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Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Entanglements of Teenage Food Security Within High School Pantries in Pinellas County, Florida , Karen T. Díaz Serrano

The Applicability of the Postmortem Submersion Interval Estimation Formula for Human Remains Found in Subtropical Aquatic Environments , Kara L. DiComo

Early Agricultural Lives: Bioarchaeological Inferences from Neolithic and Early Copper Age Tombs in the Central Po Valley, Italy , Christopher J. Eck Jr.

The Process of Government in Clearwater, Florida , Picot deBoisfeuillet Floyd

“I Was Doing the Best with What I Had”: Exploring Student Veterans’ Experiences with Community Reintegration, Food Insecurity, and Health Challenges , Jacquelyn N. Heuer

Transformative Psychedelic Experiences at Music Events: Using Subjective Experience to Explore Chemosocial Assemblages of Culture , Gabrielle R. Lehigh

“We Need to Have a Place to Vent and Get Our Frustrations Out”: Addressing the Needs of Mothering Students in Higher Education using a Positive Deviance Framework , Melissa León

“They’re Still Trying to Wrap Their Head Around Forever”: An Anatomy of Hope for Spinal Cord Injury Patients , William A. Lucas

Foodways of the Florida Frontier: Zooarchaeological Analysis of Gamble Plantation Historic State Park (8MA100) , Mary S. Maisel

The Impacts of Disability Policy and its Implementation on Deaf University Students: An Applied Anthropological Approach , Tailyn Marie Osorio

“I’m Still Suffering”: Mental Health Care Among Central African Refugee Populations in the Tampa Bay Area , C. Danee Ruszczyk

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Immigration-Related Stressors, Pregnancy, Birth, and Post-Partum Experiences of Women Living Along the US-Mexico Border , Isabela Solis

Clinically Applied Anthropology: A Syndemic Intervention. , Jason W. Wilson

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

An Assessment of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals Gender Affirming Health Care Practices in the Greater Tampa Bay , Sara J. Berumen

Mound-Summit Practices at Cockroach Key (8HI2) Through the Lens of Practice Theory , Chandler O. Burchfield

Crafting a Scene: The Nexus of Production and Consumption of Tampa Bay Craft Beer , Russell L. Edwards

Applied Anthropology of Addiction in Clinical Spaces: co-Developing and Assessing a Novel Opioid Treatment Pathway , Heather Diane Henderson

Japan’s COVID 19 Infection Rate: A Focus on Tokyo Neighborhoods , Lauren Koerner

Farmers’ Organizations and Development Actors in a Pandemic: Responses to Covid-19 and the Food-Energy-Water Nexus , Atte Penttilä

An Ideology of Racism: Community Representation, Segregation, and the Historical Cemeteries of Panama City, Florida , Ethan David Mauldin Putman

“Even If You Have Food in Your House, It Will Not Taste Sweet”: Central African Refugees’ Experiences of Cultural Food Insecurity and Other Overlapping Insecurities in Tampa, Florida , Shaye Soifoine

Afro-Latinx and Afro-Latin Americans in the United States: Examining Ethnic and Racial Experiences in Higher Education , Glenda Maria Vaillant Cruz

Black Cemeteries Matter: The Erasure of Historic Black Cemeteries in Polk County, Florida , Juliana C. Waters

An Anthropology with Human Waste Management: Non-Humans, The State, and Matters of Care on the Placencia Peninsula, Belize , William Alex Webb

An Edgefield Ceramic Assemblage from the Lost Town of St. Joseph, Northwest Florida , Crystal R. Wright

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Aspiring to “Make it Work”: Defining Resilience and Agency Amongst Hispanic Youth Living in Low-Income Neighborhoods , Sara Arias-Steele

“I Wish Somebody Called Me, Told Me Not to Worry”: Evaluating a Non-Profit’s Use of Social Support to Address Refugee Women’s Resettlement Challenges , Brandylyn L. Arredondo

Of Body and Mind: Bioarchaeological Analysis of Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Anatomization and Institutionalization in Siena, Italy , Jacqueline M. Berger

Cannabis Capitalism in Colorado: An Ethnography of Il/legal Production and Consumption , Lia Berman

Analyses Of Woodland Check-Stamped Ceramics In Northwest Florida , John D. Blackburn

“Here Come the Crackers!”: An Ethnohistorical Case Study of Local Heritage Discourses and Cultural Reproduction at a Florida Living History Museum , Blair Bordelon

Privies as Portals: A Ceramic and Glass Bottle Analysis of a Late 19th Century Household Privy in Ellenton, FL , Shana Boyer

Making Change in the Nickel City: Food Banking and Food Insecurity in Buffalo, NY During the COVID-19 Pandemic , Sarah E. Bradley

Ware and Tear in Ancient Tampa Bay: Ceramic Elemental Analyses from Pinellas County Sites , McKenna Loren Douglass

Rethinking Settlement Patterns at the Weeden Island Site (8PI1) on Florida’s Central Gulf Coast , Heather E. Draskovich

Listening to Women: Using a Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Women’s Desires and Experience During Childbirth , Nicole Loraine Falk Smith

Archaeology and Seasonality of Stock Island (8Mo2), a Glades-Tradition Village on Key West , Ryan M. Harke

How Culture and Storytelling Can Influence Urban Development: An Ethnographic Look at the Community-Driven Revitalization of Newtown in Sarasota, Florida , Michala Head

Educational Experiences of Congolese Refugees in West-Central Florida High Schools , Michaela J. Inks

Constructing 'Child Safety': Policy, Practice, and Marginalized Families in Florida's Child Welfare System , Melissa Hope Johnson

"We're the Lucky Ones": A Social Network Analysis of Recovery After the Iowa Derecho , Kayla C. Jones

How Race is Made in Everyday Life: Food, Eating, and Dietary Acculturation among Black and White Migrants in Florida, U.S. , Laura Kihlstrom

Tourism, Education, and Identity Making: Agency and Representation of Indigenous Communities in Public Sites within Florida. , Timothy R. Lomberk II

Pregnancy and Fertility Amongst Women with the MTHFR C677T Polymorphism: An Anthropological Review , Caroline A. MacLean

A Biocultural Analysis of the Impacts of Interactions Between West Africans and Europeans During the Trans-Atlantic Trade at Elmina, Ghana , Heidi Ellen Miller

The Distribution in Native Populations from Mexico and Central America of the C677T Variant in the MTHFR Gene , Lucio A. Reyes

Politics vs. The Environment: The Spatial Distributions of Mississippian Mound Centers in Tampa Bay , Adam J. Sax

Seasonality, Labor Organization, and Monumental Constructions: An Otolith Study from Florida’s Crystal River Site (8CI1) and Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex (8CI40 and 41) , Elizabeth Anne Southard

Eating and Body Image Disorders in the Time of COVID19: An Anthropological Inquiry into the Pandemic’s Effects on the Bodies , Theresa A. Stoddard

The Early Medieval Transition: Diet Reconstruction, Mobility, and Culture Contact in the Ravenna Countryside, Northern Italy , Anastasia Temkina

The Science of Guessing: Critiquing Ancestral Estimation Through Computer Generated Statistical Analysis Within Forensic Anthropology in a Real-World Setting , Christopher J. Turner

Listening to Queens: Ghana's Women Traditional Leaders as a Model for Gender Parity , Kristen M. Vogel

Site Suitability Modeling in the Sand Pine Scrub of the Ocala National Forest , Jelane M. Wallace

Our Story, Our Homeland, Our Legacy: Settlement Patterns of The Geechee at Sapelo Island Georgia, From 1860 To 1950 , Colette D. Witcher

Identifying Skeletal Puberty Stages in a Modern Sample from the United States , Jordan T. Wright

Pollen-Vegetation Relationships in Upper Tampa Bay , Jaime E. Zolik

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Maternal Social Status, Offspring 2D:4D Ratio and Postnatal Growth, in Macaca mulatta (Rhesus Macaques) , Juan Pablo Arroyo

Social Exclusion of Older Mossi Women Accused of Witchcraft in Burkina Faso, West Africa , Clarisse Barbier

Fields Brook Superfund Site: Race, Class, and Environmental Justice in a Blasted Landscape , Richard C. Bargielski

The Effects of Feudalism on Medieval English Mobility: A Biological Distance Study Using Nonmetric Cranial Traits. , Jonathan H. Barkmeier

Before the Storm: Water and Energy Utilities, Human Vulnerability and Disaster Risk , Cori D. Bender

Recipes for the Living and the Dead: Technological Investigation of Ceramics from prehistoric Sicily. The case studies of Sant’Angelo Muxaro and Polizzello , Gianpiero Caso

Save Water Drink Wine: Challenges of Implementing the Ethnography of the Temecula Valley Wine Industry into Food-Energy-Water Nexus Decision-Making , Zaida E. Darley

İYo luché! : Uncovering and Interrupting Silencing in an Indigenous and Afro-descendant Community , Eileen Cecelia Deluca

Unwritten Records: Crime and Punishment in Early Virginia , Jessica L. Gantzert

‘It’s Been a Huge Stress’: An In-Depth, Exploratory Study of Vaccine Hesitant Parents in Southern California , Mika Kadono

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for Elemental Analysis in Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology , Kelsi N. Kuehn

Middle Woodland Mounds of the Lower Chattahoochee, Lower Flint, and Apalachicola River Basin , Michael H. Lockman

Overturning the Turnbull Settlement: Artifact Analysis of the Old Stone Wharf in New Smyrna Beach, Florida , Tracy R. Lovingood

“They will think we are the Cancer Family”: Studying Patterns of Cancer Disclosure and Communication among Indian Immigrants in the United States , Kanan Mehta

Museum Kura Hulanda: Representations of Transatlantic Slavery and African and Dutch Heritage in Post-Colonial Curaçao , April Min

Nurses and Needlesticks: Perceptions of Stigma and HIV Risk , Bethany Sharon Moore

Circadian Rhythms and the Embodiment of Social Zeitgebers: Linking the Bio and Social , Tiffany R. Moore

Civic Engagement amid Civil Unrest: Haitian Social Scientists Working at Home , Nadège Nau

“Placing our breasts on a hot kerosene lantern”: A Critical Study of Microfinancialization in the Lives of Women Entrepreneurs in the Informal Economic Sector in Ibadan, Nigeria , Olubukola Olayiwola

Domestic Life during the Late Intermediate Period at El Campanario Site, Huarmey Valley, Peru , Jose Luis Peña

Archaeology and the Philosopher's Stance: An Advance in Ethics and Information Accessibility , Dina Rivera

A South Florida Ethnography of Mobile Home Park Residents Organizing Against Neoliberal Crony Capitalist Displacement , Juan Guillermo Ruiz

From Colonial Legacy to Difficult Heritage: Responding to and Remembering An Gorta Mór , Ireland’s Great Hunger , Katherine Elizabeth Shakour

The Role of Financial Insecurity and Expectations on Perspectives of Mental Health Services among Refugees , Jacqueline M. Siven

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Trauma Analysis in Cases of Child Fatality , Jaime D. Sykes

Governmentality, Biopower, and Sexual Citizenship: A Feminist Examination of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Experiences of 18-24 Year-Olds in the U.S. Southeast , Melina K. Taylor

Characterizing Childhood and Diet in Migration Period Hungary , Kirsten A. Verostick

An Ethnography of WaSH Infrastructures and Governance in Sulphur Springs, Florida , Mathews Jackon Wakhungu

A Plan for Progress, Preservation, and Presentation at the Safety Harbor Museum and Cultural Center , Amanda L. Ward

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Pathways to Parenthood: Attitudes and Preferences of Eight Self-Identified Queer Women Living in Tampa Bay, FL , Emily Noelle Baker

"It's Not Addiction Until You Graduate": Natural Recovery in the College Context , Breanne I. Casper

Tales of Trafficking: Performing Women's Narratives in a Sex Trafficking Rehabilitation Program in Florida , Jaine E. Danlag

Perceptions of Infrastructure, Flood Management, and Environmental Redevelopment in the University Area, Hillsborough County, Florida , Kris-An K. Hinds

Eating in America: Easing the Transition for Resettled Refugees through an Applied Anthropological Intervention , Emily A. Holbrook

Genetic Testing and the Power of the Provider: Women’s Experiences with Cancer Genetic Testing , Dana Erin Ketcher

An Archaeological Investigation of Enslavement at Gamble Plantation , S. Matthew Litteral

“Right in the Trenches with Them”: Caregiving, Advocacy, and the Political Economy of Community Health Workers , Ryan I. Logan

Exploring Variations in Diet and Migration from Late Antiquity to the Early Medieval Period in the Veneto, Italy: A Biochemical Analysis , Ashley B. Maxwell

Least of My Worries: Food Security, Diet Quality, and Antiretroviral Adherence among People Living with HIV , Charlotte Ann Noble

The Tampa Gym Study: An Ethnographic Exploration of Gyms, Female Gym-Goers and The Quest for Fitness in Tampa, FL , Danielle Reneé Rosen

Environmental Legacies of Pre-Contact and Historic Land Use in Antigua, West Indies , Anthony Richard Tricarico

“What I Hadn’t Realized is How Difficult it is, You Know?”: Examining the Protective Factors and Barriers to Breastfeeding in the UK , Cheyenne R. Wagi

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

“I Want Ketchup on my Rice”: The Role of Child Agency on Arab Migrant Families Food and Foodways , Faisal Kh. Alkhuzaim

Exploring Explicit Fanfiction as a Vehicle for Sex Education among Adolescents and Young Adults , Donna Jeanne Barth

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Anthropology Theses, Dissertations, and Professional Papers

This collection includes theses, dissertations, and professional papers from the University of Montana Department of Anthropology. Theses, dissertations, and professional papers from all University of Montana departments and programs may be searched here.

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

THE ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT DNA: FROM MITOCHONDRIA TO PATHOGENS , Tre Joseph Marcus Blohm

AN EXAMINATION OF THE FOOD SYSTEM, FOODSCAPE, DIETARY PATTERNS, AND ACCOLATED HEALTH OUTCOMES OF SALISH PEOPLE WITHIN THE CONFEDERATED SALISH AND KOOTENAI NATION , Joshua William Brown

Activity Pattern Analysis from a Commingled and Fragmentary Necropolis: Entheseal Changes at Kourion Amathus Gate Cemetery (KAGC) , Hannah Burgess Carson

All Under One Roof: An Ethnographic Commons in the Missoula Public Library , Caitlin Ervin

NEGOTIATING THE SACRED: UNDERSTANDING IMPACTS TO IKS AND ITEK FROM USE OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNOLOGIES WITHIN TRIBAL LANDSCAPES , Renelda R. Freeman

Ancient Migrations in West Mexico: MtDNA Analyses , Patricio Gutiérrez Ruano

UNDERSTANDING IDENTITY, POWER, AND USE OF SPACE OVER TIME WITHIN HOUSEPIT 54, BRIDGE RIVER SITE (K’ETXELKNÁ’Z), BRITISH COLUMBIA , Ashley Elizabeth Hampton

META-ANALYSIS OF SCENT DETECTION CANINES AND POTENTIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING THEIR SUCCESS RATES , Molly Marie Jaskinia

FLICKER FEATHER FILMS: VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY, INDIGENOUS FILM, AND DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING , Martin I. Lopez

Venturing into the Virtual: An Analysis of Virtual Museums and Creation of UMACF Southwestern Basketry Virtual Exhibit , Monica D. Lusnia

Re-Curation and Recognition: Addressing The Curation Crisis Through the Garnet Ghost Town , Jocelyn A. Palombo

The Cultivation of Therapeutic Landscapes: A Medical Anthropological Approach to Understanding the Health and Wellbeing Qualities of the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas , Andrew Thomas Ranck

CHINESE MATERIAL CULTURE SIGNATURES IN NATIVE NORTH AMERICA: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN ONLINE COLLECTIONS AND PLAINS , Erin Drin Rosenkrance and Erin D. Rosenkrance

SEEKING A COMMON THEME: A STUDY OF CERAMIC EFFIGY ARTIFACTS IN THE PRE-HISPANIC AMERICAN SOUTHWEST AND NORTHERN MEXICO USING COMPUTER IMAGE PATTERN RECOGNITION AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS , Lee Roger Tallier Jr.

