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Extending from Ohio to Missouri, native peoples representing the Hopewell culture thrived twenty-five hundred years ago in an economy based on horticulture and extensive trade. The Hopewell utilized raw materials including volcanic glass from the Rocky Mountains, shells from the Atlantic Coast, and mica from the Carolinas. This image of a human hand, fabricated out of mica, was excavated from a mound in Ross County Ohio in the 1920s. Its simple, stylized beauty reaches through time and across cultural differences to touch the common humanity uniting all people. |
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Department Mission Statement
Anthropology concerns itself with the holistic study of the human condition— socially, culturally, linguistically, and biologically in space and in time. We are thus committed to the four-field approach, believing as we do that Anthropology is uniquely positioned to examine what it means to be human. We value interdisciplinary research because Anthropology is a field without clear borders. We thus emphasize the connection of Anthropology to the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. Our courses in cultural anthropology, archeology, linguistic anthropology and biological anthropology emphasize the role of fieldwork in contributing to the sum total of knowledge about the human career on earth. In this way, our theories and interpretations of human differences and similarities across cultures and through time will be based on the continuing empirical investigations of our discipline. The field research of each faculty member, accordingly, finds a central place in our classrooms. We aim to teach our students critical thinking and research skills while at the same demonstrating the continuing relevance of anthropology to an understanding of an increasingly transcultural world. We believe with Ruth Benedict that Anthropology helps to make the world safe for human differences. We thus strive to help our students assume the responsibility of global citizenship and the imperative of informed understanding of diverse cultures in greater contact than ever before.