News

Elizabeth Weigler awarded Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

Elizabeth Weigler, Graduate Student in the Department of Anthropology, was awarded a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation in 2015.  The Wenner-Gren Foundation has three major goals: to support significant and innovation anthropological research into humanity's biological and cultural origins, development, and variation; to foster the international community of research scholars in anthropology; and to provide leadership at the forefronts of the discipline.

Graduate Student Association (GSA) Excellence in Teaching Award 2015 Presented to Shelley LaMon

Award Recipient: Shelley LaMon Award Date: June 02, 2015

The Maya Forest Garden by Anabel Ford

A new book co-authored by a UCSB researcher and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology details how the Maya have farmed sustainably and survived for millennia.

All in the Family: Parasites and Fertility

Parasites and Fertility: Are they related?

Professor Steven Gaulin receives Distinguished Teaching Award for 2014-15

One of five campus awardees.

Tracking the State in Mesopotamia (and Elsewhere)

In recent years archaeologists have turned from certain disco-age preoccupations of defining an essentialized ancient state and identifying the (earliest) states in the archaeological record to more modern concerns, under the influence of practice theory and actor-network theory, about what the state does.  This talk will move toward an even newer research question of what the state does not do. In Mesopotamia such studies consider in what ways people were and were not subjects of the Crown, why cities resisted incorporation in territorial polities, why ethnic groups were trouble-makers, and why the countryside was unruly. A brief comparison with other early states is also offered.

Early Cities 4000 BCE-1200CE Introduction

Early Cities 4000 BCE-1200CE Conclusion

Norman Yoffee-The Limits of Power