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]

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]

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]

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.

Anthropology Faculty Member: Carolyn Smith featured on Berkeley News 

Indigenous anthropologist and new Berkeley professor finds family, hope in basket weaving

In addition to her research on baskets, Carolyn Smith is teaching museum methods this fall. "We have to shine a light on the painful legacy of the field of museum anthropology so that there can be remediation and reconciliation," she said.


In addition to her research on baskets, Carolyn Smith is teaching museum methods this fall. "We have to shine a light on the painful legacy of the field of museum anthropology so that there can be remediation and reconciliation," she said.

[Brandon Sánchez Mejia/UC Berkeley]

Anthro 290 Talk: Mar 18th, Racism in the Study of Our PastT (Dr. Sheela Athreya

Racism in the Study of Our Past: How do we fix paleoanthropology's typological and essentialist mindset?

Dr. Sheela Athreya (Texas A&M University)

March 18th, 2024 - 2 pm in the Gifford Room (AAPB 221)

Talk Available via Zoom - Link to register here

UC Berkeley Anthropology's Dr. Andrew W. Kim and Dr. Sabrina Agarwal Featured on the American Journal of Biological Anthropology

This special issue highlights the important work of biological anthropologists engaged in research on the drivers, contexts, and consequences of infectious disease across human history - from the Pleistocene to today! Our contributors highlight the wide range of expertise on infectious disease and pandemics in biological anthropology, and discuss new and underappreciated perspectives on the dynamics of disease outbreaks and their numerous implications for health, society, and the environment. Some of the topics included in this special issue include co-evolution of both pathogens and human health, ancient DNA analysis of bacterial, viral, and human samples, human–animal relations in zoonotic spillover, and the complex processes driving health inequalities and their long-term consequences, among many others. The table of contents for the SI is attached here.