UMFC 140 A COMPREHENSIVE CASE REPORT , Daniel D. Warila

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

USING BONE BIOLOGY TO ENHANCE FORENSIC AND PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL DNA ANALYSIS , Keith M. Biddle

Linear Programming Analysis and Diet Breadth Modeling at Bridge River, British Columbia , Sean Patrick Boyd

MORPHOMETRIC ANCESTRAL ANALYSIS OF INFRAORBITAL FORAMEN AND MAXILLO-FACIAL LANDMARKS OF ADULT NORTH AMERICAN SKULLS USING X-RAY AND COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SCANS , Anna-Marie Lynn David

The Mountain Home: Spatial and Optimal Foraging Assessments of Hunter- Gatherer Mountain Landscape Use In The Beartooth Mountains, Montana , Scott William Dersam

Revisiting the Ladle House Site: A Starch Granule Analysis of Ground Stone Artifacts from 5MT3873, Cortez, Colorado , Kathryn Marie Kemp

TRACING MIGRATION AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN SUBADULTS AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF CONVENTO: A PRELIMINARY STRONTIUM ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS , Holli Kaye McDonald

Identifying Skeletal Trauma Markers Associated with Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) , Haley K. Omeasoo

THE SYNDEMIC LANDSCAPE: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MONTANA SUICIDE PREVENTION GROUNDED IN AGRICULTURAL RENEWAL , Emory Chandler Padgett

PRELIMINARY STUDY IN MORE EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION OF 87Sr/86Sr ANALYSIS IN THE FIELD OF FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY , Samantha Powers

The effects humidity & temperature has on DNA contamination during storage , Samantha L. Ramey

THE EFFECTS HUMIDITY & TEMPERATURE HAS ON DNA CONTAMINATION DURING STORAGE , Samantha Leigh Allison Ramey

NEW INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AT 48PA551: LAND TENURE AND SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES AMONG MIDDLE HOLOCENE ROCKY MOUNTAIN HUNTER-GATHERERS , Ethan Patrick Ryan

MOCCASIN ECONOMICS: ENTANGLED MUSEUM STORIES OF NIITSITAPI WOMEN, LABOR, AND FOOTWEAR , Michaela Ann Shifley

FOR THE LOVE OF LANGUAGE: MICRORITUEL IN THE SOCIALIZATION OF LANGUAGE TEACHERS , Rebekah Morgan Skoog

A COMPREHENSIVE FORENSIC CASE REPORT WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY LAB UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FORENSIC CASE #167 , Tyler J. Trettin

Y-Chromosome DNA Extraction from Post-Cranial Skeletal Elements , Mykala D. Ward

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AND HISTORIC ARTIFACT ANALYSIS FOR THREE PROJECTS IN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK , Monte Keoua White

HE, SHE, THEY, OTHER: AN EXAMINATION OF GENDER ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE CHATELAINE IN THE ANGLO-SAXON CULTURE , DANE A. WILLIAMS

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

THE ECOLOGY OF PUHA: IDENTITY, ORIENTATION, AND SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS REFLECTED THROUGH MATERIAL CULTURE AND SOCIORELIGIOUS PRACTICE , Aaron Robert Atencio

Mapping Ethnophysiographies: An Investigation of Toponyms and Land Cover of Missoula County, Montana , Emily L. Cahoon

A Moral Influenza: An Historical Archaeological Investigation of the Prohibition Era in the United States 1920-1933 , Kelli Michele Casias

A COMPREHENSIVE FORENSIC CASE REPORT FOR THE BONNER COUNTY CORONER CASE #20-100 , Megan Copeland

Uncovering Cooperation in Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia, Canada , Megan Denis

Exploring Indigenous Involvement in the Fur Trade at the Bridge River Pithouse Village, British Columbia , Rebekah Jean Engelland

THE EFFECTS OF HEAVY METAL CONTAMINATION IN SOIL ON DNA DEGRADATION AFTER DECOMPOSITION , Samantha Hofland

Devastation and Displacement: The Destruction of Native Communities as a Result of Specifically the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River in North Dakota and the Dalles Dams on the Columbia River in Oregon , Farryl Elisa Hunt

Buffalo in the Mountains: Mapping Evidence of Historical Bison Prescence and Bison Hunting in Glacier National Park , Kyle Langley

Summer Vacation in the Wild: An Historical and Archaeological Study of Timber Land Fraud in the Tobacco Plains, Montana , Tyler Jay Rounds

READING THE BONES: A TAPHONOMIC INVESTIGATION OF ARCHAEOFAUNAL REMAINS RECOVERED FROM SITE 48PA551, NORTHWEST WYOMING , Morgan H. Thurman

The Influence of Ancestry, Sex, and Age on the Morphology of the Frontal Sinus in Black and White Individuals , Hope Annelise Vance

The Lost Histories of the Shetayet of Sokar: Contextualizing the Osiris Shaft at Rosetau (Giza) in Archaeological History , Nicholas Edward Whiting

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

THREE-DIMENSIONAL GEOMETRIC MORPHOMETRIC SEX DETERMINATION AND MODELED FRAGMENTARY ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN PUBIC BONE , Katherine Scot Baca

SPIRIT EYE CAVE: REESTABLISHING PROVENIENCE OF TRAFFICKED PREHISTORIC HUMAN REMAINS USING A COMPOSITE COLLECTION-BASED ANCIENT DNA APPROACH , Tre Blohm

Conceptions and Receptions: A Case Study Analysis of Community Engagement at Four Local Museums , Mary L. Casey

A Comparative Analysis of Homicide Rates Utilizing the University of Tennessee Forensic Data Bank , Anna F. Hampton

SYNCHRONY: AN ASPECT OF THE ABILITIES OF STEPPE HORSE ARCHERS IN EURASIAN WARFARE (525 BCE – 1350 CE) , Chris Hanson

Alas, Poor Yorick: A DNA Analysis of Ancestry Using Crania , Claire Hanson

SECRETS OF SOIL: A GEOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATION AND SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE EARLY LIVING FLOORS OF HOUSEPIT 54, BRIDGE RIVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA , Nathaniel Louis Perhay

DIET-BREADTH ANALYSIS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST: METABARCODING METHOD WITH COPROLITES , Paige Nicole Plattner

A Snapshot of Care: Creating Models of Care for Individuals Included in the Terry Collection , Felicia Robyn Sparozic

THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AT PLAZA H, CAHAL PECH: A STUDY IN RESILIENCY , Rachel A. Steffen

A Chip off the Old Rock: An Investigation of Hunter-Gatherer Lithic Behavior at Site 48PA551 Using the FIeld Processing Model , Emma Lydia Vance

HANDING DOWN THE HERITAGE: PRESERVING IRISH DIASPORIC IDENTITIES IN THE FESTIVAL CITY OF MONTANA , Margaret Mary Walsh

A NEW CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM FOR ANALYZING BURNED HUMAN REMAINS , Amanda Noel Williams

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

3D PRINTING OF THE PROXIMAL RIGHT FEMUR: IT’S IMPLICATIONS IN THE FIELD OF FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY AND BIOARCHAEOLOGY , Myriah Adonia Jo Allen

THE QUEST OF VISION: VISUAL CULTURE, SACRED SPACE, RITUAL, AND THE DOCUMENTATION OF LIVED EXPERIENCE THROUGH ROCK IMAGERY , Aaron Robert Atencio

Sexual Dimorphism in Skeletal Trauma Associated with Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) , Keith Biddle

RECONNECTING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE TO THE SUNLIGHT BASIN: INTEGRATING TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY , Liz Dolinar

GRANT-PROPOSAL WRITING AS A CRAFT AND POTENTIAL WAYS TO IMPROVE GRANT-PROPOSAL WRITING KNOWLEDGE AND APPLICATION READINESS FOR STUDENTS SEEKING FUNDING ASSISTANCE ATTENDING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION , Eileen L. Flannigan-Lewis

A Comprehensive Forensic Case Report for the University of Montana Forensic Collection Case #141 , Nohely Gonzalez

“IF THE WATER IS TAKING IT AWAY, LET THE WATER TAKE IT AWAY…”: A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF CONSULTATION AT LAKE KOOCANUSA , Kayla Ciara Johnson

Cultural Property Protection and Preservation During Counterinsurgency Operations: A Handbook for Archaeologists Choosing to Serve with the American Military in the Global War on Terrorism , Thomas Joseph Livoti

HERITAGE ALCHEMY: A MODEL FOR SUSTAINING THE BUILT HERITAGE OF MONTANA IN THE CHANGING LANDSCAPES OF THE 21ST CENTURY VIA PERSPECTIVES FROM THE NETHERLANDS ON POLICY, EDUCATION, AND STEWARDSHIP , Jeffrey MacDonald

NATIVE AMERICAN CONSERVATION CORPS PROGRAMS: CULTURAL HERITAGE AS AN APPROACH TO COMMUNITY WELL-BEING , Michaelle Anne Machuca

HUMAN VS. NON-HUMAN BONE: A NON-DESTRUCTIVE HISTOLOGICAL METHOD , Haley N. O'Brien

Mapping Ideologies: Place Names in Glacier National Park , Kaitlin E. Pipitone

DNA ANALYSIS ON CERAMIC COOKING VESSELS , Britney J. Radford

DNA integrity in forensic samples , Samantha L. Ramey

LEARNING FROM THE LANDSCAPE: INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES AND PLACER MINING LANDSCAPES IN THE ELK CREEK MINING DISTRICT, WESTERN MONTANA , Brent Stephen Rowley

Learning From Stone: Using Lithic Artifacts to Explore the Transmission of Culture at Bridge River, British Columbia , Anne V. Smyrl

IS HUMLA, NEPAL REALLY OPEN DEFECATION FREE? LATRINE USAGE AND UPKEEP POST ODF , Evan William Stewart

A Comprehensive Case Report for the University of Montana Forensic Anthropology Laboratory Case #18-188 , Elizabeth Rose Valentine

An Investigation of Historic Euro-American Inscriptions at Madison Buffalo Jump , Jay Thomas Vest

THE ANZICK ARTIFACTS: A HIGH-TECHNOLOGY FORAGER TOOL ASSEMBLAGE , Samuel Stockton White V

CONSTRUCTING DISTANCE, RESPONSIBILITY, AND MEMORY MANAGEMENT THEORIES: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH TO DEATH NOTIFICATION INTERACTIONS , Teresa Ann 'Lilly' White

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT , Erin Chiniewicz

8HG1312 Amanda's Terrace Lithic Analysis , SEAN FLYNN

The Sylvan Blindspot: The Archaeological Value of Surface Vegetation and a Critique of its Documentation , John S. Harris

VARIATION OF TOOL MARK CHARACTERISTICS IN FROZEN BONE AS IT RELATES TO DISMEMBERMENT , Elena Hughes

A CERAMIC ANALYSIS OF TWO TERMINAL CLASSIC MAYA SITES: EXAMINING ECONOMIC TIES THROUGH POTTERY , Kara B. Johannesen

PIG TRAUMA MODELS: A CIVILIAN PERSPECTIVE ON AR-15 POST-CRANIAL SKELETAL TRAUMA , Lauren M. Kenney

TRIBAL CONSULTATION: A CRITICAL REMINDER OF CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT LAWS AND OBLIGATIONS , Natasha F. LaRose

SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON THE PROCESS OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION , Cheyenne Louise Laue

The Battle of the Little Bighorn Gunshot Trauma Analysis: Suicide Prevalence Among the Soldiers of the 7th Cavalry , Genevieve M. Mielke

What's For Dinner?: A Faunal Analysis of the Bison, Elk, and Bighorn Sheep Bones from the Windy Bison Site (48YE697), Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming , Collin R. Price

CHIPPING THROUGH TIME: THE EVOLUTION OF LITHIC SPATIAL ORGANIZATION AT THE BRIDGE RIVER PITHOUSE VILLAGE, BRITISH COLUMBIA , Ethan P. Ryan

DIFFERENTIAL DECOMPOSITION RATES OF NON-HUMAN REMAINS WITH THE FACILITATION OF SODIUM HYDROXIDE IN DISSIMILAR DEPOSITION ENVIRONMENTS , Hayley Savage

OF RUPTURES AND RAPTURES: LOCATING IDEOLOGY WITH LIDAR IMAGERY , William Dale Schroeder

CALIFORNIA CREEK QUARRY: REGIONAL PERSEPCTIVES AND UAS MAPPING , David A. Schwab

THE EFFECTS OF COMMON METHODS OF SOFT TISSUE REMOVAL ON SKELETAL REMAINS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS , Emily Silverman

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Fertility and Reproduction's Niche: Human Sexual Diversity , Samuel w. Austin

PERCEPTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: NIKUTORU, TABITEUEA MAIAKI, KIRIBATI , Jaime Lynn Bach

Moving Toward a Holistic Menstrual Hygiene Management: An Anthropological Analysis of Menstruation and Practices in Western and Non-Western Societies , Sophia A. Bay

BEFORE ABANDONMENT: SOCIAL CHANGE IN PRE-COLONIAL HOUSEPIT 54, BRIDGE RIVER SITE (EeRl4), BRITISH COLUMBIA , Kathryn L. Bobolinski

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• Microbes, Mothers, and Others: Allocare and Socially-Mediated Gut Microbiome Transmission Across the Colobus vellerosus Lifespan  Christie, Diana ( University of Oregon , 2024-03-25 ) In this dissertation, I investigate relationships between gut microbiome variation and social interactions in a natural population of black and white colobus monkey (Colobus vellerosus) at Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, ...
• Some Social Implications of Trade Unionism in Ghana and Nigeria  Ramsperger, Richard ( University of Oregon , 1962-06 ) Although much has been written on patterns of labor In West Africa, there are no studies which are devoted primarily to the social aspects of labor unions. The purpose of this thesis is to try to determine to what ...
• Drums and Guns: A Cross-Cultural Study of the Nature of War  Nammour, Valerie Wheeler ( Univeristy of Oregon , 1974-12 )
• Geographic and Spatial Evaluation of Group and Territorial Decisions on Rapa, Austral Islands  Lane, Brian ( University of Oregon , 2022-10-04 ) A myriad of local adaptations has been associated with the great human dispersal across the Pacific Ocean, occasionally expressing cultural change in dramatic ways. On the small and remote island of Rapa (Rapa Iti) in the ...
• Signatures of Aging and Environment in the DNA Methylome of Rhesus Macaques  Goldman, Elisabeth ( University of Oregon , 2022-10-04 ) While the link between aging and metabolic function is well recognized, little is known about how variables like diet are able to drive variation in health and longevity through interaction with molecular mechanisms of ...
• Saving Food in Bulgaria: Practicing Food Sovereignty in Everyday Life  Foltz, Lindsey ( University of Oregon , 2022-10-04 ) Home-based food preservation in Bulgaria is widespread and these foods link material, biological and cultural survival, formal and informal economies, social networks, cultivated and wild-harvested foods. As such, they ...
• Covid, Climate Change, and Carework: Mesoamerican Diasporic Indigenous and Latino Communities in the Willamette Valley  Herrera, Timothy ( University of Oregon , 2022-10-04 ) Community-based agriculture is not only concerned with the cultivation of food, but also with the cultivation of connection, care, and exchange. This dissertation is based on fieldwork with a non-profit organization that ...
• The Avian and Mammalian Remains from Nightfire Island  Grayson, Donald Kenneth ( The University of Oregon , 1973-03 ) Excavated in 1967, the Nightfire Island site yielded large amounts of artifactual, floral, and faunal data. This report presents the analysis of the bird and mammal segments of this large collection. While a fragmentary ...
• Land and Labor at Salt River: Household Organization in a Changing Economy  Munsell, Marvin Robert ( University of Oregon , 1967-06 ) Economic change is one of the more visible effects of culture contact. This high visibility may well feature in its apparent primacy. Although culture change may result solely from the interplay of internal forces, few if ...
• Redefining Caste: A Study of Dalit Women’s Sanitation Labor and Generational Aspirations.  Chandvankar, Rucha ( University of Oregon , 2022-02-18 ) This dissertation analyzes the persistence of caste-based sanitation labor and the ways in which Dalit women are redefining the associations between caste and sanitation labor. This project is based on ethnographic research ...
• Examining Foraging models Using Dietary Diversity and Gut Microbiota in Bonobos (Pan paniscus)  Hickmott, Alexana ( University of Oregon , 2021-11-23 ) Optimal diet and functional response models are used to understand the evolution of primate foraging strategies. The predictions of these models can be tested by examining the changes in dietary diversity. Primate gut ...
• A genomic investigation of bonobo (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) divergence  Brand, Colin ( University of Oregon , 2021-09-13 ) Our closest living relatives are two species in the genus Pan: bonobos and chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are further divided into four subspecies. While there are a number of phenotypic similarities between bonobos and chimpanzees, ...
• Canoes, Kava, Kastom, and the Politics of Culture on Aneityum  Wood, Latham ( University of Oregon , 2021-09-13 ) This dissertation explores questions concerning contemporary socio-political formations on Aneityum—the southernmost island of the Republic of Vanuatu—as Aneityum firmly establishes itself on the tourism world stage. ...
• Gender, Identity, and Belonging: A Community-based Social Archaeology of the Nunalleq Site in Quinhagak, Alaska  Sloan, Anna ( University of Oregon , 2021-09-13 ) This dissertation presents a social approach to archaeology at the Nunalleq site, located just outside the contemporary Yup’ik community of Quinhagak, Alaska. Nunalleq is a pre-contact village comprised of two sod house ...
• Improving chronologies in Island Environments: A Global Perspective  Napolitano, Matthew ( University of Oregon , 2021-09-13 ) Chronology building is a fundamental part of archaeology. Questions related to the timing and duration of events are inextricably connected to larger questions about human activity in the past. Given its wide applicability ...
• Marine Mammals Before Extirpation: Using Archaeology To Understand Native American Use Of Sea Otters And Whales in Oregon Prior to European Contact  Wellman, Hannah ( University of Oregon , 2021-09-13 ) Tribal ancestors living on the Oregon coast prior to European contact were skilled fisher-hunter-gatherers residing in a rich environment, home to diverse marine mammals. Euro-Americans over-exploited these marine mammals ...
• THE CULTURAL POSITION OF THE KALAPUYA IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST  Collins, Lloyd R. ( University of Oregon , 1951-06 )
• Male Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) sociality: Behavioral strategies and welfare science applications  Gartland, Kylen ( University of Oregon , 2021-04-29 ) Evolutionarily, individuals should pursue social strategies which confer advantages such as coalitionary support, mating opportunities, or access to limited resources. How an individual forms and maintains social bonds ...
• OREGON INDIAN BASKETRY TYPES AND DISTRIBUTION  Douglas, Mary Elizabeth ( University of Oregon , 1947-06 ) The purpose of this thesis is to determine in as far as is possible, the types of baskets produced by the Indians of Oregon, their distribution and their affinities to those in adjacent areas.
• Why Our Immune Systems Make Us Feel Sick: Pathologies, Adaptations, and Evolutionarily Novel Conditions.  Schrock, Joshua ( University of Oregon , 2020-09-24 ) Three decades of research in neuroimmunology has demonstrated that the state of sickness is generated by the host’s immune system when it detects internal indicators of pathology. But why do our own immune systems make us ...

