Archaeology
The archaeology subdiscipline provides
continuous geographic coverage of ancient societies
from the Plains of North America through the
Southwest and Mesoamerica to the Intermediate
Area. The native societies we focus on
range from egalitarian hunter-gatherers through
middle range societies to the city-states and
empires of Mesoamerica. The faculty’s
theoretical and topical interests include human
ecology, ethnoarchaeology, agency and social
theory, lithic and ceramic analyses, remote sensing,
and geophysical applications in archeology.
Archaeology links with biological anthropology in a number of ways. For instance, archaeologists encountering burials frequently turn to biological anthropologists for analyses of stature, health, and other topics. Many archaeologists and biological anthropologists share a deep interest in human ecology, i.e. the ways people have adapted to their environments and affected those environments. Archaeology also relates to cultural anthropology in significant ways, since much archaeological theory is derived from cultural theory. Given the vast diachronic interests of archaeology, significant archaeological theory is also derived independently from ethnography. Ethnoarchaeology spans the two subdisciplines, as archaeologists study the material culture of functioning contemporary societies to learn how better to make inferences about past behavior. Both archaeology and cultural anthropology study ethnic and political groups in contact with each other, including topics of migration, acculturation, trade and tribute, conquest, information sharing, elite emulation, and the rise of multiethnic powers.
Every summer, the CU Department of Anthropology conducts a full-credit field school for qualifying undergraduate and graduate students.
Archaeology Faculty
Boulos Ayad—Languages and civilizations of Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East
Douglas Bamforth—Pre-contact archaeology of the North American Great Plains
Catherine Cameron—Archaeology of the North American Southwest
Arthur Joyce—Origins and development of complex societies of Mesoamerica
Steve Lekson—Curator of Anthropology—Archaeology of the North American Southwest
Payson Sheets—Archaeology of Mesoamerica and the Intermediate Area of lower Central America;