Anthropology at KSU

The Anthropology Department at Kent State combines the traditional subdivisions of biological anthropology, cultural anthropology and archaeology with twenty-first century approaches to their integration.

What is Anthropology? Simply put, anthropology is the study of humanity—but what does it mean to be human?

By studying humans holistically—combining science with humanities, biology with culture, history with prehistory and primates with language — we strive to answer the questions “Where did we come from?” “How did we live?” “Why did that civilization fail?”

Our goal is to improve the understanding of the origin and social behavior of our unique species within a comparative context.

Our faculty research combines ethnographic and archaeological investigations with a broad approach toward the biological basis of human evolution (neurobiology, genetics, biomechanics, experimental Archaeology, anthropological demography, primate ecology, the primate fossil record). We provide a diversity of research and educational pathways for both graduate and undergraduate students to explore, and are engaged in a variety of cooperative arrangements with other institutions and researchers, both nationally and internationally.