The UCLA Department of Anthropology has always taken a broad view of anthropology, maintaining both balance and integration among the four fields (archaeology, biological, sociocultural, and linguistic), which have traditionally characterized the discipline. Established in 1941, the department grew to prominence immediately after World War II and has consistently ranked among the top ten departments in the country, both for the distinction of its faculty and the quality of its teaching. Many faculty members actively engage in research and teaching in two or more fields, and many hold joint appointments in other departments and schools at UCLA. Indeed, Anthropology has ties with many other major departments in the university, offering a rich fare to graduate students. The great variety and richness of the departmental curriculum may best be appreciated by looking first at the four traditional fields of Anthropology and then at the diverse formal programs and major concentrations of strength.

Archaeology is the study of human cultures and the natural, social, ideological, economic, and political environments in which they operated in the recent and distant past. The graduate and undergraduate programs focus on methods of discovery (field and laboratory courses), strategies of analysis and the hows and whys of long-term cultural evolution (theory, analytic, and topical courses), and the unfolding of prehistory in many regions of the world, including North America, Mesoamerica, South America, and several parts of the Old World (regional courses). Faculty members have long-standing interests in paleolithic populations and the origins and evolution of complexity, including the political organization of complex hunters/gatherers, the origins of early village life, the emergence and florescence of ancient states, and life in ancient cities. Faculty members maintain programs of field research, involving many students, in the American Pacific Coast, Mesoamerica, South America, Central Asia and India.

Biological anthropology is the study of humans and other primates from a Darwinian point of view. The program focuses on the evolutionary ecology of early hominids, extant primates, and contemporary humans and includes training in evolutionary theory, behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, paleoanthropology, paleoecology, primate behavior, and mathematical modeling. Faculty members associated with the program have engaged in fieldwork in Africa, Central America, and Southeast Asia where ongoing projects include work on primate behavior, hominid evolution, and evolutionary psychology. Biological Anthropology@UCLA

Linguistic anthropology is an interdisciplinary field that addresses the manifold ways in which language, interaction, and culture mutually organize each other in different communities worldwide. Linguistic anthropologists at UCLA have a variety of backgrounds and research interests that include face-to-face communication, language contact and change, language and politics, language socialization across the life span, verbal art and performance, and the relation of language to ideology, mind, emotion, and identity. Courses are offered in ethnographic approaches to discourse analysis, field methods, language ideology, conversation analysis, language socialization, and communication in urban communities, as well as on cross-cultural language practices.

Sociocultural anthropology concerns the examination and understanding of social and cultural systems and processes, and the human capacities which enable them. Its goal is to understand their operation in specific settings and to understand the experience of individuals who live in these diverse systems. Faculty members have engaged in fieldwork in almost every area of the world, but most notably in Africa, Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, and Oceania. They have also engaged in ethnographic research among Americans with diverse ethnic identities and in various institutional settings.

Cutting across the four fields are three other categories of course offerings: applied anthropology, regional cultures, and history, theory, and method.

The department offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Anthropology for undergraduates; the graduate program leads to the Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees. Studies in anthropology are particularly valuable for students planning careers in which an understanding of human behavior and cultural diversity is desirable, such as business, education, law, medicine, nursing, public health, social welfare, and urban planning. Because of its breadth of outlook, anthropology also offers an ideal basis for those seeking a general education in our increasingly interdependent world.