Read more about our Graduate Program
The procession: Anniversary of the "Baptism of Ancient Rus" in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, July 2017 [Photo Credit: Aleksandra Simonova]
![Reconstruction of a Crannog, an Iron Age loch-dwelling found in Scotland and Ireland [Photo Credit: Tabea Mastel]](https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_widgets_spotlight_half/public/general/crannog_reconstructed_scotland.jpg?itok=C5OK3QxD&c=3d44b146a9081dc3838eb646f96e8c6d)
Find out what a degree in Anthropology can do for you
Reconstruction of a Crannog, an Iron Age loch-dwelling found in Scotland and Ireland [Photo Credit: Tabea Mastel]
Browse our catalog of lecture, lab, method, and seminar courses
Banner from the Stop the Gentrification campaign, by the residents of San Felipe in La Ciudad Panamá [Photo Credit: Pascale Boucicaut]
![The protest: LGBT Pride march in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, June 2017 [Photo Credit: Aleksandra Simonova]](https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_widgets_spotlight_half/public/simonova_lgbt.jpg?itok=n8RcLuLk&c=c3a08597120d0a850681a82798f19284)
Check out the variety of Research Opportunities available to Anthropology Students
The protest: LGBT Pride march in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, June 2017 [Photo Credit: Aleksandra Simonova]
![A police managed, pre-paid autorickshaw stand at a major railway station in Delhi, India. [Photo-credit: William Stafford]](https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_widgets_spotlight_half/public/img_20160516_165112815.jpg?itok=a9RE4HDm&c=6946172950420009b99044ddda75b457)
A police managed, pre-paid autorickshaw stand at a major railway station in Delhi, India. [Photo-credit: William Stafford]
An Education in Anthropology
Anthropologists study human beings from every time period, in every way possible, and in all their complexity. Click here to learn more about what a degree in Anthropology can do for you.
The Department of Anthropology at Berkeley has long been ranked among the top five departments in the United States.
Berkeley Anthropologists have a history of innovation and leadership in emergent areas of the discipline, whether conducting their research in modern biological labs, in globalizing villages throughout the world, or at places being developed as sites of cultural heritage and national identity. The Berkeley faculty includes the largest number of winners of the J. I. Staley Prize(link is external), awarded annually to an outstanding anthropology book by a living author, the only discipline-wide award in anthropology.
The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce that Professor James Holston has been awarded $3.1 million for five years from NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The NIH award funds “Proyecto Tariki” (Quechua for I found you), a collaborative research and implementation initiative developed with three other principal investigators, Dr. Josefina Coloma (immunologist in the Division of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health), Dr. Valerie Paz-Soldan (social epidemiologist based at Tulane University and in Lima, Peru), and Dr. Amy Morrison (entomologist based at UC Davis and in Iquitos, Peru). The goal of the project is to reduce the risk of dengue virus infection and improve health outcomes for dengue fever in the Amazonian city of Iquitos, Peru.
Project Tariki proposes such a paradigm change through the use of new digital technologies (the platform DengueChat) and direct democratic assemblies of neighborhood residents.
Developed by the Social Apps Lab at the Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, DengueChat was successfully deployed to reduce dengue risk in Nicaragua and Paraguay.
Recent Stories
February 2, 2023
January 31, 2023
November 16, 2022
Kent Lightfoot receives the SAA Lifetime Achievement Award
Emeritus faculty member Kent G. Lightfoot was awarded the 2024 SAA Lifetime Achievement Award for work that is a stellar example for how archaeology can engage with contemporary social justice issues and how, in the process, it can contribute to new understandings of the Anthropocene. His studies of Indigenous -European engagements in the context of settler colonialism and his long-term commitment to collaborative archaeology partnering with Native California tribes in the production of knowledge about history and heritage provided important baseline methods for Indigenous Archaeology. He became and remains a mentor who has facilitated the increase in influential Native American scholars in archaeology. His efforts continue to profoundly and positively transform the focus and direction of American archaeology as an ethical practice, a responsible science, and a field of study that is relevant to communities most impacted by our work.
Anthropology Chair and Professor Sabrina Agarwal: exploitation of human remains for educational purposes lasted centuries
A new commentary from UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology Professor and Chair Sabrina Agarwal sheds light on the historic red market trade of human skeletons from India and the ethics of using them for educational purposes.
Published in Nature Communications, the commentary, “The bioethics of skeletal anatomy collections(link is external),” delves into the complex history of the procurement of skeletal remains from India and how they became the primary source of anatomical collections around the world.
During and after British colonial rule in India and lasting for 180 years, countless human skeletons were sent from India to various countries for educational purposes, according to the commentary. These skeletons were acquired through questionable means, targeting and exploiting poor and marginalized communities.
