UA LITTLE ROCK ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT: MORE THAN BONES

When a lot of people hear anthropology, they light up with their best guess“You study dinosaurs!”

While dinosaurs are cool, anthropology has a different focus. It studies humanity and civilization throughout time, in several different ways.

The field is a lot more diverse and intertwined with everyday life than you might think. Some of the things it encompasses are:

Making sure buildings aren’t built on any archaeological sites (this is required by law!)

Gathering the material you see in museums and/or deciding on how to display them

Investigating different civilizations to bring you interesting narratives and perspectives

Working within businesses in roles such as Human Resources Specialist, Diversity Manager or in Public Relations

Identifying skeletal remains

Working in research facilities (studying primates or humans)

In social work or non-profit organizations, as well as law & politics

And so much more. There are four main categories within anthropology: biological, archaeological, cultural and linguistics.

Biological anthropologists are concerned with biological aspects of humans, their ancestors and primates, a lot of the time from an evolutionary perspective. A lot of people involved with biological anthropology also go into forensic or research fields.

Archaeological anthropologists work to survey land, seeking out cultural materials or (as an anthropology course deems it) Buried Cities & Ancient Lives.

They report their findings and can help with the creation of Historic Sites,

Story: Skyler Brooks

as well as can help with the preservation of such material. It can also include lab work where you sort and identify samples of material. Cultural anthropology generally centers around investigating different modern cultures and societies.

These are the people who write ethnographies, which are systematic studies of civilizations- AKA, bringing you different narratives on the experiences and perspectives of different places.

These people often go into fields bridging the gap between different people, emphasizing connection and respect of people. Last is linguistics, which are people who study language in relation to different cultures and societies. They investigate how language is influenced by and how it influences society.

UALR has offered a B.A. in Anthropology since the early 2000’s. A lot has changed since then, but the program has held strong against time. In fact, it continues to expand in opportunities offered!

The Anthropology department offers a variety of classes, covering cultural, biological, and archaeological anthropology.

It boasts several classes that help students learn practical skills for the field, as well as unique and interesting experiences. It also encourages students to attend field school to get hands-on experience on an anthropological or archaeological project, and it even has a specific scholarship fund just to help pay for that.

Paige Blair working at the Arkansas State Crime Lab and Anthropology Club President Tosha Aleck to work at the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion under the Mayor of Little Rock.

This semester, the Anthropology department is offering “Archaeological Investigation”.

A consistently offered class is the Anthropology internship, which has allowed students to work within their interested fields.

A few examples include

This four credit class offers students practical experience on archaeological work- including lab work as well as field work on a site here at UALR!

The site, located near the Campus Garden, allows for students to get real experience in an easily accessible manner. The department plans to extend this project throughout classes in the upcoming semesters, and hopefully develop it into a community project. Starting in Fall 2024, they plan to begin offering a Certificate in Applied Archaeology. This is a 18-20 credit certificate that requires classes such as Applied Archaeology, a class in Cultural Area studies and a Geospatial Technology class.

Some of the required classes will be through other departments and the requirements are based on feedback from professionals in the Cultural Resource Management field. This means students will receive interdisciplinary and practical experience that will help with job security in a growing market.

There are also opportunities to have fun. For example, on October 14th, students Ellen Wellman, Yasmin Hamad Basilio and Jesse Lewis, as well as Assistant Professor Dr. Levin participated in the ArcheOlympics.

They placed third overall out of eleven teams from across the state and Anthropology club officer Jesse Lewis won first place for longest spear throwing distance using an atlatl!

Anthropology is definitely an interdisciplinary field and several students’ degree plans demonstrate this.

Yasmin Hamad Basilio is a double major in Anthropology & Political Science and has minors in Religious Studies & Middle Eastern Studies; Cole Dwyer is a Biology major with a concentration in molecular biotechnology and a minor in Anthropology; Tosha Aleck is a pre-law student majoring in Anthropology & minoring in biology; and Skyler Brooks Davis is a triple major in Anthropology, History, &

Sociology. The list goes on!

The professors are as equally as amazing. When discussing with several staff and students, there was an emphasis on how amazing everyone in the department is- there’s difficulty narrowing it down when there’s so many people doing amazing things!

If you want to get involved, the anthropology program is open for anyone, even those outside the major.

In fact, you can count two of the classes towards your core credits! These classes are Understanding Cultures (ANTH 2316) for social science credit and Physical/Biological Anthropology (ANTH 1415) for science credit.

They have an office & lounge in 405 Stabler Hall and their email is ANTH@ualr.edu.

This semester, the Anthropology Club has meetings every week in their lounge (405 SH) on Tuesdays at 3 PM. They also have an active Discord that anyone is welcome to join, where opportunities and interesting articles are shared, which is linked in the anthropology club instagram (@anthropology_club_ualr).

Anthropology loves seeing students from every discipline, so feel free to reach out!