College of Arts and Science Vanderbilt University
Department of

Anthropology

Vanderbilt Specializations

 
The department maintains ongoing research specializations in archaeology, cultural anthropology and cognitive anthropology.
 

Archaeological Research in the Department

Graduate students Molly Morgan and Jeremy Bauer excavate a cache of jade celts at the site of Cival, Guatemala.
The principal center for archaeological research in Vanderbilt University is the Department of Anthropology, working in conjunction with the Center for Human Genetics Research, the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, and other centers on campus. The Department has teaching and research rooms and specially-equipped laboratories. The academic staff covers a broad spectrum of geographical areas and thematic approaches in Latin America and is active in field projects and analytical research.


The Department has an active and internationally renowned research profile. Some of the key themes and project foci are listed below. In addition, the Department has a publications series in archaeology and anthropology.


Key Themes

  • Space and landscape
  • Urbanization
  • Bioarchaeology
  • Geoarchaeology
  • Social Complexity
  • Colonialism and culture change
  • Historical archaeology

Ongoing Projects

  • Long-term human and environmental interactions on the north coast of Peru
  • Mound-building and ethnoarcheology among the Mapuche of south-central Chile
  • Early complexity and urbanization in the Bolivian Highlands
  • Provincial life under Inka rule and early missionary encounters in the southern Peruvian highlands 
  • Conquest-period urbanism and culture contact in Mexico and Central America.
 

Cultural Anthropology Research in the Department

Graduate student Monte Hendrickson conducts cultural anthropology research with children in Brazil.
The department specializes in the cultural anthropology of the Maya and native peoples of the Amazon, with thematic foci on issues of political economy, medical anthropology, psychological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and cognitive anthropology. Ongoing projects examine the social basis of peace, identity politics, mortuary practices, land claims, export agriculture, and language, culture, and cognition. The faculty are all engaged in long-term field research, have received funding from foundations and governmental sources, and actively publish their results.

Key Themes

  • Medical anthropology
  • Political economy
  • Psycological anthropology
  • Language and culture
  • Cognitive anthropology

Ongoing Projects

  • Interpersonal dimensions of peace in the Xingu basin
  • Broccoli exports and ethnic relations in Guatemala
  • Land claims among the Wari
  • Spatial and temporal cognition among the Tzeltal Maya
 

Cognitive Research in the Department

Graduate students Mike Tidwell and Jeff Shenton conduct Cognitive Anthropology research in Chiapas, Mexico.

Cognitive Research in the Anthropology Department is carried out in collaboration with the Cognitive Sciences (Psychology Departments) at Vanderbilt and other Universitites. Anthropology plays an important role in this research, as it offers perspectives from different cultures as well as a unique methodological and theoretical vantage point. One of the basic questions asked within this domain of anthropological inquiry is how the social environment and the mind interact to create both human cognition and culture. As such, the subfield of cognitive anthropology is closely tied to ethnology as well as biological anthropology. Research includes ethnographic approaches with experimental methods, statistical analyses and computer modeling. Most of the work is carried out in Mexico and Guatemala, but collaborations with other Departments and Universities also include sites in North America and Indonesia.

The Department has an active and internationally renowned research profile. Some of the key themes and project foci are listed below.

Key Themes

  • Child development
  • Knowledge acquisition and knowledge loss
  • Conceptual change and cultural change
  • Space and lingustic relativism in bilingual children

Ongoing Projects

  • The development of folkbiological knowledge: a cross-cultural perspective.
  • Conceptual and cultural change in folkmedical models.
  • The architecture of race: a cognitive ethnographic exploration of race and racial relations in the Highlands of Chiapas.
  • Language, culture and the development of spatial concepts among Maya children in the Highlands of Chiapas.