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Flanagan, Mariah Camille (2017)  The religioscape of museums: understanding modern interactions with ancient ritual spaces .Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Merante, Monica M (2017)  A universal display? Investigating the role of Panathenaic amphorae in the British Museum . Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Deemer, Susanna (2016) Between Capitulation and Overt Action: An Ethnographic Case Study of the Chinese American Student Association at University of Pittsburgh. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Devlin, Hannah (2016)  Compositional analysis of Iroquoian pottery: determining functional relationships between contiguous sites.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Gallagher, Anna (2016)  The Biderbost site: exploring migration and trade on the social landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Hoadley, Elizabeth (2016)  Discrimination and modern Paganism: a study of religion and contemporary social climate.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Johnson, Rachel (2016) Households and Empire: A pXRF Study of Chimu Metal Artifacts from Cerro la Virgen. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Kerr, Jessica (2016) Mountain Dew and the Tooth Fairy: The Influence of Parent/child Relationships, Consumption Habits, and Social Image on Dental Caries in Rural Appalachia. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Kulig, Shannon (2015)  What were the elites doing? understanding Late Classic elite practices at Lower Dover, Belize. Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Kulig, Shannon (2015) Pottery at the Cayuga Site of Genoa Fort. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Ojeda, Lauren (2015) The Syndemic Nature of Mental Health in Bolivia. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Paglisotti, Taylor (2015) Gender, Sexuality, and Stigma: A Case Study of HIV/AIDS policy and discourse in Rural Tanzania. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Wasik, Kayla (2015) Understanding Activities and Purposes: An Analysis of Ground Stone from the Parker Farm and Carman Iroquoian Sites. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Bugos, Eva (2014)  “That’s what I look to her for:” a qualitative analysis of interviews from the Young Moms: Together We Can Make a Difference study.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Deahl, Claire (2014) A Study of Veterans Communities in Pittsburgh. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh. 

Fetterolf, Michael (2014) Healing Alzheimer’s. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Liggett, Sarah (2014) Creating an Armenian Identity: The Role of History, Imagination, and Story in the Making of ‘Armenian’. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Marler, Adrienne (2014) Illness Perceptions in Patients with Hepatobiliary Cancers. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Radomski, Julia (2014)  “Hay que cuidarse”: family planning, development, and the informal sector in Quito, Ecuador. Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Siegel, Nicole (2014) The Bathhouse and the Mikvah: The Creation of Identity. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Zhang, Zannan (2014) Functional Significance of the Human Mandibular Symphysis. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Chastain, Stephen (2013) The origin of the Mongolian steppe and its role in the adoption of domestic animals: paleoclimatology and niche construction theory. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Ferguson, Kayla (2013) The Use of English in Tamil Cinema. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Johnston, Graham (2013) Play, Boundaries, and Creative Thinking: A Ludic Perspective. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Willison, Megan (2013)  Understanding gendered activities from surface collections: an analysis of the Parker Farm and Carman Iroquoian sites.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Zajdel, Evan (2013)  Narrative threads: ethnographic tourism, Romani tourist tales, and fiber art.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Conger, Megan (2012) Considering Gendered Domains in Iroquois Archaeology: A Comparative Approach to Gendered Space in Central New York State. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.   

Fisher, Isaac (2012) Return of the Gift: Food Not Bombs and the Radical Nature of Sharing in the Society of Engineered Scarcity. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Neely, Sean (2012)  Spaces of becoming and being: the nature of shared experience in Czech society from 1918 to 1989. Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Rodriguez, Eric A. (2012)  Profitability and production in 19th century composite ships: the case study of the Austrian vessel, the Slobodna.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Bednar, Sarah E. (2011) Use and Perception of Teotihuacan Motifs in the Art of Piedras Negras, Tikal, and Copan. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Pallatino, Chelsea Leigh (2011)  The Evolution of La Donna: Marriage, Motherhood, and the Modern Italian Woman. Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Barca, Kathryn G. (2010) An Analysis of Iroquois Pottery Function at the Parker Farm Site (UB 643): Comparisons between Two Structures. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Cannon, Joshua Warren (2010)  Textile Production and Its Implications For Complex Social Organization.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Rodriguez, Erin Christine (2010)  Obsidian in Northern Ecuador: A Study of Obsidian Production and Site Function in Pambamarca.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Rodriguez, Erin Christine (2010) Households and Power among the Pre-Contact Iroquois. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Wicks, Emily (2010) From Use to Disuse: A Study of Pottery Found in Households and Middens at Two Cayuga Sites, Parker Farm (UB 643 and Carman (UB642). Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

MacCord, Katherine (2009)  Human Skeletal Growth: Observations from Analyses of Three Skeletal Populations.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Nichols, Teresa A (2009)  Declaring Indigenous: International Aspirations and National Land Claims Through the Lens of Anthropology.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Sporar, Rachael E. (2009) Bones Say It Best: Bioarchaeological Evidence for the Change European Colonialism Brought to the Indigenous Peoples of North America. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Stacy, Erin Michele (2009)  Stable Isotopic Analysis of Equid (Horse) Teeth from Mongolia.  Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

Sudina, Tony (2008) The Utilitarian Characteristics of Iroquois Pottery Vessels. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Browne, Nathan C. (2007) An Architectural Analysis of Longhouse Form, Spatial Organization, and an Argument for Privatized Space in Northern Iroquoia. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Melly, Caroline M. (2007) Strategies of Non-African Development Agencies and Their Implications for Cultural Change in Nigeria.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Sadvari, Joshua W. (2007) Dental Pathology and Diet at the Site of Khirbat al-Mudayna (Jordan). Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Haines, Allison (2006) Assessing Osteophytosis in the Nubian Neolithic. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

O’Donnell, Kathryn (2006) Gendered Identity in Transitioning States: Women’s Reproductive Health Activism in Berlin. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Prakash, Preetam (2006) Relationships between Diet and Status at Copan, Honduras.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Birmingham, Katherine (2005) Retracing the Steps of Iroquois Potters: Highlighting Technical Choice in Iroquois Ceramic Studies.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Colatrella, Brittany (2005) From Hopelessness to Hopefulness: A personal dialogue on ending generational poverty. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Long, Autumn (2005) The Ethos of Land Ownership in a Rural West Virginia County: An Ethnographic Account.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Richter, Stephen (2004) Anasazi Cannibalism in the American Southwest: A Site-By-Site and Taphonomic Approach.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Sulosky, Carrie (2004) The Effects of Agriculture in Preceramic Peru.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Wiseman, Natalie (2004) Religious Syncretism in Mexico.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Hamm, Megan (2003) Egyptian Identity Vs. "The Harem Hootchi- kootch": Belly Dance in the Context of Colonialism and Nationalism in Egypt.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Michalski, Mark (2003) Anthropological Fact or Fiction: A Critical Review of the Evidence For and Against the Existence of Cannibalism in the British Navy.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Mueller-Heubach, Oliver Maximillian (2003) The Moravian Response to a Changing America as Seen Through Ceramics.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Shock, Myrtle (2003) Comparison of Lithic Debitage and Lithic Tools at Two Early Contact Period Cayuga Iroquois villages, the Parker Farm and Carman Sites.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Steinman, Joanna (2003) Feng Shui.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Strauss, Amy (2003) Greek Neolithic figurines from Thessaly.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Thompson, Ross (2003) Study of Arsenic in Hopi Artifacts.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Whitehead, Jeffrey (2003) We Owe It All to the Iroquois? Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Boswell, Jacob (2002) A Study of Changing Context: Adapting Eastern Medicine to a Western Setting. Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Persson, Ann S. (2001) A Beacon of Restoration: Archaeological Excavations at the John O'Neill Lighthouse Keeper's Residence, Havre de Grace, Maryland.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Unice, Lori Ann (2001) Dental Health Among the Monongahela: Foley Farm Phase II.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Asmussen, Heidi (1998) Toward an Understanding of Iroquois Plant Use: archaeobotanical material from the Carman Site, a Cayuga village in central New York.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Rockette, Bonny (1998) Huari Administrative Architecture: A Space Syntax Approach.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

West, Kate (1997) Faunal Analysis of the Carman Site: a Cayuga village site in central New York.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Norejko, Jay (1996) The Most Diverse Fauna of Plesiadapiformes (Mammalia: Primatomorpha) Ever Sampled from the Clarkforkian Land Mammal Age.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Kasperowski, Kris (1995) Stone Tool Manufacture at the Carman Site.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

Montag, Michelle (1995) Lithic Debitage Analysis of the Carman Site.  Anthropology Honors Paper, University of Pittsburgh.

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Senior Thesis Style and Formatting Guide

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Writing Support Resources

Style Guide

Page Numbering

Title Page Format

In-Text Citations

Endnotes vs. Footnotes

References Cited

Figures and Tables

Formatting the Printed Version

Useful Sources on Formal Writing

If you would like feedback and support while writing, the Marks Family Resource Center, located at 3808 Walnut Street, is an excellent resource.  Consult their web page , where you will find links to guides on writing. They also meet with students to improve their writing one-on-one. Writing Center drop-in tutoring hours can be found here . 

You should use consistent style for your in-text citations, references cited, and writing in general.  All Undergraduate Theses submitted to the Department of Anthropology must use the formal “style guide.” We recommend the  American Anthropologist  for cultural anthropology and linguistics topics,  American Antiquity  and  Historical Archaeology  for archaeology topics, and  American Journal of Physical Anthropology  for physical anthropology and biological anthropology topics.  You must use the style guide consistently for the Abstract, Main Text, References Cited, Figures, and Tables.  All citations must have the complete reference in the section “References Cited.”  All figures must be numbered and must be referred to in the text at least once.  Online style guides are available for the following journals:

American Anthropologist :

http://www.aaanet.org/publications/guidelines.cfm

American Antiquity :

https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-publications/style-guide/saa-style-guide_updated-july-2018c5062f7e55154959ab57564384bda7de.pdf?sfvrsn=8247640e_6

Historical Archaeology

http://www.sha.org/publications/for_authors.cfm

American Journal of Physical Anthropology :

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291096-8644/homepage/ForAuthors.html

All pages in your thesis should be numbered at the bottom center using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3 . . .) (including Main Text, References Cited section, Figures section, and Tables section).  The Title page is not numbered.  Any preliminary pages (Abstract, Table of Contents, or lists of Figures) use small Roman numerals (i, ii, iii . . .).

Your title page is unnumbered. All text of the title page should be centered and have the same font as the main text  Your title page should have the following elements (note the use of upper and lower case):

[TITLE OF THE UNDERGRADUATE THESIS IN UPPER CASE]

[Author’s Name]

Anthropology

Submitted to the

Thesis Advisor:  [name of the Thesis Advisor]

The Undergraduate Thesis must include a formal abstract (summary) of 100-200 words at the beginning, immediately following your Title page. Your thesis abstract presents a concise summary of the thesis (research problem or issue, the methods or approach used, and results). Do not cite references in the abstract.

Anthropology generally uses in-text citations to refer to published work as you’ll see in the Style Guide above. It is better to over-cite your sources than to under-cite them!  Below are links to the Penn Library’s documentation guide and the University guide to academic integrity.  Please read these documents carefully:

http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/PORT/documentation/

http://www.upenn.edu/academicintegrity/index.html

We discourage the use of footnotes and endnotes for “additional information.”  If necessary, use endnotes rather than footnotes.  Endnotes appear in sequence at the end of the main text as a separate section titled “Endnotes” and are numbered in sequence in the text (using a superscript font). Endnotes are single-spaced with double spaces between them.  

Your Undergraduate Thesis should include a complete “References Cited” section (this is not a “Bibliography”). Refer to the appropriate style guide ( American Anthropologist ,  American Antiquity , Historical Archaeology,  or  American Journal of Physical Anthropology ) above for details on citations.  Your References Cited section must include all and only the references that you’ve formally cited in your main text, endnotes, figures, and tables. Work with your advisor to agree on appropriate citations for archival sources, interviews, museum records, and other research data.

The Undergraduate Thesis in Anthropology is a formal document, so your figures and tables should be sharp, clear, readable and directly relevant to the topic. Your figures should be clear and legible. Scan images from publications and reduce or enlarge these to best fit the margins of your page using Photoshop or Illustrator (available on computers in the Department and in Weigle Information Commons).

Figures includes diagrams, photographs, drawings, graphics, illustrations, and maps. They will be numbered in sequence “Figure X..”. Label all of your tables “Table Y..” in a separate numbered sequence. You should mention each figure and table at least once in your text [for example:  “As Table 5 demonstrates, the alcoholic content of maize beer is low.”]  Each figure or table must have an individual caption on the page where it appears. If information or images in your figures come from published or unpublished work of others, you must include formal citations in your captions and References Cited section (“Figure 3:  Location map showing the excavations completed during the 1994 field season (after Smith et al. 1995).”

Photographs are numbered in the figure sequence. Photographs should be sharp, fit within the required margins, and have direct relevance to your thesis. Like all figures, each photograph must have a caption, must be cited in the text, and must be listed in the table of figures if you include one. You must cite the sources of any published image you reproduce, and that citation must appear in your “References Cited.”

The text, tables and figures of your thesis should have a 1-inch margin on all sides. Your text should be double spaced except for the Title Page, Abstract, Table of Contents, long quoted passages (“block” quotes), References Cited, Endnotes and Captions. Format these sections according to the style guide for your thesis subject area.

Choose a clear standard typeface (Times New Roman, etc.) and format pages with 12-point font throughout your document.

Gibaldi, Joseph.  2009.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.  7th ed. New York:  Modern Language Association of America.  A comprehensive guide to writing research papers.

Strunk, W. and E.B. White.  2005.  The Elements of Style.  New York:  Penguin Press.  Appropriate for more humanities-oriented papers (and therefore possibly for cultural- and linguistic anthropology theses).  Focuses on rules of standard English and calls attention to common errors.

Turabian, Kate L.  2007.  A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.  7th ed.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.  Updated in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style.

University of Chicago.  2010.  The Chicago Manual of Style.  16th edition.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.  Another classic, comprehensive style guide; extensively revised for the 16th edition.

