Historical Archaeology Laboratory
Analysis of materials manufactured within the last 400 years and curation of a comparative zooarchaeological collection.
American Material Culture Laboratory
Houses extensive comparative collections and materials libraries for study of historical archaeological remains
Archaeological X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF) Laboratory
Analysis of archaeological and source standard obsidian, other volcanic and sedimentary rocks, and ceramics, particularly focused on non-destructive analyses. (Offsite).
XRF Laboratory Website: http://www.swxrflab.net
Berkeley Disability Laboratory
The Berkeley Disability Lab was formed as a nexus for disability research, media, and design in the Bay Area. It combines the functions of a purposefully-accessible and cross-disability inclusive makerspace, reseach lab, and teaching space.
Brain Evolution Laboratory
Research concerning the development and evolution of the human brain, and vertebrate brain evolution in general. The lab includes a large collection of diverse mammal brains used for histological analysis. Researchers in the lab are also engaged in fMRI and computer simulation research.
California Archaeology & Indigenizing Archaeological Research Laboratory
Analysis of archaeological materials from sites in California, primarily from the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Central American Archaeology Laboratory
Study of archaeological materials on loan from Honduras and El Salvador.
East Asian Archaeology Laboratory
Research on pottery, stone tools, faunal and floral remains from the Sannai Maruyama site and other Jomon period cites (circa 5900-4300 b.p.) in northern Japan
Geoarchaeology and Southwest Asia Prehistory Laboratory
The Geo-SWAP Lab serves three main functions: a) artifacts analysis (especially lithics) from archaeological excavations conducted by Maher and her students, predominantly in Southwest Asia, b) geoarchaeological & micromorphological analysis of soils and sediments from archaeological sites in Southwest Asia, Asia and North America, and c) a space for conducting experimental archaeology (stone tool production) and the training of graduate and undergraduate students in lithic technology through an extensive archaeological and experimental teaching collection housed in this lab.
McCown Archaeobotany Laboratory
All ranges of archaeological plant material, including wood, seeds, storage tissue, and microbotanical evidence is analyzed in the Archaeobotany Laboratory. The laboratory also is the repository of identified plant collections, mainly from western South America and California, with some from Mesoamerica and the Near East, with special emphasis on Zea mays and Chenopodium.
Skeletal Biology Laboratory
The primary focus of the Agarwal Skeletal Biology Lab is the study of mineralized tissue (skeletal and dental) to investigate novel anthropological questions with a biocultural approach. Our current research is fundamentally concerned with understanding the relationship between biology and social behavior as related to bone health and development over the life course. The research scope is global, with a temporal focus on the contemporary, historic and prehistoric. Recent bioarchaeological research in the lab has contributed to projects in Britain, Colombia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, North America, Portugal, and Turkey. The longstanding research foci has been on human bone development and senescence, and understanding the entangled experiences of disease with sex/gender, with current projects aimed to examine issues of developmental plasticity, labour, diet, social inequality and structural violence, disability, and religious practice. We aim to cultivate a reflexive practice that challenges issues of diversity and bioethics in bioarchaeology.
Social Apps Lab
The Social Apps Lab undertakes interdisciplinary collaboration to develop social and software platforms that encourage active citizenship and direct democracy. Directed by Professor James Holston, it engages social science, computer science, engineering, public health, art, and aspects of gameplay in research and design that aim to reformulate the terms of democratic assembly, citizen participation, civic action, and urban knowledge. Its projects include vallejopb.appcivist.org and denguechat.org, the former used in Vallejo, CA, for the city's participatory budgeting and the latter in Managua and Asunción for community-based arbovirus vector control. The Social Apps Lab won the 2016 Chancellor's Award for Public Service.
Social Apps Lab Website: https://citris-uc.org/initiatives/social-apps-lab/
Zooarchaeology Laboratory
Our lab specializes in the analysis of faunal remains, and uses innovative approaches to identify taphonomic signatures on bone, allowing for the identification of a variety of activities associated with human-animal interactions and cuisine. We are also an experimental archaeology lab with diverse interests in the use of technology such as geophysics and modeling to not only better understand the past, but also better serve the research mandates of our community partners. As a result, the Bear Bones Lab has hosted data and collections from archaeological sites of diverse spatial and temporal origin, with research foci that engage an ever expanding network of cross-campus and community partners.