anthropology

While measles and the human papillomavirus (HPV) are vastly different diseases, failing to get vaccinated against them can have equally serious consequences, suggests Bradley Stoner, PhD, a medical anthropologist who studies infectious disease transmission at Washington University in St. Louis.

Adrienne Strong, a graduate student studying in sociocultural anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received Fulbright-Hays-Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program funding.

Figuring out how to survive on a lean-season diet of hard-to-reach ants, slugs and other bugs may have spurred the development of bigger brains and higher-level cognitive functions in the ancestors of humans and other primates, suggests research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton presented Helen Kathleen Cook, PhD, of the Department of Anthropology, with the Gloria W. White Distinguished Service Award. The recognition was part of the annual Staff Day activities May 19. 

A recent interdisciplinary conference that led to the publication of a special issue of PNAS on domestication raised more questions than it answered. Washington University in St. Louis scientists Fiona Marshall and Ken Olsen, who participated in the conference and contributed to the special issue, discuss some of the key questions that have been raised about this pivotal event in human history.

A review of recent research on the domestication of large herbivores for “The Modern View of Domestication,” a special feature of PNAS, suggests that neither intentional breeding nor genetic isolation were as significant as traditionally thought. 

Anthropologist Tristram Kidder, PhD, was installed April 7 as the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor in Arts & Sciences during a ceremony in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall. Kidder has served as chair of the Department of Anthropology since 2008.

A few years ago, when David Browman, PhD, professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, read his graduate student’s thesis on the early figures in Americanist archaeology, he immediately asked, “Where are all the women?”

The Department of Anthropology is widely recognized as a gem, with a reputation for excellence among top institutions. Yet housed in one of Washington University in St. Louis’ oldest and most revered buildings — McMillan Hall — the Arts & Sciences department had been challenged by an infrastructure ill equipped to support the research and teaching needs of the highly regarded department, with its growing numbers of undergraduate and graduate students. Until now, that is.

Alena Wigodner, a junior anthropology major in Arts & Sciences, has been selected for a new National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program titled “Angel Mounds REU Site: Multidisciplinary Training for Students in Environmental and Social Sciences through Archaeological Research.”