Home > FACULTIES > Anthropology > ANTHRO-ETD

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

This collection contains theses and dissertations from the Department of Anthropology, collected from the Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Theses/Dissertations from 2024 2024

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of infant feeding practices and stress in 18th-19th century Pointe-aux-Trembles, Québec , Sydney Holland

In Society's Shadow: Identifying Structural Violence in MUNA, a Burial Community from Late Intermediate Period (1100 - 1470 CE) Pachacamac, Peru. , Ashley C. Ward

Hands-On History: Applying a Strong Like Two People Approach to Archaeology Education , Kaylee Woldum

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Teachers’ Work: Communicating on Difficult Knowledge in Ontario Schools , Zsofia Agoston Villalba

Variation in Habitual Activity and Body Composition: A Segmental Body Comparison of Runners and Swimmers , Madelyn Hertz

The Babe, the Virgin, and the Crone: Female Pubertal Development in Medieval and Post-Medieval Arnhem, The Netherlands , Victoria Lavallee

Head shapes and toothaches: A study of cranial modification and dental pathology at MUNA, a late pre-Hispanic cemetery from the Archaeological Sanctuary of Pachacamac (Lima, Perú). , T Naomi Nakahodo Moromizato

From Micro to Macro: Examining Potential Microbiome Mediated Influences on Human Growth and Health Outcomes Through Breastfeeding and Antibiotic Exposures , Nicole K. Phillips

Surveying the Industry: A Professional Profile of Cultural Resource Management in Canada , Sydney Rowinski

Investigating neutral and climate-linked morphological variation in human femora: A geometric morphometrics approach , Isabelle Rutherford

Stable Isotope Analysis of Breastfeeding and Weaning Practices in 19th Century Montreal , Jess Sadlowski

Exploring the Woodland Period Within the Lake Wawanosh Region Through Two Archaeological Sites: AgHn-12 and AgHn-14 , Matthew Severn

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

The impact of energetic trade-offs on the developmental trajectory and life history strategy of Homo sapiens: The modern human female phenotype , Laura Ann Hope Atkinson

Legs and Hills , Aidan Attema

Discourses of Tension in a Rainbow Nation: Transcultural Identity Formations among Hakka Mauritians , Federica Guccini

Autoethnography of a Pregnant Doula: An Anthropological Investigation of Birth Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ontario and Quebec , Fattimah A. Hamam

Inuvialuit Living Art: Co-Creating Local Community Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Research , Jason YF Lau

Assumed identities and the construction of self among the West Indian diaspora in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) , Badarinarayan A. Maharaj

An Investigation into the Curation of Archaeological Collections in Cultural Resource Management in Ontario, Canada , Vienna Raven Mann

Localized Activism in the Bangladeshi Garments Industry: Mobilizing the Labour Movement from the Ground Up , Raisa Masud

Transforming the Dead: The Taphonomy and Ritual Economy of Funerary Bundles on the Pre-Hispanic Central Coast of Peru (1000-1532 CE) , Joanna Motley

3D Morphometric Analysis of Late Paleoindigenous Projectile Points from the Mackenzie I Site, Northwestern Ontario, and surrounding regions , Dave Norris

Colombian women’s experiences of the Canadian refugee and asylum adjudication process , Camila N. Parra Carrillo

Dental Health in the Aqllakuna from Farfán (Peru): A New Perspective on an Inca Female Institution (ca. 1470-1532 A.D.) Using Micro-CT and Histological Analysis , Émy Roberge

Of Mice and Mummies: Experimental Mummification and Radiological Examination of Neoplastic Disease and Cancer in Mummified Remains from Ancient Egypt and Peru , Jennifer L. Willoughby

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Social Stratification & Mummification in Ancient Egypt: The Inevitability of Variability in the Post-New Kingdom Mummification Program , Andrew Arsenault

Evaluating Cranial Nonmetric Traits in Mummies from Pachacamac, Peru: The Utility of Semi-Automated Image Segmentation in Paleoradiology , Cameron J. Beason

Indigenous Language Revitalization Efforts in Canada during COVID-19: Facilitating and Maintaining Connections using Digital Technologies , Laura Gallant

Ancient Egyptian Subadult Mummies: Unwrapping Childhood in the Ancient Past , Jillian A. Graves

Visualizing Anishinaabe Ceramics: A Collaborative Approach to Digital Archaeology , Hillary V. Kiazyk

Quebec’s Uninhabitable Community: Identity and Community among Anglo-Quebecer Out-Migrants , Evan A. Mardell

From Stateless People to Citizens: The Reformulation of Territory and Identity in India-Bangladesh Border Enclaves , Md Rashedul Alam

Ridge Pine 3: A Late Archaic site in the southern Lake Huron Basin , Jessica Russell

Life in Between: Prehispanic Settlement Patterns of the Carabamba Valley, Northern Peru , Amedeo Sghinolfi

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Cellar Dwellers: Historic Feature Sampling Strategies in Ontario Commercial Archaeology , Corbin Berger

Taking Ethics Seriously: Navigating the Ethics Approval Process at a Canadian University , Marie-Pier Cantin

Ethnoprimatology and Nature-Based Tourism: An Exploration of Macaque Ecology and Behaviour at the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Center in Sabah, Malaysia , Lauren J. Gilhooly

Seeing the Invisible: An Integrated Remote Sensing Approach to Mapping Buried Architecture at Las Colmenas, Virú Valley, Peru , Kayla C. Golay Lausanne

Do Actions Speak Louder than Words? Communicative Frequencies and Multimodality in Ring-Tailed Lemurs (Lemur catta) , Hilary Hager

Indigenous Coaches and the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships , Dallas Gerald Hauck

Blackness, Gender and the State: Afro Women's Organizations in Contemporary Ecuador , Beatriz A. Juarez-Rodriguez

Fanning the Flames of Disaster: The Role Colonialism Plays in the Impact of Wildfire on Indigenous People in Northern Alberta , Alana K. Kehoe

Growing Relations: An ethnographic study on rice, vanilla, and yams in Madagascar , Tyler MacIntosh

Epigenetics a Decolonizing Science , Wade Paul

Inside Perspectives on Ceramic Manufacturing: Visualizing Ancient Potting Practices through Micro-CT Scanning , Amy St. John

Newcomer Integration Programs and London, Ontario’s Diversity Agenda: Views from within and without , Jutta Zeller-Beier

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

'I Honoured Him Until the End': Storytelling of Indigenous Female Caregivers and Care Providers Focused on Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias (ADOD) , Danielle E. Alcock

Life as "Half and Half": A Grandfather and Granddaughter's Sharing of Story , Kalley Armstrong

Exploring the occupational history of the Middle Ontario Iroquoian Dorchester Village site , Johnathan Freeman

Digital Technology and Communications in Today's Cuba , Diana Gavric

Digital Representation of Inuvialuit Traditional Knowledge: A case study in community engagement using Google Earth , Jeffrey Grieve

Getting Better All The Time: Re-evaluating Macroscopic Dental Age Estimation Standards In Egypt , Casey Kirkpatrick

Communities Based on “Sweaty Infestations of Joy”: A look at the Temporary Moral Communities Formed through International Volunteering Trips. , Sarah A. Knowles

South Bend and Ridge Pine 2: Fraternal Twins , Gabryell Kurtzrock Belyea

Childhood Stress at Rinconada Alta (AD 1470-1532): An Examination of Linear Hypoplastic Enamel Defects on the Central Coast of Peru , Jessica Lacerte

International Englishes, Dialects and Glocalized Englishes: Translanguaging in South Korea , Cameron Bruce Lawrence

Cultivating Knowledge: Agrarian Science and Ecological Engagements in Southern Ontario Agriculture , Kelly Linton

The Life Histories of Aztec Sacrifices: A Stable Isotope Study (C, N, and O) of Offerings from Tlatelolco and the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan , Diana K. Moreiras Reynaga

The Anishinaabeg of Chief's Point , Bimadoshka Pucan

Weathering Storms and Flooded Waters: Anthropological Perspectives of Policy and Risk in Toronto, Ontario , Jennifer Spinney

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Perceptions of Primates and Protected Areas: Ethnoprimatological Implications for Conservation in the Pacoche Refuge , Tamara L. Britton

Intelligible Variability: Narratives of Male Sex Work in London Ontario Canada , Nathan Dawthorne

Indigenous Political Organization in Huamachuco, Peru, in the Early Seventeenth Century. , Carolina Delgado Domínguez

Pushing the Limits: Testing, Magnetometry and Ontario Lithic Scatters , John E. Dunlop

Reconstructing The Social Landscape Of Cerro Arena, Peru , Felipe Gonzalez-Macqueen

Soccer, Space, and Community Integration: Being and Becoming Canadian in London, Ontario Through the World's Game , Marcelo Eduardo Herrera

'We are the Big Six:’ Maasai Perceptions and Organization of Cultural Tourism in Kenya , Kara D. Kelliher

Unsettling the Homeland: Fragments of Home and Homeland among Iraqi Exiles in Amman, Jordan , Abdulla Majeed

Guided by Smoke: A Comparative Analysis of Early Late Woodland Smoking Pipes from the Arkona Cluster , Shane McCartney

On Convivencia , Bridges and Boundaries: Belonging and exclusion in the narratives of Spain’s Arab-Islamic past , K. Elaine McIlwraith

Petrographic Analysis of Inuit Ceramics , John F. Moody

Storied Realities: A Case Study of Homelessness, Housing Policy, and Gender in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory , Alexandra E. Nelson

The Semi-Subterranean Sweat Lodges of the Redeemer Site , Amanda Parks

A House of Healing: The Importance of Friendship Centres to Urban Aboriginal Populations , Emily Pitts

"Too Hard to Pronounce"- Examining Immigration Ideologies in the Treatment of Newcomer Youths' Names , Nadja Schlote

Mothers Who Blog: An Exploration of Advice, Personal Stories and Motherhood Online , Rachael Simser

Social Identities in Chimu Times: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Burials from Chayhuac Walled Complex in Chan Chan site, Peru , Katya Valladares

From Buried Treasure and Risky Adventure to Sobering Matters of Concern: the Ring of Fire Discourse in Ontario Mining Events , Brianne L. Vescio

"Being Chinese" in Madagascar , Mingyuan Zhang

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Tourism and state violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh , Hana S. Ahmed

Virtual Archaeology, Virtual Longhouses and "Envisioning the Unseen" Within the Archaeological Record , William M. Carter

Language as Function or Fashion? Multilingual Identity Formation Through Korean Language Learning , Hannah C. Cho

”Not Just Based On Land”: A Study On The Ethnic Tibetan Community in Toronto , Diyin Deng

Hunting for (dis)connections in Northern Ontario: "nature," wild meat, and community in Hearst , Daphné Gagnon

If Pits Could Talk: An Analysis of Features from the Figura Site (AgHk-52) , Kelly Gostick

The Richness of Food: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Huaca Santa Clara and Huaca Gallinazo, North Coast of Peru , Arwen M. Johns

E-kawôtiniket 1876: Reclaiming Nêhiyaw Governance in the Territory of Maskwacîs through Wâhkôtowin (Kinship) , Paulina R. Johnson

Shifting State Plans and the Politics of Street Food Vending in Cuba , Lina Johnston

Entangled Resurgence: Investigating 'Reconciliation' and the Politics of Language Revitalization in the Oneida Nation of the Thames , Hannah E. McGregor

Trees for the Primates: A Community-Based Assessment of Crowned Lemur (Eulemur coronatus) Habitat Preferences and Conservation in Northern Madagascar , Fernando Mario Mercado Malabet

Rethinking Holocene Ecological Relationships Among Caribou, Muskoxen, and Human Hunters on Banks Island, NWT, Canada: A Stable Isotope Approach , Jordon S. Munizzi

Exploring Community Formation and Coalescence at the Late 14th-Early 15th Century Tillsonburg Village Site , Rebecca Parry

The Human First Metatarsal in Bioarchaeological Research: New Insights into Human Variation and Bone Health Research from Kellis 2, Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt (50-450CE) , Mathew A. Teeter

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Prohibited Practice: Drug Use, Harm Reduction and Benefit Enhancement in Toronto Rave Culture , Hilary Agro

Accounts of Engagement: Conditions and Capitals of Indigenous Participation in Canadian Commercial Archaeology , Joshua Dent

Buried Dreams: Refitting and Ritual at the Mount Albert Site, Southern Ontario , Kyle D. Forsythe

Paleoepidemiological Analysis of Trauma in a Roman Period Population from Kellis, Egypt, Circa 50-450 AD , Isabella A. Graham

The Roffelsen Site: A Late Woodland Place of Transition between Life and Death , Adria Grant

There Is More Than One Way to Do Something Right: Applying Community-Based Approaches to an Archaeology of Banks Island, NWT , Laura Elena Kelvin

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Department of Anthropology

Writing a successful master's research paper in anthropology.

By Janet McIntosh, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University

As a reminder, here is what the Graduate Handbook says about the Master's Research Paper: The Master's research paper must involve substantial research by the student and should be 25 to 40 pages long, not including references. The paper may have been written previously for a Brandeis course; normally students will undertake substantial revisions on the paper as part of the rewriting process.

The paper must be approved by two faculty members, at least one of whom is a member of the anthropology department. Master's paper deadlines are generally as follows: a first full draft of the master's paper is due approximately one month before the semester ends; one or both readers will provide feedback within two weeks; the final revised paper is due to both readers two weeks later.

View the specific deadlines .

Working Independently

The master's paper is an opportunity to undertake a "capstone" project that takes your independent research in anthropology to a new level. Completing this paper requires a great deal of self-motivated work. You should expect to put into the project at least the level of work you would put into a one-semester seminar course. It is up to you to determine your project and collect your own data and to present your reader (or readers), in a timely fashion, the updates and drafts that will help them to help you. Please don't wait to be contacted by your advisor about meeting deadlines; you should be proactive about this schedule.

How to Begin

Get started as early as you can in formulating your project and seeking a potential advisor (or "first reader")..

Students make their way through the master's degree in anthropology at different paces; most finish the degree in two to four semesters. Some students complete their master's paper during a semester when they are taking courses; others do so in the summer after their first or second year of coursework.

Many master's papers emerge as further developments of a course term paper; some do not. Regardless, it is in your interest to conceive of a master's paper topic/question well in advance of the period when you will be writing it. This will give you time to seek out a potential "first reader" (see below) for the paper, and precious time to plan fieldwork toward the paper (often conducted in the summer after your first year), should you decide to write a paper based on such data.

If you wish to use human subjects-based data in your master's research paper for a future dissertation, publication or public presentation, apply for IRB permission before conducting fieldwork.

A master's paper does not count as a "public document," so technically the research described in it need not be approved by the IRB (Institutional Review Board). However, if you anticipate revising your master's paper for publication, or using your data in a future public document or presentation such as a doctoral dissertation or conference paper, AND if your data collection involves research with human subjects (such as interviewing or participant observation), then you need to apply for and receive IRB permission in advance of conducting the research.

It is not possible to get IRB approval retrospectively.

You should submit your application as soon as possible since it can take one to two months to complete the process and the board not infrequently asks students for revisions. You can find detailed IRB information and instructions Human Subjects Research Information page . One of our faculty members, Jonathan Anjaria , has served on the Brandeis' IRB board, and he welcomes questions from our graduate students about the process and their proposals. Feel free also to contact the IRB administrator with queries.

If you opt to conduct original fieldwork toward your paper, you can apply for fieldwork/travel funding.

Possible funding sources include anthropology department grants, GSAS master's research grants, GSA travel grants, Jane's Travel Grants, and funds from Women and Gender Studies. Within the Anthropology department, there are two rounds of application deadlines for department-internal "GTR" funds; one in fall semester (typically, to support research over winter break) and one in spring (typically, to support research over the summer).

Master's students sometimes apply for these funds to support their fieldwork, and we try to support as many well-conceived projects as we can, to the best of our abilities (contingent upon our budget in any given semester).

Finding Readers

Your first reader for the master's paper assumes the role of primary advisor for this project. The best first reader is usually the professor best intellectually matched to the project, all other things being equal (e.g., equitable distribution of master's paper advisees across professors). This may or may not be your primary academic advisor in the department; often it is a professor who has taught you in the class that most closely inspires your master's paper.

Ultimately, the master's paper needs to be approved by a first and a second reader. Second readers can be drawn from faculty outside of the anthropology department. Sometimes a student may have a second reader in mind; if not, they can work with their first reader to generate ideas for a second reader. The student should certainly approach the second reader about the possibility of their reading a draft or drafts according to the standard timelines listed above, but the second reader is under no obligation to accept that responsibility (some will be very keen to give early feedback; others may simply not have the time).

Finding Your Data, Motivating Your Thesis, Crafting a Well-Written Paper

Your master's research paper can be based upon your original research in the field, upon data gathered from other sources (say, videotaped footage; political speeches; Internet chatrooms; archival or museum material), and/or upon existing theoretical and ethnographic literature. A fieldwork-based master's paper has certain advantages. Fieldwork is of course the foundation of anthropology, so conducting original fieldwork gives you a chance to flex these muscles, and (if need be) to test the waters to determine whether you think a future in anthropology is for you.

It is also wonderful to have a fieldwork-based writing sample when applying for doctoral programs, or, minimally, to be able to summarize one's fieldwork-based project in one's applications. However, fieldwork is not a must for an MA paper, and plenty of strong papers have been grounded in other material instead.

No matter where your data comes from, your master's paper must emerge from questions that are motivated; questions that feel like they need to be asked. Ideally, your introduction will set up your thesis statement (that is, your statement of your central argument) with a context that shows how your thesis stems from a tension, question, or puzzle in your data or the anthropological literature or both.

Rather than simply stating "I'm interested in X and Y," you must set up the problematic from which your (clearly stated) argument emerges. It is sometimes helpful to formulate a "why" question that your thesis will attempt to answer, or at least illuminate. For example, "Why does a critical mass of finance executives abandon their comfortable lives for a week every year to participate in the Burning Man Festival?", "Why, in the society under consideration, are young women much more likely than older ones to be accused of practicing witchcraft?", "Why did empire X collapse under this particular set of conditions, while empire Y, seemingly under the same conditions, flourished?"

"How" questions can also be fruitful. For instance: "How do Hawaiians sustain the notion that certain culinary and ritual practices are 'traditional' even when they are actively engaged in the process of altering them?", "How do members of society X — who have historically tended to espouse context-dependent models of the person — react to, assimilate, and question the essentialist models of the person in Facebook personality quizzes?" or "How do the power dynamics between coaches and players manifest themselves even in seemingly casual and friendly conversations?" Your motivating queries may, of course, be more detailed and nuanced than these. Regardless, having an interesting question or puzzle — a "motive" — built into your introduction helps you and your reader feel the urgency or importance of your argument.

If you wonder what kinds of argumentative gambits are available to you more generally, A Student's Guide to Reading and Writing in Social Anthropology (PDF) from the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University and Harvard College has a useful summary of common types of arguments in anthropological papers (see page 25).

The same guide is also richly laden with suggestions about how to engage with anthropological literature/sources. We recommend as well reading the annotated student essay at the end.

Engaging With Anthropological Literature and Ideas

Since this is a master's program in anthropology (or in anthropology and women's and gender studies), your master's paper must engage meaningfully with the anthropological literature on the subject matter and demonstrate proficiency in that literature. Drawing on the insights of other disciplines can enrich the work, but the paper must be anthropological at its core.

Thoroughly review the salient anthropological and scholarly literature on your topic, in consultation with faculty members and library staff. Be sure to search through the various databases, including AnthroSource, Anthropological Abstracts, Anthropology Plus, JSTOR, Academic Search Premier, and so forth. It doesn't hurt to run relevant terms through Google Scholar (the "cited by" function, which displays other works that have cited a given article or book, can be particularly useful). We encourage you as well to attend library workshops on research and on citation software.

