Welcome to the UW Department of Anthropology

Banda Islands Archaeology Field School - Winter 2009 Earn 12 UW credits and learn archaeological field methods, including survey, excavation, field analysis, and film/video documentation, in the fascinating country of Indonesia. The course provides preliminary intensive Indonesian language training in Yoygyakarta, followed by archaeological training in the Banda Islands.. More information Wienker Award Annoucement 2008 Each year we recognize the Best Undergraduate Honor's Thesis and Best Anthropology Essay with financial awards. More information

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The Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington was launched in the 1920s by Leslie Spier and Melville Jacobs. Both were students of Franz Boas, as was Erna Gunther who took the reins in 1929 and under whose lively leadership the department grew for a quarter of a century.

Today, we are a large, and still lively, department that includes 35 faculty members and houses three academic subdisciplines into which our undergraduate and graduate programs are apportioned: archaeology, biocultural anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology. In addition we offer a concurrent MPH/PhD program, and specializations in environmental anthropology and medical anthropology and global health.

While pursuing a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches, we all work toward a common goal, namely to document and understand our many interconnected ways of being human in a world now inhabited by six billion people speaking five thousand languages.

For a brief summary of our program view the Anthropology Department Fact Sheet.

At the heart of anthropology research, theory and practice lies a shared appreciation of and commitment to understanding all aspects of human difference. View the Anthropology Department Diversity Mission Statement.

Anthropology makes a world of difference.