Anthropology

Anthropology is distinguished by its commitment to understanding humanity through complimentary biological and sociocultural lenses, incorporating approaches from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The UC Davis Department of Anthropology is distinctive in our respect for multiple pathways through the discipline and multiple ways to understand our humanity. Evolutionary anthropologists take a broad comparative approach to understanding human and non-human primate biology and behaviors in ecological and social contexts across space and through both recent and deep time (e.g., archaeology, paleoanthropology). Sociocultural anthropologists cultivate a critical perspective toward taken-for-granted assumptions about humans and the social and ecological world they make and inhabit. Through ethnographic, comparative, and philosophical inquiry into how people understand and organize their worlds, sociocultural anthropologists reveal the contingency of knowledges, institutions, practices, and inequalities that may appear natural or inevitable.