Your master's paper should show signs that certain core lessons of anthropology have been internalized. A sociocultural anthropology master's paper should, for instance, reflect your understanding that the normally taken-for-granted conceptual categories of modern western societies are themselves subject to critical examination, and that anthropologists tend to try to understand the internal logic of cultural practices. An archaeology paper should also reflect such approaches, and should be about the people behind the potsherds, buildings, and other objects. It should question the how and why of patterns of material culture, striving to understand the cultural contexts and natural processes that produced the archaeological data.

Whether or not your paper directly addresses a non-western case, it may be strengthened by the comparative, cross-cultural perspective associated with anthropology. For example, a master's paper concerned with modern American conceptions of pets might benefit from thoughtful engagement with anthropological work on totemism and animal symbolism in a range of non-western societies. A paper on archaic states might benefit from a comparative review of the role of kinship in segmentary and unitary forms of socio-political organization. That said, while the comparative literature should inform the paper, it might not need to be written about at length. This depends on your project, and should be discussed with your reader(s).

Writing About Methodology

A successful paper should have a (brief) methodology section that not only explains the methods used, but also justifies them. If, for example, your data comes from written surveys rather than ethnography, this choice requires some explanation. If your fieldwork was constrained by logistical or social considerations, these should be explained. If you chose to focus on a particular subgroup, this choice requires some background.

You should also indicate your awareness of the potential pitfalls and limitations of your chosen methods. Your methodology section often appears in your introductory section, but in some instances, methodological issues may be addressed in an appendix.

If you used surveys or an interview guide, for instance, those usually are placed in an appendix. Depending on how well this serves your argumentative purposes, you may also wish to include a reflexive section, clarifying your own relationship to the topic in question. Are you studying a tradition or community that you count yourself a part of? Did you begin this project with a strong draw towards, or anxiety about, the social group in question? Why?

Titling the Paper

Even your paper draft(s) should have a working title, to organize the sense of argument for yourself and your readers. Your title should be precise; rather than merely gesturing at a topic ("Gender among Boston Construction Workers," or "Globalization and Childbirth in Tibet"), it should give the reader a more precise hint of your argument or your theoretical focus (e.g., "Rebuilding Gender: Practices of Self-Fashioning among Boston Construction Workers," "Cutting Cords: Global Anxieties and Contested Midwifery in Cosmopolitan Tibet"). In the case of a sociocultural paper, it is at times helpful for the first part of the title to incorporate an especially evocative quote by one of your informants — a quote that foreshadows the central concerns of the thesis.

Final Tips on Writing Well

• Consider opening your paper with a detail — a vignette or a quotation, for example — that encapsulates some of the key issues or puzzles that you will dig into in the paper. This helps to hook your reader's attention more than broad generalizations do.
• Remember that the introductory paragraphs must motivate your argument, provide a sufficiently detailed thesis statement (this can be two sentences or longer, if need be), and offer the necessary context to situate your argument.
• Your paper must have enough summary of the relevant literature, and explicit definition of key concepts, that a well-educated generalist would be able to follow it. Do not assume that your reader is highly familiar with anthropological literature.
• When you do summarize, be sure the summary is clearly articulated and signposted in service of your argument. In other words, you should control the summary for your purposes rather than being controlled by and getting lost in your sources.
• Use the beginnings of paragraphs to transition from one point to another, placing a stitch between the preceding paragraph and the point to come. Often the start of a paragraph is also a good place to signpost back to the thesis, so as to re-orient the reader, and to make explicit how the logic of your argument is unfolding. (This gambit can help to avoid the "laundry list" paper structure, where points seem to arrive in no particular order.)
• Use the ends of paragraphs to hammer home the central point of the paragraph if it is not already obvious. As you re-read your draft, make sure every paragraph has a clear center of gravity.
• Assume a fairly inattentive reader, who requires frequent signposting to the key terms/key concepts in the thesis so as to be reminded of where the writer is taking the reader, and why.
• Assume a fairly impatient reader, who will be irritated and distracted by grammatical solecisms and spelling errors. Have someone — or even two people — proofread your paper.
• Please cite sources and format references competently and professionally — see below for helpful websites.
• Read your paper out loud to yourself to catch run-on sentences and awkward constructions.
• Paginate your drafts and final version before submitting to your reader(s).

Helpful Links

• Brandeis Writing Center Services for Graduate Students — Graduate-level consultants can work with you on a variety of needs.
• American Anthropological Association's (AAA) Style Guide
• Chicago Manual of Style (used by the AAA)

Nuts and Bolts of Submission and Approval

One month before the registrar's deadline to file an application for your graduate degree for the semester in which you seek to graduate, please fill out the "Master's Paper Plans" form available from Laurel Carpenter's office. This form requires that you list a provisional title, four or five lines describing your likely topic/argument, and the names of your first and second readers. Your first reader will need to sign this form before it is submitted to Laurel Carpenter.

• Check in with your second reader about whether they will have time to offer feedback on a draft of your paper. As noted above, such feedback can be helpful, but it is not strictly required from second readers.
• Check in with your readers about the medium they prefer for draft and final paper submission. Some may be happy with email submissions; others may require printed copies in their mailbox. Be sure you know what they want in advance so that you are able to get printed versions to readers who require them in a timely fashion.
• If you are hoping to finish your master's paper over the summer, it is especially important to check in with your readers well in advance about availability.
• When both readers have approved the paper, they will let you and Laurel Carpenter know, most typically by email. The readers then fill out and sign a form that goes into your record to indicate your master's paper has been approved. You do not need to procure or sign this form, unless you are a joint WGS and Anthropology student (WGS has its own administrative process). Email signatures can be accepted in lieu of paper signatures. A copy of the approved version of your master's paper must be submitted to the department.
• If your readers find that your final version of the master's paper does not yet meet the requirements, you will be asked to make further revisions, and may need to delay your graduation date.
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Anthropology Research Topics And Writing Ideas For Students

Writing an anthropology research paper is in a lot of ways similar to writing an argumentative essay in other disciplines. Usually, the significant difference between these essays is how you support your idea. While you may use only literature to prove your point in an argumentative essay, you may need to employ textual proofs from artifacts, ethnographies, etc., in an anthropology essay.

Research in anthropology could be thrilling, particularly if you have many anthropology project ideas. Anthropology studies the evolution of human culture and therefore provides a wide range of anthropology essay topics that spill into history, biology, sociology, etc. Many anthropological research projects borrow from other social sciences. It is easy to feel that overwhelming grip on your chest if you’re unable to choose an anthropology research topic.

How to Write an Anthropology Research Paper

Guide how to write an anthropology research paper, the excellent list of 110 anthropology research paper topics, physical anthropology research paper topics, medical anthropology research paper topics, cultural anthropology research paper ideas, best cultural anthropology essay topics, biological anthropology research paper topics.

• Forensic Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Are you worried because you don’t know how to write an anthropology paper? Writing an anthropology paper could be so much fun if you can nail the basics. It is not as bad as people paint it to be, especially if you get writing help from our professional writers . With the right anthropology paper format, anthropology research topics, and anthropology research paper examples, you’re set to go!

If you’re a big fan of doing lots of things in a short time and with fewer efforts, then you’re in the right place. This guide is full of the tips and skills you need to arrange your ideas properly. It also contains anthropology paper examples, anthropology paper topics, and other life-saving tips you may need. Ready to know how to start an anthropology research paper? Let’s delve right in!

How do you get started on an anthropology research paper? Below is the most comprehensive list on the internet to get you home and dry in record time!

• Review the Assignment Guidelines
• Develop a Topic
• Outline your Paper
• Do some Library Research
• Write a Rough Draft
• Write the Paper
• Edit the Paper

We shall shortly expound on this list to help you better understand them.

• Review the Assignment Guidelines: your professor may give you some guidelines to follow. To avoid deviating from the instructor’s expectations, spend some time reviewing your assignment guidelines so that you know the exact things you need to accomplish. For example, confirm if there are any stated anthropology research methods and the likes. It is beneficial to have a writing schedule. If you have a lot of time in your hands before the submission time, spreading out the workload will help to ease some of the stress. If you’re naturally a binge writer, sit at your computer early and bleed!
• Develop a Topic:  search for some anthropology research paper ideas and choose from the vast array of anthropology research topics available. Select a topic that revolves around a guiding question. This topic should connect on a deeper level to the theme of the course. The length requirement for the paper will help you know if your topic is too big, too small, or just good enough. For a short paper, you may want to focus on a particular culture or event in the context of a broader topic. Ensure that your thesis focuses on anthropology and that it draws from anthropological theories or ideas. Now, do a quick search to confirm if there are scholarly materials available for this topic. It is easier to write a paper with some available references.
• Introduction/Abstract
• Library Research: now, start the research on your topic, preferably from course materials. A bibliography at the end of a relevant course reading is also a great way to get other related materials. Depending on the requirement of the assignment, feel free to search for other books or articles.
• Write a Rough Draft: during your research, endeavor to make proper jottings and references, which will form the rough draft of your essay. A rough draft will help you create dots that you will be able to connect later on.
• Title: Usually on a separate page and contains the abstract.
• Introduction/Abstract : A short paragraph showing the road map of your thesis.
• Body: Leverages your thesis and presenting your research in a detailed and logical structure.
• Conclusion: The conclusion is a short paragraph that summarizes your fundamental theme and substantiates your thesis.
• References: A citation of the resources you used in your paper. Follow the referencing style which your instructor chooses.
• Edit the Paper:  you may engage any of your friends to help you go through your essay. Make some final checks such as the length requirement, the format and citation style, spelling and grammatical errors, logical flow of ideas and clarity, substantial support of the claim, etc. Once you edit your paper, turn it in and accept an A+!

Without further ado, here are 110 anthropology research paper topics for free! With 18 topics each from the six main subcategories of anthropology, you can’t get it wrong!

• Eugenics — its merits and demerits in the 21st-century world.
• Human Origin: Comparing the creationist versus evolutionist views on the origin of man.
• Ancient Egypt: The preservation of their dead and underlying beliefs.
• Homo habilis: Investigating Contemporary facts supporting their past existence.
• Drowning: Clarifying the cause of drowning by examining the physical and anatomical evidence.
• Smoking and its effects on the physical appearance of humans over decades of indulgence.
• Physical labor: Exploring its long-term impact on the physical appearance of humans.
• The relationship of Kyphosis with human senescence.
• Aging in Western Culture.
• Skin color: Exploring the influence of the environment on human skin color across continents.
• Species and language: Focus on ways species evolve across the world and ways language acquisition affects and influences culture.
• Abiogenesis: Research about abiogenesis and how it affects human development
• Animal stability: How captive animals are different from those that live in the wild.
• Henry Walter: The ways Henry Walter contributed to the field of physical anthropology.
• Cephalization: The process of cephalization and what it entails.
• Genotype: The environment correlation study.
• Genetics: What does genetic hijacking mean?
• Altruism: Do people learn altruism or it is an acquired state.
• Applying the Concepts of Ethnozoology in medicine.
• Critically Assessing the fundamental posits of critical medical anthropology (CMA).
• The 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in Africa: Evaluating the success of control interventions.
• Exploring the applications of Ethnobotany in medicine.
• Nuclear disaster: A research into the life of survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
• HIV/AIDS: The reasons for prevalent societal infamy and the way forward.
• HIV/AIDS epidemic in Europe: Exploring the roles of commercial sex workers in the spread of the disease.
• Alternative medicine in China: A comparative review of its weaknesses and possible strengths in the light of Orthodox medicine.
• HIV/AIDS in Africa: A critical assessment of extensively troubled nations and populations.
• Depression in South-East Asia: Sheer social noise or severe threat?
• Adult’s onset diabetes: Research on how diabetes is a major health issue in aboriginal populations in The U.S and Canada.
• ARV rollout: The role of the ARV rollout and campaigns in Africa.
• Sexual diversity in Africa: Research on whether sexual diversity in Africa is being taken into account to help fight against AIDS.
• Chemicals and radiation waste: How the radiation waste and chemicals in the air are affecting people.
• Mercury poisoning: The effects of Mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan, and the measures to help put the situation under control.
• Health: The health ramifications of adapting to ecology and maladaptation.
• Health: Domestic healthcare and health culture practices
• Clinic: Clinical interactions in social organizations.
• Growth: Difference between growth and development.
• Engineering: Genetic engineering and what it entails.
• Marriage: Marriage rituals in different cultures.
• Magic: Belief in magic and the supernatural.
• Mythologies: The effects it has on modern culture.
• Anthropology: How to use anthropology as forensic science.
• Heroes: Studies of heroes in different societies.
• Education: How education differs around the world.

Cultural anthropology discusses human societies and their cultural origin, vacation, history, and development. Here is a look at cultural Anthropology topics:

• Women in Africa: The various challenging roles that women in Modern Africa play and how they handle it.
• Homelessness: How homelessness affects and influences the culture and social landscapes.
• India: Methods and measures that India is taking to deal with the issue of homelessness and measures they have put in place to deal with social landscapers.
• Political science: Highlight and discuss the link between cultural anthropology and political science.
• Superstition: Research ways that superstition affects the way of life.
• Sexual discrimination: The evolution of sexual discrimination and its effects in modern times.
• African cultures: Investigating how different religions and beliefs impact African culture.
• Northern Nigeria: How the basic religious beliefs that influence forced nuptials among the children in North Nigeria.
• Gay marriage: The background on gay marriage and how it influences the cultural and social backgrounds.
• Racism: Explain racism and its existence in modern times.
• Religious practices: Ways how religious practices and beliefs affect culture.
• Culture shock: What it is and ways that people can work through it.
• Ethnocentrism: Ways that you can use to minimize it.
• Ancestors: A view of ancestors in African culture.
• Religion: Religious practices in a particular society.
• Culture: About the Rabari culture in India
• Definition of culture
• How culture anthropology links to political science
• Alcoholism: Looking into the socio-economic and cultural history in Eastern Europe.
• Assessing the effects of radioactivity on populations affected by the nuclear disaster of 2011 in Fukushima Daiichi.
• Gay marriage: Exploring the biological aspects of same-sex weddings in North America.
• Minamata disease: A critical look into the origin, populations affected, and transgenerational impact of this disease on Japan.
• Asthma disease in Yokkaichi: A critical look into the cause, people affected, and transgenerational effect on Japan.
• Itai-Itai disease: A critical look into the cause, populations affected, and transgenerational effect on Japan.
• Nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: An investigation of the transgenerational effects on the health of affected victims to this present time.
• Cocaine use in America: A critical look into the health impact on American cocaine users.
• Making Marijuana use legal in America: Possible woes and beneficial outcomes.
• Cystic fibrosis: Justifications for its preponderance in white populations in America.
• Biological Anthropology: Research on the meaning and definition of biological Anthropology and how it influences different fields.
• Paleoanthropology: Explore ways Paleoanthropology uses fossil records to draw biological anthropology compassion and conclusions regarding human evolution.
• Human social structures: Explain the development of human social structures using biological anthropology.
• Biological anthropologies: Research on some primary geographical locations where biological anthropologies used to research their work.
• Human language: Research how biological anthropology helped in the development of human language and communication.
• Body projects: The changes and the valued attributes.
• Political ecology: The Vector-borne and infectious disease.
• Clinical Interactions: What are clinical interaction and social organization?

Forensic Anthropology Research Paper Ideas

• Radioactive Carbon dating: A critical assessment of the accuracy of this dating technique.
• Human Origin: Pieces of evidential support for Creationist and Evolutionist views on the origin of man.
• Assessing the accuracy of DNA evidence testing and matching on criminology.
• Neanderthals: Exploring environmental influences and migratory paths on their survival and appearance.
• Dating Techniques: A critical review of current archaeological dating techniques.
• Ancient Egypt Mummification: A critical look at the effectiveness of the methods used.
• Nuclear disaster: A research into the impact of radioactivity on life forms due to the atomic catastrophe Chernobyl in 1986.
• A critical look into recent evidence supporting the existence of Homo habilis in the past.
• Crime Scene Forensics: Recent advances in the detection of crime.
• Postmortem Changes: Investigating the primary agents responsible for biological changes in humans.
• Criminal procedure: Research a case with a confession scenario and highlight unique features of the case.
• Criminal procedure: Do your research on the criminal proceedings in a given area and what makes them effective.
• Computer forensic: Ways that the computer forensic help in preserving electronic evidence.
• Digital forensic: Research about the history and features of digital forensic.
• History: Ways that Israel presents itself as a leader in computer forensics.
• Oncology: The latest archaeological dating methods.
• DNA: How accurate is DNA evidence in the matching and testing criminology?
• Crime detention: The recent improvements of crime detection.

So here we are! Fifty juicy topics that are all eager to wear some flesh! Ready to have an A+? Let’s do it!

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Home > Arts & Sciences > Intercultural & Anthropological Studies > Master's Theses

Anthropology Master's Theses

All master’s theses completed through the Graduate College of Western Michigan University since 2012 have been entered into ScholarWorks. Some may be embargoed or restricted by the authors and may be only available from on-campus computers. Print copies from earlier years are available through interlibrary loan. We have a few digital copies of earlier years. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Uplifting Voices: Implementing a Heritage-Based Civil Rights Program in the United States Forest Service , Amanda Jo Campbell Crawford

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Opening Old Bottles in Search of New Wine: The Story of Imperial Modernity in Qatar with Special Reference to Gender Inequality, 1980-1994 , Jassim Al-Nasr

Those Beyond the Walls: An Archaeological Examination of Michilimackinac’s Extramural Domestic Settlement, 1760-1781 , James Cain Dunnigan

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

An Examination of Flintlock Components at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), Niles, Michigan , Kevin Paul Jones

Virtual Realities in Archaeology: Employing the Oculus Rift for Artifact Visualization and Education , Jeffrey R. Nau

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Evaluating the Efficacy of Convolution Neural Networks in Age at Deat Estimation Using 3D Scans of the Pubic Symphyseal Face , Melissa A. Brown

What Provides for Me as I Provide for Others? A Study of Homeless Shelters Employees Within Kalamazoo, Michigan , Melanie Jezior

Fat Bias and Culture Shock: Psychosocial Adjustments in Post-Obesity Life , Scott Thomas MacPherson

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Biological Stress Indicators among Historically Documented Populations (1913-1935): An Analysis of Labor through Entheses and Joint Disease , Anna Paraskevi Alioto

Guided by the Spirits: The Meanings of Life, Death and Youth Suicide in an Ojibwa Community , Seth Allard

Archaeological Evidence of Architectural Remains at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), Niles, MI , Erika K. Loveland

Trading to Drink and Drinking to Trade: Assessing Alcohol Trade and Consumption in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century New France , Cara A. Mosier

A Study of Empathy in the Context of Religious Identity in the United States , Kiana Sakimehr

Minecrafting Archaeology: An Experimental Pedagogy for an Eighteenth-Century French Trading Post in Niles, Michigan , James B. Schwaderer

Women’s Role in their Reproductive Process: The Effects of Authoritative Knowledge and Biomedical Interventions on the American Birth Experience , Shannon Sheffey

Anything but Race: Content Analysis of Racial Discourse , Christopher Smith

Alaska Native Artifacts; Eskimos and Aleuts of the Bering Sea Rhythm of the Sea Collection , Marcia Sue Taylor

Overcoming Ideology: Examining the Tension between Sex Work and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocacy , Emily R. Williams

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Using Photography as an Anthropological Approach to Studying Culture at the Mount Pleasant lndian lndustrial Boarding School, 1893-1934 , David Brown

Egyptian Mummy CT Scan Analysis and a Comparison of Midwest Museum Practices for the Grand Rapids Public Museum , M. Kate Peterson

Shifting Gears of Safety: Women Truck Drivers Experience Added Safety Concerns Over the Road , Stephanie A. Sicard

Interaction between Human Experience, Landscape , and Coffee Production in the Blue Mountain Region of Jamaica , Shohei Yoshida

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Breastfeeding with the Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank , MaryKate Bodnar

Patterns in Faunal Remains at Fort St. Joseph, a French Fur Trade Post in the Western Great Lakes , Joseph Hearns

“Men of Good Timber”: An Archaeological Investigation of Labor in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula , Aaron Howe

The Taphonomic Factors on Human Remains inside Chullpas: Marcajirca, Peru , Samantha Lauren Lininger

Canning Jars and Patterns of Canning Behavior: A Study of Households on the Hector Backbone, New York. 1850-1940 , Jayne Ann Michaels

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Owning Our Food System: Urban Community Gardening and Local Food Movements , Paige A. Edwards

"Race Becomes Biology": Co-occurring Oral and Systemic Disease as Embodiment of Structural Violence in an American Skeletal Sample , Rieti G. Gengo

Piles of Salt: A Narrative of Civil War, Refugeeism, and Sociopolitical Transnationalism , Patrice M. Niltasuwan

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

The Age of Consumption: A Study of Consumer (and Producer) Behavior and the Household , Stephen A. Damm

An Assessment of Public Outreach with Children and Educators Conducted by the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project , Erica A. D’Elia

Silence, Declaration, and Circumstance: Rethinking Women’s Roles in Saudi Arabia , Ashleigh Elizabeth Dunham

“Common Sense” Versus “Good Sense”: Marginalization in Agriculture , Mark W. Hoock

American Beisbol: How Cultural Differences Help Explain Different Approaches to Game Playing , Derek Jackson

A Discursive Analysis of a Pregnancy Center: How Pregnant Women Are Encouraged to Develop a Sense of Self-Worth and Emotional Wellbeing Through the Use of Rhetoric and Imagery , Jessica Postma

Refugee Reflections: A Focus on the Lived Experiences of African Refugees Resettling in Michigan , Diane Roushangar

Closer to Nature: Exploring Environmental Summer Camp Experience Through Ethnographic Fiction , Courtney Morgan Schofield

La oficina de la mujer (OMM): A Conduit for Social Empowerment among Women in a Small Guatemalan Lake Community , Rachel Volk

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Online Anonymity and its Effects on Virtual Community: A Microdiscursive Analysis of the Teachers.net Public Chatboard , Katyn M. Adams

An Analysis of Personal Adornment at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), An Eighteenth-Century French Trading Post in Southwest Michigan , Ian B. Kerr

Religious Rx: The Roles of Faith and a Religious Community in the Management of Mental Illness , Autumn Shroyer-Osborn

Archaeological Investigations of Control and Autonomy at the Colony Farm of the Michigan State Asylum, 1880-1950 , Alison Thornton

Precious Metal: Late Bronze Age Copper Production on Cyprus and its Effects on Social Stratification and Merchants in the Levant , Jason Edward Wilhelmi

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

The Preconditions of Farm Abandonment: Agricultural and Domestic Labor , Dustin William Conklin

The Role of Language in Maintaining Ethnic Identity among Dutch-Americans in Michigan , Geertruida Friso-Engeln

Nutrition and Stature: The Residents of the Island of Gotland, Sweden Killed in the Battle of Wisby, 1361 , Michelle A. Miller

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Fort St. Joseph 1.0: Creating a Comprehensive Information Management Scheme for the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project , Erin Claussen

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Blues Identities: The Lives of Sound, Affect, and Identity In The Kalamazoo Blues Community , Jonathan G. Hill

"Giving Face" to Immigrant Sentiments in the United States: An Analysis of Online Organizations and Advocates in Southwest Michigan , Amber N. Hyland

The Excavated Bead Collection at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23) and Its Implications for Understanding Adornment, Ideology, Cultural Exchange, and Identity , LisaMarie Malischke

Spondylolysis Prevalence in Two Prehistoric Point Hope, Alaska Communities and Its Relationship to Whaling , Mary Elisabeth R. Timm

Environmental Influences on the Activity Patterns of a Captive Group of Spider Monkeys (Ateles Fusciceps Rufiventris) , Erin Michelle Van Regenmorter

Geology and Biostratigraphy of the Freighter Gap Region, Great Divide Basin, Southwestern Wyoming , John Mark Van Regenmorter

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

An Investigation of Kavilorai: A Hero Stone Site in the Nilgiri Mountains of South India , Jacob Landon Bach

An Arab American , Ali Y. Bazzi

Living and Dying on the Margins: A Journey into the Culture of Pink and Black Women’s Narrative Accounts of Breast Cancer , Cleothia Gill

A Geophysical Survey of Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), Niles, Michigan , Daniel P. Lynch

Single Muslim Young Adults: Negotiating Identities, Religion And Desire , Zarinah El-Amin Naeem

Black Women, Beauty, and Labor: Towards an Archaeology of African-American Women in Indianapolis, Indiana , Genesis M. Snyder

Perils on the High Seas: The Effects of Submersion and Containment on Human Decomposition in Saltwater , Celene Aundrea Sotkowy

Ferro Ingenio: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical View of Labor and Empire in Colonial Porco and Potosi , Brendan J. M. Weaver

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

An Analysis of the Woodland Ceramics from Galum Crossing (Site 21C4-29): An Early Late Woodland Occupation in the Southern Illinois Interior , Gabrielle Aberle

An Unequal Consumption? Sex and Gender Differences in Tuberculosis , Sarah K. W. Avink

The Gyftakis Site: A Reevalutation of a Middle Woodland Site After 30 Years , Michael R. Fournier

Building a Predictive Model for Paleo Indian Archaeological Site Location Using Geographic Information Systems , Zachary Jaime

Breaking the Be Nice Rule: Direct Action Community Organizing , Adriana Rosas

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

The Analysis of Ceramic Symbolism from the First Street Site in Barbados , Aya Hashimoto

Vertebral Age Estimation: An Examination of the Seventh Cervical, Seventh Thoracic, and Fourth Lumbar Vertebrae , Holly Hernandez

Incisal Dental Microwear of the Prehistoric Point Hope Communities: A Dietary and Cultural Synthesis , Kristin L. Krueger

A “Southern Tradition?”: Stockcar Racing as Contextual Tradition , Patrick A. Lindsay

Occupational Stress and Slavery: Evidence from Bridgetown, Barbados , Sarah Muno

Neoliberalism, Hegemony and Community Imaginings , Boone W. Shear

Linear Enamel Hypoplasia and Dental Disease: Implications of Health and Lifestyle Behaviors of the Urban Enslaved from Two Burial Grounds in Bridgetown, Barbados , Jennifer Yamazaki

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Bone Density Testing as an Early Detection Devise For Anorexia Nervosa and Osteoporosis in Pre-Adolescent and Adolescent Girls , Kelle L. Brooks

A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Two Unmarked Graveyards in Bridgetown, Barbados , Christopher Crain

Crafting Culture at Fort St. Joseph: An Archaeological Investigation of Labor Organization on the Colonial Frontier , Brock A. Giordano

A New Early Eocene Mammalian Fauna from the Great Divide Basin, Southwestern Wyoming: Vertebrate Paleontology, Paleoclimatology, and Biostratigraphy , Edward M. Johnson

The Trials and Tribulations of Eliciting American Indian Voice , Amber Madoll

People Without Voice: Perceptions of Social Bias Against Muslims in the United States , Dhiren Patel

Patterns of Cortical Growth as Indicators of Population Health: An Exploratory Analysis of Subadult Remains from the Tell Abraq Site, UAE , Jessica L. Rhodes

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Eating Ethnicity: Examining 18th Century French Colonial Identity Through Selective Consumption of Animal Resources in the North American Interior , Rory J. Becker

Athletic Amenorrhea: Prevalence and Awareness among Female Athletes at Western Michigan University , Michele R. Chupurdia

Fat is a Masculine Issue Too: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Masculinity withing Fat-Culture , Juan Ignacio Florencia

The Steamboat Industry in Brownsville, Pennsylvania: An Ethnohistorical Perspective on the Economic Change in the Monongahela Valley , Marc Nicholas Henshaw

An Intensive Surface Collection and Intrasite Spatial Analysis of the Archaeological Materials from the Coy Mound Site (3LN20), Central Arkansas , William Glenn Hill

Understanding Ethno-Nationalism: Sikh Diasporic Imaginings in Southwest Michigan , Rory G. McCarthy

A Comparison of Human Femoral Neck Cortical Bone: Walkers vs. Non-Walkers , Meghan M. Moran

Who Are "The Japanese"?: Negotiation of Identity Among Nikkei in Brazil , Chihiro Nagasue

Makuya: Japan, Religion and Modernity , Joshua Stanley Nowicki

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

Social Agency and Dieffenderfer Ware: A Multiscalar Analysis Investigating Current Archaeological Perspectives Concerning Style, Social Dynamics, Chaine Operatoire and Practice Theory , Timothy L. Bober

Going with the Flow: Browridge Morphology Among Demes of Modern and Archaic Homo Sapiens , Randall E. Case

The Making of Jordanian American National Identity in Michigan , David C. Chaudoir

Evicting A Neighbor: Health, Power and Discourse in Vieques, Puerto Rico , Nelson Class-Meléndez

The Avifauna of Bawwab al-Ghazal: A Zooarchaeological Analysis , Elissa A. Kinzelman

Style, Ethnicity, Technology, and Practice: Analysis of a Material Culture Assemblage from the Paleoindian-Archaic Cultural Transition in the Northwestern Great Lakes , Matthew R. Laidler

Can Status Be Revealed? Dichotomous Cultural and Physiological Markers of Social Differentiation in Two Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Sites in the Levant , Monika L. Trahe

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: Psychopharmatherapy and Burdensome Women , Cassandra L. Workman

Theses/Dissertations from 2002 2002

The Urban Landscape of Health, Hygiene, and Social Control: The Development of Municipal Services in Battle Creek, Michigan , Jared Lee Barrett

Negotiated Families: Lesbians and Institutions in Southwest Michigan , Cynthia E. Foor

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Anthropology

What this handout is about.

This handout briefly situates anthropology as a discipline of study within the social sciences. It provides an introduction to the kinds of writing that you might encounter in your anthropology courses, describes some of the expectations that your instructors may have, and suggests some ways to approach your assignments. It also includes links to information on citation practices in anthropology and resources for writing anthropological research papers.

What is anthropology, and what do anthropologists study?

Anthropology is the study of human groups and cultures, both past and present. Anthropology shares this focus on the study of human groups with other social science disciplines like political science, sociology, and economics. What makes anthropology unique is its commitment to examining claims about human ‘nature’ using a four-field approach. The four major subfields within anthropology are linguistic anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology (sometimes called ethnology), archaeology, and physical anthropology. Each of these subfields takes a different approach to the study of humans; together, they provide a holistic view. So, for example, physical anthropologists are interested in humans as an evolving biological species. Linguistic anthropologists are concerned with the physical and historical development of human language, as well as contemporary issues related to culture and language. Archaeologists examine human cultures of the past through systematic examinations of artifactual evidence. And cultural anthropologists study contemporary human groups or cultures.

What kinds of writing assignments might I encounter in my anthropology courses?

The types of writing that you do in your anthropology course will depend on your instructor’s learning and writing goals for the class, as well as which subfield of anthropology you are studying. Each writing exercise is intended to help you to develop particular skills. Most introductory and intermediate level anthropology writing assignments ask for a critical assessment of a group of readings, course lectures, or concepts. Here are three common types of anthropology writing assignments:

Critical essays

This is the type of assignment most often given in anthropology courses (and many other college courses). Your anthropology courses will often require you to evaluate how successfully or persuasively a particular anthropological theory addresses, explains, or illuminates a particular ethnographic or archaeological example. When your instructor tells you to “argue,” “evaluate,” or “assess,” they are probably asking for some sort of critical essay. (For more help with deciphering your assignments, see our handout on understanding assignments .)

Writing a “critical” essay does not mean focusing only on the most negative aspects of a particular reading or theory. Instead, a critical essay should evaluate or assess both the weaknesses and the merits of a given set of readings, theories, methods, or arguments.

Sample assignment:

Assess the cultural evolutionary ideas of late 19th century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan in terms of recent anthropological writings on globalization (select one recent author to compare with Morgan). What kinds of anthropological concerns or questions did Morgan have? What kinds of anthropological concerns underlie the current anthropological work on globalization that you have selected? And what assumptions, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies inform these questions or projects?

Ethnographic projects

Another common type of research and writing activity in anthropology is the ethnographic assignment. Your anthropology instructor might expect you to engage in a semester-long ethnographic project or something shorter and less involved (for example, a two-week mini-ethnography).

So what is an ethnography? “Ethnography” means, literally, a portrait (graph) of a group of people (ethnos). An ethnography is a social, political, and/or historical portrait of a particular group of people or a particular situation or practice, at a particular period in time, and within a particular context or space. Ethnographies have traditionally been based on an anthropologist’s long-term, firsthand research (called fieldwork) in the place and among the people or activities they are studying. If your instructor asks you to do an ethnographic project, that project will likely require some fieldwork.

Because they are so important to anthropological writing and because they may be an unfamiliar form for many writers, ethnographies will be described in more detail later in this handout.

Spend two hours riding the Chapel Hill Transit bus. Take detailed notes on your observations, documenting the setting of your fieldwork, the time of day or night during which you observed and anything that you feel will help paint a picture of your experience. For example, how many people were on the bus? Which route was it? What time? How did the bus smell? What kinds of things did you see while you were riding? What did people do while riding? Where were people going? Did people talk? What did they say? What were people doing? Did anything happen that seemed unusual, ordinary, or interesting to you? Why? Write down any thoughts, self-reflections, and reactions you have during your two hours of fieldwork. At the end of your observation period, type up your fieldnotes, including your personal thoughts (labeling them as such to separate them from your more descriptive notes). Then write a reflective response about your experience that answers this question: how is riding a bus about more than transportation?

Analyses using fossil and material evidence

In some assignments, you might be asked to evaluate the claims different researchers have made about the emergence and effects of particular human phenomena, such as the advantages of bipedalism, the origins of agriculture, or the appearance of human language. To complete these assignments, you must understand and evaluate the claims being made by the authors of the sources you are reading, as well as the fossil or material evidence used to support those claims. Fossil evidence might include things like carbon dated bone remains; material evidence might include things like stone tools or pottery shards. You will usually learn about these kinds of evidence by reviewing scholarly studies, course readings, and photographs, rather than by studying fossils and artifacts directly.

The emergence of bipedalism (the ability to walk on two feet) is considered one of the most important adaptive shifts in the evolution of the human species, but its origins in space and time are debated. Using course materials and outside readings, examine three authors’ hypotheses for the origins of bipedalism. Compare the supporting points (such as fossil evidence and experimental data) that each author uses to support their claims. Based on your examination of the claims and the supporting data being used, construct an argument for why you think bipedal locomotion emerged where and when it did.

