomic technologies, community-engaged research, bioethics, and biopolitics. Our research and courses explore critical bioanthropological questions about human biodiversity, race/racism, sex, gender, and class. They cover topics like how we understand human population history; contemporary health disparities; genetic claims about human difference and inequalities in the past and present; and evolutionary narratives about marginalized peoples. They also pay close attention to how sociopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts shape biology and our understandings of what is natural/innate, as well as how science impacts society.

Our researchers in cultural anthropology investigate topics like cultural identity, nationalism, ethnohistory, historical archaeology, gender, human rights, indigenous and women’s rights, democratization, ethnomedicine, transnationalism, religion and ritual, and mass consumption.

Environmental anthropology researchers have a strong interest in fundamental issues pertaining to the intersections of human beings and the environment. Faculty and student research on environmental issues encompasses a broad range of concerns, including health, disease, climate change, environmental degradation, conservation, paleoenvironments, agriculture, biomarkers, ecophysiology, ecological and environmental justice, energy equity, migration, natural disasters, sustainability, nonhuman species, and the anthropocene. The department offers courses focused on environmental topics at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Faculty and student researchers in this area study human culture and what is to be human. They are curious about our common humanity: our passions; our values; our awe of the sacred; our willingness to suffer to be accepted into a group; and our tendencies to cooperate and to engage in violent conflict.

Researchers in our department have extensive expertise in the anthropology of human rights. Faculty and student research interests span a broad range of issues, including cultural rights, the right to health, migrants’ rights, international criminal tribunals, and the history and contested universalism of human rights. They work closely with UConn’s interdisciplinary Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute.