Anthropology

Undergraduate Studies

The undergraduate concentration in Anthropology involves training in the four subfields of anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and biological anthropology.

We offer a general track that draws from all of the subfields, as well as tracks in each individual subfield and a track in medical anthropology, which bridges several of these subfields. Many of the department's courses are appropriate for non-concentrators and we encourage students from throughout the Brown community to take advantage of our courses and other programmatic offerings.

Socio-cultural anthropology engages the full breadth of the contemporary human experience through the lens of ethnography, the long-term qualitative study of social processes in a particular context.
Medical anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that seeks to understand human experiences of health, illness, and suffering.
Anthropological archaeologists study the human past through the medium of material culture and are especially interested in exploring social processes through time and throughout the world.
Biological anthropology focuses on the biological aspects of the human condition, emphasizing especially our evolutionary legacy and the role of social processes in shaping biological phenomena.