How should I approach anthropology papers?

Writing an essay in anthropology is very similar to writing an argumentative essay in other disciplines. In most cases, the only difference is in the kind of evidence you use to support your argument. In an English essay, you might use textual evidence from novels or literary theory to support your claims; in an anthropology essay, you will most often be using textual evidence from ethnographies, artifactual evidence, or other support from anthropological theories to make your arguments.

Here are some tips for approaching your anthropology writing assignments:

• Make sure that you understand what the prompt or question is asking you to do. It is a good idea to consult with your instructor or teaching assistant if the prompt is unclear to you. See our handout on arguments and handout on college writing for help understanding what many college instructors look for in a typical paper.
• Review the materials that you will be writing with and about. One way to start is to set aside the readings or lecture notes that are not relevant to the argument you will make in your paper. This will help you focus on the most important arguments, issues, and behavioral and/or material data that you will be critically assessing. Once you have reviewed your evidence and course materials, you might decide to have a brainstorming session. Our handouts on reading in preparation for writing and brainstorming might be useful for you at this point.
• Develop a working thesis and begin to organize your evidence (class lectures, texts, research materials) to support it. Our handouts on constructing thesis statements and paragraph development will help you generate a thesis and develop your ideas and arguments into clearly defined paragraphs.

What is an ethnography? What is ethnographic evidence?

Many introductory anthropology courses involve reading and evaluating a particular kind of text called an ethnography. To understand and assess ethnographies, you will need to know what counts as ethnographic data or evidence.

You’ll recall from earlier in this handout that an ethnography is a portrait—a description of a particular human situation, practice, or group as it exists (or existed) in a particular time, at a particular place, etc. So what kinds of things might be used as evidence or data in an ethnography (or in your discussion of an ethnography someone else has written)? Here are a few of the most common:

• Things said by informants (people who are being studied or interviewed). When you are trying to illustrate someone’s point of view, it is very helpful to appeal to their own words. In addition to using verbatim excerpts taken from interviews, you can also paraphrase an informant’s response to a particular question.
• Observations and descriptions of events, human activities, behaviors, or situations.
• Relevant historical background information.
• Statistical data.

Remember that “evidence” is not something that exists on its own. A fact or observation becomes evidence when it is clearly connected to an argument in order to support that argument. It is your job to help your reader understand the connection you are making: you must clearly explain why statements x, y, and z are evidence for a particular claim and why they are important to your overall claim or position.

Citation practices in anthropology

In anthropology, as in other fields of study, it is very important that you cite the sources that you use to form and articulate your ideas. (Please refer to our handout on plagiarism for information on how to avoid plagiarizing). Anthropologists follow the Chicago Manual of Style when they document their sources. The basic rules for anthropological citation practices can be found in the AAA (American Anthropological Association) Style Guide. Note that anthropologists generally use in-text citations, rather than footnotes. This means that when you are using someone else’s ideas (whether it’s a word-for-word quote or something you have restated in your own words), you should include the author’s last name and the date the source text was published in parentheses at the end of the sentence, like this: (Author 1983).

If your anthropology or archaeology instructor asks you to follow the style requirements of a particular academic journal, the journal’s website should contain the information you will need to format your citations. Examples of such journals include The American Journal of Physical Anthropology and American Antiquity . If the style requirements for a particular journal are not explicitly stated, many instructors will be satisfied if you consistently use the citation style of your choice.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Scupin, Raymond, and Christopher DeCorse. 2016. Anthropology: A Global Perspective , 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Solis, Jacqueline. 2020. “A to Z Databases: Anthropology.” Subject Research Guides, University of North Carolina. Last updated November 2, 2020. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/az.php?s=1107 .

University of Chicago Press. 2017. The Chicago Manual of Style , 17th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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195 Top Anthropology Topics For Great Thesis

Anthropology is one of the most interesting disciplines that you can pursue at the university level. The whole idea of exploring everything known about human beings, from their origins to evolution, is pretty exciting.

However, the study requires preparing multiple assignments, which can be pretty challenging because you need a deep understanding of biology, history, and culture. The first step, which is even more stressful when preparing an anthropology paper, is selecting the right topic. So, we are here to help.

In this post, we have a list of the best anthropology topics that you can use to get good grades. To help you increase the chances of scoring the best grade in your paper, we have also included a comprehensive guide on how to write your paper like a pro.

What Is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the study of humanity, and it is concerned about human biology, behavior, societies, cultures and linguistics in the past and present. The discipline stretches back to the study of past human species. Because of its broad nature, it is broken down into a number of units, with each focusing on a specific area:

Social anthropology: Focuses on patterns of human behavior. Cultural anthropology: This branch mainly focuses on culture, including values and norms in the society. Linguistic anthropology: Unlike the other two, this branch of anthropology targets determining how language impacts people’s lives. Biological anthropology: This branch focuses on studying the biological development of humans. Archaeological anthropology: This branch of anthropology is concerned with investigating humans in the past. In some jurisdictions, such as Europe, it is considered a full discipline like geography or history.

How To Write Best Quality Anthropology Research Paper

When your professors issue anthropology research paper prompts, one of the questions that you might have is, “how do I write a high level paper?” Here are the main steps that you can use to write a great college paper.

Step One: Understand the Assignment The biggest mistake that you can make is starting an assignment without understanding what it entails. So, read the prompt carefully and grasp what is needed. For example, does your teacher want a qualitative or quantitative research paper? For masters and graduate students, it might be a quantitative anthropology dissertation. Step Two: Select the Preferred Research Paper Topic The topic that you select is very important, and it is advisable to go for the title that is interesting to you. Furthermore, the topic should have ample resources to help you complete the paper smoothly. If there are no books, journals, and other important resources to prepare the paper, there is a risk of getting stuck midway. Once you select the topic, carry preliminary research to gather key points that you will use to prepare the paper. However, these points are not final and will need to get updated along the way. Step Three: Develop Your Research Paper Outline An outline defines the structure of the paper. It makes further research and preparing the paper pretty straightforward. Also, it eliminates the risk of forgetting important bits of the research paper. To make the paper more informative, make sure to add supportive information progressively. Step Four: Write the Thesis Statement of Your Paper The thesis statement of a paper is your stand about the topic that you are writing about. The statement comes in the introduction but will further be restated in conclusion. The information you present on the research paper will approve or disapprove your thesis statement. Step Five: Write the Draft Paper After gathering the information about the topic, it is time to get down and prepare the first draft. So, strictly follow the prepared outline to craft a good paper, starting with the introduction to the conclusion. If you are writing a dissertation, it might be good to tell your supervisor about the progress. Remember that a dissertation is more comprehensive than a research paper. To write a dissertation, you should start with the introduction, followed by the literature review, research methods, results, discussion, and finally, conclusion. Step Six: Write the Final Paper After finishing the draft, it is time to refine it further and make the work exceptional. Therefore, you might want to go through more resources to establish if there is anything more helpful to add. Finally, edit your paper and proofread the paper. You might also want to ask a friend to help with proofreading to identify mistakes that might have skipped your eye.

Next, we will highlight the leading anthropology topics that you should consider. So, pick the preferred one or tweak it a little to suit your needs.

Top 20 Anthropology Paper Topics

• How does the environment impact the color of a person?
• The advantages and disadvantages of eugenics in the 21st century.
• A closer look at the aging process in the western culture.
• What are the implications of physical labor on the physique of a person?
• Define the relationship between Kyphosis to human senescence
• Does smoking impact the appearance of a human being?
• Death caused by drowning: How to determine it through examination of physical and anatomical evidence.
• Existence of Homo Habilis is supported by modern facts.
• Compare two theories that explain the origins of human beings.
• A review of key beliefs about human body preservation in ancient Egypt.
• The role played by storytelling in different cultures.
• Applying anthropology as forensic science.
• Heroes in society.
• Closed societies.
• Emergency of terrorism into a culture.
• Feminism application in different cultures.
• A review of the concept of wellness in different cultures.
• What role does literature play in human development?
• Analyzing conflicts in Latin American and Asian cultures.
• Genetic engineering and anthropology: How are they related?

Interesting Anthropology Topics

• Investigating how religious beliefs impact the Hispanic cultures.
• A review of the evolution of sexual discrimination.
• The impact of culture on same sex marriages: A case study of LGBT community in France.
• A closer look at racism in modern societies.
• Causes of homelessness among the Hispanic communities.
• Causes and effects of homelessness among the Indian people in Asia.
• Comparing the strategies adopted to deal with homelessness in the US and India.
• Cultural anthropology and political science: How are they related?
• Identify and review two most important organizations when it comes to advancing anthropology.
• Peru’s Quechua people.
• Contemporary policy and environmental anthropology.
• What influences human social patterns?
• A review of the impact of western culture on indigenous people in North America.
• Analyzing the caste systems and ranking in societies.
• A review of ancient Roman culture.
• The evolution of the human ear.
• Comparing the evolution of man to the evolution of birds.
• What is the origin of modern humans?
• A closer look at the main issues in female circumcision.

Biological Anthropology Research Paper Topics

• Exploring the meaning of biological anthropology and its application in different fields.
• Analyzing how primatologists use primates to understand human evolution.
• How paleontologists use fossil records for anthropological comparisons.
• Biological anthropology: How does it explain human behavior development?
• Identify and review top geographical locations where anthropologists do their work: Why are these locations so important?
• Define the connection between social sciences and biological anthropology.
• The evolution of the primate diet.
• Analyzing the evolution of tapetum lucidum.
• A closer look at the extinction of giant lemurs in Madagascar.
• Human resistance to drugs: Human pathogen coevolution.
• How to determine the age of an animal using its bones.
• How does syphilis impact bones?
• Poaching and habitat destruction.
• The application of natural selection in the animal kingdom.

Good Cultural Anthropology Research Paper Topics

• Religious beliefs in the Asian cultures.
• Comparing religious beliefs in African and Aboriginal cultures.
• A review of the key cultural concepts in a culture of choice in Europe.
• Comparing the idea of worldview from the perspectives of two societies.
• Marriage in a traditional society of your choice.
• A review of early development of economic organizations.
• The role of women in Indian society.
• A closer look at the process of language acquisition in African culture.
• Missionary and anthropology: What is the relationship?
• What strategies would you propose to minimize ethnocentrism?
• How can society minimize the notion of cultural baggage?
• Culture shock: Insights on how to address it.
• Belief in magic in different societies.
• A review of the impacts of globalization on nutritional anthropology.

Anthropological Research Questions

• Should anthropology be merged fully with biology?
• Is DNA evidence accurate in criminology applications?
• How does the practice of anthropology application in China compare to that of the US?
• Use of radiological tools in anthropology: What is their level of effectiveness?
• What are the main hazards and risks of forensic anthropology?
• What effect do mythologies have in modern society?
• How does language acquisition impact the culture of a society?
• Body project change projects: What are the valued attributes?
• Halloween celebrations: How have they evolved over the years?
• What are the impacts of adaptive mutation?
• How did WWI and WWII impact human societies?
• What are the impacts of climate change on animal evolution?
• Location of crime: What can you learn about it?
• What are the impacts of long-term alcohol addiction on the human body?
• Magic and science: Are they related?

Easy Anthropological Ideas

• Development of anthropology in the 21st century.
• Important lessons about humans that can be drawn from anthropological studies.
• Anthropological issues in pre-capitalist societies.
• A closer look at folk roles and primitive society.
• Urban centers and modern man.
• How is automation impacting human behavior?
• How does biology impact human culture?
• Reviewing racial identity and stereotypes in society.
• Comparing ancient Aztec to Maya civilizations.
• Analyzing religious diversity in the United States.
• Comparing religious diversity in the UK and Italy.
• Why is studying anthropology important?
• Comparing different death rituals in different cultures on the globe.
• What is the relationship between literature and human development?
• Analyzing the influence of anthropology on modern art.
• How has social media impacted different cultures on the globe?

Linguistic Anthropology Research Topics

• What led to the emergence of linguistics anthropology?
• A review of the main theories in linguistic anthropology.
• Linguistics used by different communities in the same nation.
• Comparing sign and verbal communication.
• How did Dell Hymes contribute to linguistic anthropology?
• Language is the most important component among Bengal immigrants.
• Language endangerment: What is it?
• Comparing different categories of arts from an anthropological context for an Asian and Western country.
• The impact of colonization on the language of a specific society of your choice.
• Explore three different indigenous languages in America.

Controversial Anthropology Topics

• Social anthropology is not worth studying because it is very general.
• Human societies are cultural constructs.
• The past should be considered a foreign nation.
• What are your views of petro behavior in chimps?
• Man is natural killer
• Infant killing is an important evolutionary strategy.
• The war on infanticides: Which side do you support?
• Evaluating the concept of human morality.
• Should all the political leaders be required to undertake training in cultural anthropology?
• Human cleansing: Evaluating the driving factors in different societies.
• Analyzing the concept of political correctness in the 21st century.
• What are the earliest life forms to exist on the planet?

Medical Anthropology Research Topics List

• Comparing and contrasting physical and medical anthropology studies.
• Do we have evidence of evolution over the last 2000 years?
• Exploring the importance of anthropology in modern medicine.
• The health implications of adapting to ecology.
• Domestic health culture practices in two societies of choice.
• A review of clinical anthropology applications.
• Political ecology of infectious diseases.
• What is the relationship between violence, diseases and malnutrition?
• The economic aspect of political health in a country of choice.
• Perception of risk, vulnerability and illnesses: A case study of the United States.
• What are the main factors that drive good nutrition and health transition?
• The adoption of preventive health practices in society.
• Important cultural conditions that help shape medical practices.
• Comparing the medical practices during the colonial and post-colonial eras in a county of choice.
• Use of mitochondria in forensic and anthropology.
• Commercialization of health and medicine: What are the implications in society?
• Analyzing health disparity in a society of your choice.

Current Topics In Anthropology

• Using anthropology studies to determine the impact of political systems on different societies.
• Human rights of people who are convicted of crimes.
• What are the most important organizations when studying anthropology?
• A closer look at the dialect of a modern feminist.
• A study of current queer life in Germany.
• Implications of Barack Obama as the African American President.
• Reviewing the Pagan rituals and their impacts.
• Comparing aging in the west and growing old in the African setting.
• Cultural implications of deviant behavior in society.
• The new concept of childhood in the emerging economies.

Physical Anthropology Research Topics

• What does genetic hitchhiking mean?
• Analyzing the cephalization process.
• What is adaptive mutation?
• Altruism: Is it learnt or a natural trait?
• What is abiogenesis in human development?
• A study of Australian marsupial’s convergent evolution.
• Comparing stability of animals in stability and those in the wild.
• Evolution of different animals in different parts of the globe. What drives the differences?
• A review of physical anthropology trends.
• The future evolution of human beings.
• Physical anthropology: The human and digital culture.
• What really makes people human?

Special Anthropology Topics to Write About

• Enlightenment and Victorian Anthropological Theory.
• Race and ethnicity: The anthropologist’s viewpoint.
• A closer look at reciprocity in the native aboriginal communities in Australia.
• What is the relationship between Neanderthal and modern humans?
• Cultural anthropology versus sociology.
• Anthropology of Mormonism.
• What is the biggest change since WWI?
• What is reflexive anthropology?
• What is the main purpose of rituals in society?
• Comparing rituals around childbirth in Asia.
• Evaluating the connection between religion and myths in different societies.
• Comparing the 20th and 21st century’s method of collecting anthropological data.
• Why is medical anthropology so important today?
• The importance of Benin artifacts in the history of the world.
• The sociology theory: A review of its structure and shortcomings.
• Christian believes in anthropology.
• Comparing Anthropology of Europe to Anthropology of Africa.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of reflexivity use in ethnographic studies.

Forensic Anthropology Paper Topics

• What are the primary agents that cause biological changes in the human body?
• Are the biological change agents in a human being similar to those of other animals?
• Assessing the accuracy of carbon dating technology.
• Analyzing the latest improvements in crime detection technology.
• Analyzing evidence that supports evolution views of human beings.
• How does radioactivity impact different animals?
• The main signs of asphyxiation.
• A review of the latest archaeological dating methods: Are they effective?
• Mummification: How effective was the process as applied in Egypt?
• Importance of crime scenes in forensic anthropology.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of Buccal Swabs when profiling insides of cheeks.
• Criminal profiling: How effective is it in deterring a criminal’s traits?
• Footprint in the crime scene: What can they tell you?
• Soil comparison in forensic anthropology.
• Insect as important agents of body decomposition.
• How do you identify blunt force trauma?
• Comparing and contrasting penetrating and perforating trauma.
• Analyzing the Rigor Mortis method of establishing a person’s death.

Use Online Help To Prepare Exceptional Papers

This post has demonstrated how you should go about preparing a quality anthropology paper. However, many still find it challenging to prepare even after selecting interesting anthropology research topics. Well, there is no need to worry because you can use experts in research paper and dissertation writers. Using our resources when you buy dissertation with us, you will get exceptional results.

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• Thesis Option

The thesis is a major requirement for those in the MA in anthropology thesis track.  The thesis should demonstrate the student's ability to apply knowledge and skills gained from the anthropology department's curriculum.  A desirable goal for an excellent thesis would be a work of sufficient rigor and quality that it could be considered for publication. Original data collection ("fieldwork") is recommended but not required for the thesis.  Analysis of secondary data-whether quantitative, qualitative, visual or other formats--is perfectly acceptable as long as the research is informed by a clearly articulated research question and under-girded by a research proposal.

