Anthropological Archaeology

Anthropological archaeology, the study of humanity from deep antiquity to the recent past, is a major focus of research and training within the department at the University of Tennessee. This focus provides faculty and student with a collaborative setting for learning, scholarly research, and public outreach.

Our strengths include the study of foodways; human interactions with plants, animals and landscapes; social complexity; and the development of the modern world. We employ cutting-edge laboratory and field methods to answer big questions about our past that inform our present.

Biological Anthropology

Biological Anthropology as a whole represents the more scientific end of anthropology, devoted to the study of biological history, evolutionary relationships, and diversity that characterizes the human species. These elements are studied within the department in various spaces, including the Molecular Anthropology Labs, the Organismal Variation Lab, and at the Forensic Anthropology Center.

Cultural Anthropology

There are three areas that cultural anthropologists see as critical in how we define our subfield and the role it plays within the larger discipline of anthropology: theory, method, and ethics. Our research is often with marginalized people, whom we are obligated to protect. Recognizing that culture is a contested process, in order to “do no harm” and “weigh competing ethical obligations due collaborators and affected parties” we critically evaluate military, paramilitary, and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations that may be positioned to exploit, harm, make profit from, or violate the human rights of persons with whom we work. This may include decisions to not collaborate with these organizations or take funding from them.

Disasters, Displacement, & Human Rights Program

The Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Program (DDHR) promotes holistic training, collaborative research, rigorous theoretical approaches, and creative and innovative scholarly work on historical and contemporary problems. DDHR faculty and students study global and local issues across historical and geographical scales, bringing a critical focus to disasters, migration, displacement, the substantive struggles facing refugees and asylum seekers, and the relationship between these and social inequality.