The Anthropology Program

Anthropology is a broad and complex social science discipline that includes four distinct subfields as means for studying human beings at all times, in all places and circumstances.

• Anthropologists study the remains of past cultures through archaeology. Archaeologists recover artifacts and other data by painstakingly excavating sites of past human occupation and looking through the pieces left behind by the people who lived there.
• Anthropologists study the physical aspects of what it means to be human through biological anthropology. Biological anthropologists study skeletons, DNA, disease, non-human primates and fossil hominids to provide a complete picture of the evolutionary record and the effects of cultural changes like agriculture on the human body.
• Anthropologists study contemporary human communities through cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropologists typically spend an extended period of time living in a community and writing descriptions of their experience.
• Anthropologists study the relationships between culture and language through linguistic anthropology. Linguistic anthropologists typically spend time in communities recording language and cultural data and looking for connections between the two sets of data.

All of anthropology’s subfields can be brought out of the classroom and into the community through applied anthropology, which seeks to use the knowledge gained through academic research to solve social problems. Some domains of applied anthropology include forensic anthropology, medical anthropology, anthropology of tourism, language revitalization, and most archaeology practiced in the U.S. and its territories.

Anthropology Faculty

	Heidi Altman Associate Professor of Anthropology haltman@georgiasouthern.edu Carroll 1059A, Statesboro Campus 912-478-5723 Curriculum Vitae
	Jacqueline Berger Assistant Professor of Anthropology jberger@georgiasouthern.edu Carroll 1018, Statesboro Campus 912-478-2583
	Kara Bridgman Sweeney Lecturer of Anthropology ksweeney@georgiasouthern.edu Armstrong Campus
	J. Matthew Compton Director, Laboratory of Archaeology and Curator, R M Bogan Archaeological Repository jcompton@georgiasouthern.edu Carroll 2256B, Statesboro Campus 912-478-5548 Curriculum Vitae
	Ryan McNutt Associate Professor of Anthropology rmcnutt@georgiasouthern.edu Carroll 1050, Statesboro Campus 912-478-2237 Curriculum Vitae More Information Dr. McNutt earned his B.S. in Anthropology from Middle Tennessee State University in 2006, and his Mlitt (2010) and PhD (2014) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow, where he specialized in conflict archaeology. His research interests include utilizing technology such as LIDAR and GIS to answer questions about battlefield and conflict sites, power and dominance in the landscape, and the impact of violence on non-combatants. This includes the archaeology of internment and POW camps, where place becomes transformed through social interaction into a space of the dominant and dominated, with landscapes and architecture spatially arranged in a grammar of control and constant observation. His past research has focused on developing and implementing a predictive GIS model for the most probable location of battlefields within wider landscapes. This GIS model was successively applied to battlefields ranging AD 1296 to 1745. Working with the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, he participated in projects on various types and periods of conflict sites, ranging from the Battle of the Somme, to Bannockburn, to POW camps in Poland, to WWII aircraft crashes in remote locales of Scotland. Several of these projects were part of documentaries, and sparked another of his research interests, which is the communication of archaeology public. Archaeology, is at its heart, a communal endeavor, and communicating its importance to the wider public should remain one of its guiding tenets. He also works as a consultant on development projects for television documentaries.
	Jennifer Sweeney Tookes Associate Professor of Anthropology jtookes@georgiasouthern.edu Carroll 1015, Statesboro Campus 912-478-6587 Curriculum Vitae
	M. Jared Wood Associate Professor of Anthropology Anthropology Undergraduate Program Coordinator mwood@georgiasouthern.edu Carroll 1049, Statesboro Campus 912-478-5789 Curriculum Vitae

Anthropology Faculty in Other Departments

Matthew A. Williamson Associate Professor of Kinesiology mwilliam@georgiasouthern.edu Herty Building 0103, Statesboro Campus 912-478-1820

Last updated: 2/17/2023