Department of Anthropology
What is anthropology? Most simply, the study of what makes us human.
Anthropologists often specialize in one of four “subfields” - biological, cultural, archaeological or linguistic anthropology. We study the past (what forces shaped us and how our biological evolution and culture responded), the present (diversity in culture and biology of living humans and our primate relatives), and seek to better understand the future potential of our species.
Discover how anthropology comes alive through our faculty, staff and students here at NIU - our premier undergraduate and graduate programs engage students from day one, prioritizing broad education in all four subfields and hands-on learning.
News
- Dr. Irwin’s research article on nutritional intakes in two sympatric lemur species now published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
- This year two members of our faculty are starting NSF-funded projects! Dr. Schuller’s study focuses on NGOs and climate resilience in Haiti and Cuba, and Dr. Porter’s study focuses on the nutrition and gut microbiome of tamarins, small monkeys native to Bolivia.
- We are proud to congratulate Dr. Bardolph-Carlsen and Dr. Morton on earning tenure and promotion to associate professor!
- NIU professor Dana Carlsen and five anthropology students presented their research at the Society for American Archaeology conference in San Francisco – and the students won the annual “Ethics Bowl” contest.
- Dana Bardolph-Carlsen co-authored an open-access article, "Multiple inequalities in every meal: theorizing the intersectional erasure of food producers both past and present" for the journal Food, Culture, and Society