The traditional thesis is a single document that often incorporates a literature review, definition of a problem, discussion of methods to address the problem, the subsequent research activity and results.  However, the student may design a thesis with different emphases, in consultation with their advisor.  For example the goal may instead be a more compact paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.  Other thesis plans may combine some research activity such as a video production, museum exhibit or an internship, with an accompanying paper.  Students pursuing the thesis option must develop a topic and research proposal that specifies their plans in the semester after their completion of 18 credit hours.

The thesis must be defended before a committee of three faculty, at least two of whom need to be on the Department of Anthropology faculty (which includes senior instructors and research faculty).  The structure of the thesis is largely determined by the  University of Colorado Denver Graduate School Rules ; i.e., a thesis must conform to the rules.

• For the thesis, students must prepare a full research proposal which must be approved by their thesis chair before beginning their research. This proposal must be completed by the semester after the student has completed 18 credit hours. Sections of the proposal should include, at a minimum:
• Introduction and statement of the problem: Should include a one sentence statement of the problem on the first page, and a discussion of its significance (i.e., why is it important that this topic be researched).
• Literature review covering theoretical and topical material.
• Research design and methods including a data analysis plan.

Note:   Wenner-Gren and National Science Foundation both provide good models and templates for the research proposal. Those in the medical anthropology track might want to consider following the NIH model, depending the nature of their research questions and career goals.

• All students proposing to work with humans or data on modern humans must apply for and receive approval from the  Human Subjects Research Committee  before they begin their research. Note: most of the material for the application will be drawn from the research proposal.
• The draft thesis must be reviewed and approved as "defensible" by the student’s thesis committee faculty chair before a thesis defense date can be set. Defensible means the chair has reviewed the draft and suggested changes have been made.
• The draft sent to the student’s committee must be substantively complete: All references must be in the text and properly formatted in a references cited section; there should be no "track changes" comments in the text; the text should be formatted according to Graduate School requirements.
• Given the complexity of faculty and student schedules, consultation on a defense date should be done as far in advance as possible.
• There must be a minimum of three weeks between the agreed-upon date for the defense and distribution of the draft thesis defined as defensible by the student’s chair. If you would like feedback from your committee members before the defense, you should plan to distribute the thesis at least 4 weeks before the defense date.

Note:  If you intend to graduate the same semester you defend your thesis, you must schedule, successfully defend, and complete all recommended changes in accordance with UC Denver Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines  . This effectively translates to having the thesis completed and “defensible” before the middle of the semester.

Your Thesis Committee

The committee generally consists of your major advisor and two other faculty members with whom you have worked during the course of your program. You may choose committee members from outside the department, particularly if they are experts in an area that you explore in the thesis. However, at least two of your committee members must be from the anthropology department. And, all committee members must belong to the Graduate Faculty.  See the rules of the Graduate School .

Thesis Preparation

Click here to obtain a copy of Directions for Preparing Masters and Doctoral Theses .

The Process of Submitting a Thesis

In the semester in which a student intends to submit the thesis for examination, he/she must first submit an  Application for Admission to Candidacy . This initiates a process of determining if the student has met all of the other requirements for the degree, and is eligible to submit a thesis. The application for candidacy form should be completed in consultation with your major advisor, and the graduate director. A  Diploma Card  is submitted at the same time, to initiate the process of preparing final records for graduation.

The completed thesis itself is then submitted for a format review. This review ensures that the material is presented in a readable format that is consistent with the standards of the university. The student then submits a  Request for Examination,  which publicly announces the exam or defense for all interested parties.

At the exam or defense, the student may be asked to revise or add to the thesis before it is approved. The revised thesis is then submitted to the examination committee for final approval, and then copies are handed in to the Graduate School. These copies are permanently kept in the library as a resource for other scholars in the field.

Thesis Submission

Questions concerning matters not discussed in this document must be directed to the thesis committee chairperson. Theses must be reviewed by the Graduate School for format review before the final examination or defense. Once the thesis is signed by the appropriate faculty committee, submit three reproduced or original copies of the thesis, two on CU bond and one on regular paper. The University keeps all three of these copies. You may also order additional copies at this time. The binding fee is due and payable when the thesis is submitted to the Graduate School. Since fees are subject to change, contact the Graduate School for current fees.

The Thesis Examination

The exam consists of a public presentation and defense of the work. The tradition calls for the following steps to be completed:

• Your thesis committee greets you, and then sends you out of the room while the chair of your committee discusses the thesis, asks if there are any particular concerns, and establishes the particular procedure for the conduct of the examination.
• After you are invited to reenter the examination room, the chair will invite you to provide a formal presentation of your research, which should generally not exceed 30 minutes in length.
• After your presentation, the committee will ask you questions about the thesis, work related to it, and perhaps general questions about theory, method, and practical implications of the research.
• When questioning is completed, you will be asked to leave the room again so that your committee may discuss the defense, and decide on whether to give you a pass or fail.
• A "pass" may take many forms, including a request for revision that must be approved by the full committee, or simply a request that revisions be reviewed by the chair.

Registration Issues

Students must be registered during the semester of their final examination/ defense. Students who choose to perform these examinations or defend their thesis on a date that falls between semesters (between Fall and Spring; Spring and Summer, or between Summer and Fall), must register for the semester immediately after their exam/defense.

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• Dissertation Prospectus - Social Anthropology

All candidates must, in consultation with their advisors, select a dissertation topic and describe their proposed doctoral research in a prospectus. The prospectus should:

• Give a concise statement of the problem to be addressed in the dissertation or of the hypotheses it proposes to test. 
• Provide a literature review that draws on their reading lists and field essays.
• Provide a clear research design.
• Address the project with appropriate research methods.

The prospectus will normally be written in the G3 year after the general examination and in tandem with the Research Design/Proposal Writing course.

The candidate will discuss and defend the prospectus before his or her dissertation committee. The prospectus defense should take place prior to the beginning of dissertation fieldwork. Completion of the Human Subjects compliance forms and approval of them by Harvard’s Institutional Review Board must be completed before dissertation field work can begin (see the IRB website ).

No more than 25-30 double-spaced pages, exclusive of the bibliography and any figures.

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Cultural anthropology.

Cultural Anthropology publishes ethnographic writing informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives, innovative in form and content, and focused on both traditional and emerging topics. It also welcomes essays concerned with ethnographic methods and research design in historical perspective, and with ways cultural analysis can address broader public audiences and interests.

How to Submit

Log in or create an account to submit a manuscript to Cultural Anthropology.

Vol. 39 No. 1 (2024)

We present six original papers in this issue as well as the inaugural guest commentary.

When the Society for Cultural Anthropology selected our distributed, international editorial collective to lead Cultural Anthropology , they did so in part to support our commitment to opening channels of this crucial platform of our discipline beyond the scope of privileged, endowed higher educational institutions in the United States. As one step of this process, in this issue we provide space to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to describe their work since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. As Deanna L. Byrd, the NAGPRA Liaison-Coordinator and Research and Outreach Program Manager of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and Ian Thompson, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, writes, since that time, “Native American communities gained a measure of say in how ancestral burials are treated on federal lands. The law also established a mechanism to help Native American, Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian communities have open dialogue with institutions across the country about the return of their ancestors, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.” 

In dialogue with critical disability studies, Eliza Williamson zooms in the everyday practices of Bahian mothers with children diagnosed with Congenital Zika Syndrome. Mothers, she shows, assert their children’s personhood by refusing their medically diagnosed lack of futurity through what she defines as habilitative care: “a bodymind potentializing set of practices” involving a myriad of “substances, technologies and techniques understood to encourage maximum potential development of embodied abilities in young disabled children.”

Leniqueca Welcome delves into unaccounted forms of violence on and in those “who occupy the category of poor black woman in Trinidad” to develop a “capacious, relational and historically layered” approach to entangled forms of gender-based violence and life searching. In so doing, a sharp critique of the masculinist state and legacies of colonial extraction emerges.

By spending time with loggers, timber industrialists, and state technocrats across Peru’s Amazonian region of Loreto, Eduardo Romero Dianderas tracks technical maneuvers and political controversies around timber volumetric calculation. Far from a mathematical abstraction, his ethnography invites us to think that the practice of volume-making—scaling, standardizing, and accounting for timber—is a contact zone in which “power, history and bodily experience” saturate a crucial operation for global environmental governance.

Focusing on demonstrations held outside Yangon, Myanmar, in favor of a plan to build a New Yangon City, Courtney Wittekind’s article intervenes in the binaries of “truth” versus “falsity” and “genuine” versus “fake” to advance an anthropological theorization of demonstration, speculation, and spectacle.

For centuries, the Curse of Ham, the originary anti-Black myth of the Abrahamic faiths, functioned as the foundational and legitimating narrative of white supremacist ideology across the African continent. To Justin Haruyama’s disconcertment, this was also the narrative invoked by some of his Zambian informants to explain the predicament of Black people today. In his paper for this issue, Haruyama stages a conversation with Black liberation theology to suggest that these narratives articulated, however, a profound refutation of liberal egalitarianism and, from the situated premises of a transnational Zambian perspective, put forward an alternative vision for a decolonial abolitionist anthropology.

In his article, Ramy Aly interrogates the anthropology of ethics and revolution in dialogue with a phenomenological and situated account of the 2011 January Egyptian Revolution. He does it through the experiences and narratives of those that were too young to take part in street protests and political movements but for whom the revolution still takes precedent in everyday practices of self-making.

Cover and table-of-contents image by Eduardo Romero Dianderas.

Guest Commentary

No stone unturned.

Habilitating Bodyminds, Caring for Potential: Disability Therapeutics after Zika in Bahia, Brazil

On and in their bodies: masculinist violence, criminalization, and black womanhood in trinidad, volumes: the politics of calculation in contemporary peruvian amazonia, “take our land” : fronts, fraud, and fake farmers in a city-to-come, anti-blackness and moral repair: the curse of ham, biblical kinship, and the limits of liberalism, the ordinariness of ethics and the extraordinariness of revolution: ethical selves and the egyptian january revolution at home and school, curated collections.

War on Palestine

Sovereignty

Reclaiming Hope

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ANTH 495: Anthropology Capstone

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Writing your thesis statement

A thesis statement clearly identifies the topic being discussed, includes the points discussed in the paper, and is written for a specific audience. Your thesis statement belongs at the end of your first paragraph, also known as your introduction. Use it to generate interest in your topic and encourage your audience to continue reading. 

A strong thesis statement is refutable and specific. It makes a new point about theory or examines how two ideas relate in a new way. I adapts or critiques someone else's argument. Strong research thesis statements are:

• Specific : talk about a specific idea rather than a broad theme, the more concrete the better. 
• Text-based : your argument should arise from the text, your interview, or ethnographic research; it should not be an imposition of your own personal moral or ethical views. Don't cast judgment on the social actors.
• Unified : be sure that you're arguing one thing, and avoid bifurcated thesis statements.
• Not too obvious:  your paper should point out something that isn't immediately obvious to someone without a close examination of the texts or ethnographic data. Make sure that what you're writing about demands that a paper be written about it.
• Refutable : it should be possible to come up with a reasonable and valid counter argument to your thesis statement.
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Program Requirements - Sociocultural

The uc davis sociocultural anthropology program requirements include successful completion of preliminary and qualifying examinations, a specified curriculum, periodic progress reviews, and a dissertation that earns faculty approval..

Students who are accepted into the Department of Anthropology's Sociocultural Wing graduate program begin by fulfilling core and sub-discipline requirements constituting a master's degree curriculum.

Program Structure

Each student admitted to the Graduate Program in the Department of Anthropology is responsible for knowing the curricular requirements. We encourage prospective students to make contact with currently enrolled graduate students, and to communicate with faculty members in relevant areas of specialization.

To obtain the master’s degree, students in Anthropology are required complete 36 units of upper division or graduate coursework. Of these 36 units, 18 must be from graduate courses (numbered in the 200s) and no more than 9 units can be for research (ANT 299). A minimum GPA of 3.0 must be maintained to remain in good standing, and students must enroll in 12 units per quarter. Students must be in residence for a minimum of three quarters and must pass a written preliminary examination. 

Master's Course Requirements

Preliminary exam - sociocultural.

At the end of spring quarter of their first year, students take a written preliminary exam in the form of a paper in which they must grapple with key concepts and themes within the discipline. Students define the topic in coordination with their Interim Major Professor and the Graduate Advisor. Two randomly selected faculty evaluate the paper on the basis of pass/potential fail. In potential fail cases, the entire faculty reads and evaluates the exam. All papers will be discussed at a Sociocultural Wing faculty meeting. Students may not repeat the exam. Should a student fail the exam, s/he is recommended for disqualification from the graduate program.

Ph.D. Course Requirements

Qualifying examination.

The Qualifying Examination (QE) is intended to test a student’s depth and breadth of knowledge that is required to undertake the dissertation research and writing. The QE should be scheduled by the 9th quarter of study.

The student assembles bibliographies in three fields and prepares two qualification essays (20-25 pages each) for the committee. Each essay is based on one of the critical theoretical and area concerns represented in the bibliography. These themes and issues may coincide with the student’s research interests and, together with members of her/his qualifying exam committee the student designs her/his bibliographies and writes her/his essays over the course of the Fall and Winter quarters of their third year of study. Final versions of the essays must be submitted to the student’s exam committee by the end of Winter Quarter.

Research Proposal

The student finalizes her/his research proposal. This final version extends the theoretical and methodological dimensions of the proposal. Extended proposals must be submitted to the student’s exam committee two weeks before the students Oral Exam.

The student is examined orally for a three-hour time period. During this time, exam committee members evaluate the student’s facility to delve deeper and extend beyond the material presented to date in her/his bibliographies, essays, and research proposal. Exams must be taken by the end of spring quarter of the third year of study.

Dissertation

After passing the Qualifying Examination, a student may apply to be advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. At that time, upon the recommendation of the student’s major professor in consultation with the graduate advisor, the dean of Graduate Studies appoints a committee to direct the student’s research and to guide preparation of the dissertation.

The Colorado Sun

Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state.

Old Firehouse Books suggests titles featuring miracles, essays and horror

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Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins recommends titles featuring a miracle worker, essays on excess and a tale of vacation horror.

The Familiar

By Leigh Bardugo Flatiron Books $29.99 April 2024 Purchase

From the publisher : In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family’s social position.

What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England’s heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king’s favor.

From Zane, bookseller: This is the first Leigh Bardugo book I’ve read (I’m sorry) and I’m still recommending it, so if your friend who is obsessed with “Ninth House” or “Hell Bent” or the “Grishaverse” says you should read this, just know that this one guy who works at this one bookstore who hasn’t read any of that also thinks so. Luzia is a conversa scullion in Golden Age Spain who can work miracles any wealthy man would kill for. In this violent age where women are deeply oppressed and the Inquisition will brutally punish anyone they determine has unholy power, hopefully those men won’t find out about her magic (oh no).

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess

By Becca Rothfeld Metropolitan Books $27.99 April 2024 Purchase

From the publisher : Our embrace of minimalism has left us spiritually impoverished. We see it in our homes, where we bring in Marie Kondo to rid them of their idiosyncrasies and darknesses. We take up mindfulness to do the same thing to our heads, emptying them of the musings, thoughts, and obsessions that make us who we are. In the bedroom, a new wave of puritanism has drained sex of its unpredictability and therefore true eroticism. In our fictions, the quest for balance has given us protagonists who aspire only to excise their appetites. We have flipped our values, Rothfeld argues: While the gap between rich and poor yawns hideously wide, we strive to compensate with egalitarianism in art, erotics, and taste, where it does not belong and where it quashes wild experiments and exuberance.

From Dany, bookseller: Minimalism, fragment novels, the mindfulness industry, and desire. All these things seem at first a random string of topics, but are singularly connected by Becca Rothfeld and damn it! they are all just too small! With a plethora of unique and deep cut literary and film examples, Rothfeld presents her first collection of luscious essays which beg to be internalized and practiced by those who read them. With a personal flair, “All Things Are Too Small” is a genius exploration into our own souls. Stepping away from each essay one can’t help but utter: Wow, Becca Rothfeld just gets me.

By Jennifer Thorne Tor Nightfire $27.99 March 2024 Purchase

From the publisher : Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, “Diavola”is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology. (Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)

From Allison, bookbuyer: The only genuinely scary horror novel I read when I was on my fall 2023 horror binge. Kept me up til 2 a.m. trying to finish it and a little spooked by my bathroom mirror for a week. While on vacation at a villa in Tuscany, Anna and her family are given one instruction: “Don’t open the door to the tower.” But, of course they do. The ghost in this is a nasty piece of work (almost demonic), and the family drama is so uncomfortably realistic.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Old Firehouse Books

232 Walnut St., Fort Collins

oldfirehousebooks.com

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Type of Story: Review

An assessment or critique of a service, product, or creative endeavor such as art, literature or a performance.

Old Firehouse Books Book Store

Old Firehouse Books began its life as the Book Rack of Fort Collins, started in 1980 by Bill Hawk. It was a used paperback store, built on trading books. The store grew over twenty years, always carrying one of the finest collections of used... More by Old Firehouse Books

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