Anthropology

In 1896, a team known as the Hyde Exploring Expedition began excavating Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. As they worked, they numbered the rooms, including one they labeled Room 28, which had a burned roof and walls. They were about to move on to excavate...

 Ph.D. candidate Asia Alsgaard and Emily Lena Jones, associate professor of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico, have received a National Science Foundation grant of $28,086 that will allow them to examine how an ancient group of humans were able to maintain ecosystem stability in their environment several thousand years ago.

Despite the fact that women tend to outlive men in almost all societies, they experience more sickness along the way. This so-called ‘gender-health’ paradox has long puzzled researchers. Biological differences between the sexes – females’ higher body fat...

Chaco Canyon is extraordinary in many respects, not least in the dense concentration of jewelry found in archaeological contexts dating between the 9th and early 12th centuries CE (Current Era). The largest and most prominent pueblo in the Canyon is...

Old friends get together to relax, share meals, and trust and support each other. In the latter part of life, these friendships are highly valued. Recent research shows this happens in chimpanzees as well as humans. Chimpanzee and human friendships...

Many people believe that Ancestral Pueblo diets were almost solely dominated by run-of-the-mill foods like maize and rabbits. But archaeologists are turning that stereotype around. In early archaeological sites in the Middle Rio Grande basin of central...

UNM’s Journal of Anthropological Research 50th Distinguished Lecture originally set for virtual delivery on Sept. 24 by renowned paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie will now be available via a recorded presentation. Haile-Selassie will discuss...

Jane Lancaster, Distinguished Professor Emerita at The University of New Mexico, has been honored in the latest edition of Human Nature, the interdisciplinary journal she founded in 1990. Lancaster arrived at the UNM Anthropology department in 1985 and...

It’s called PAÍS, a Spanish name meaning country or nation. It is a reflection of The University of New Mexico’s commitment to share research and space while recognizing UNM as a Carnegie I research and Hispanic-serving institution. It’s also UNM’s...

The University of New Mexico Ph.D. candidate Milena Carvalho was with a team of archaeologists excavating a site in Portugal when she found an archaeological “smoking gun” that, along with the team’s other finds of stone tools, shows modern humans...