Anthropology is the global and holistic study of human biology and behaviour, and includes four subfields: biological anthropology, archaeology, sociocultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. The material covered is directed to answering the question: What makes us human? This course is a survey of biological anthropology and archaeology.

Archaeological theory, method and technique. Principles of scientific research will be applied to archaeological information. The course will cover the following topics: how archaeology applies the scientific method; how archaeological projects are planned and organized; how archaeological data are recovered through survey, excavation and other means; how archaeological data are organized and analyzed to produce information about the human past; the major theoretical paradigms that archaeologists use to interpret the human past.

Archaeological survey of human cultural development from a global perspective, including: the elaboration of material culture; the expansion of social inequality; the development of diverse food procurement (hunter-gatherer-fisher) and food production (herding-agricultural) economies; and the changes in patterns of mobility over time and between world areas, with the growth of village and city life. Students will engage with the current state of archaeological research and some of the major issues archaeologists address in their recreations of archaeologically-based human history.

Biological anthropology deals with the diversity and evolution of human beings and their living and fossil relatives, and how they have adapted to their environments. This course will introduce students to basic concepts of human genetics and Mendelian inheritance. The course will also describe the biological and evolutionary factors that have produced the fascinating diversity observed in human populations, and illustrate different ways in which humans have adapted to their environments.

Biological anthropology deals with the diversity and evolution of human beings and their living and fossil relatives, and how they have adapted to their environments. This course will introduce students to the remarkable biological diversity of our taxonomic order: the primates. The course will also discuss the rich fossil evidence for human evolution and its interpretation.

Introduction to the field of forensic anthropology. Outlines the areas in which forensic anthropologists may contribute to a death investigation and introduces basic concepts relating to the recovery and analysis of human remains.

Have you ever wondered why television programs like Ancient Aliens are so popular or if they have any merit? Have you also wondered why outrageous ideas about the human past seem to be more popular than the message science presents? This course critically evaluates the anatomy of significant hoaxes, outrageous claims, and just plain old "bad archaeology" in popular culture. Students will develop the tools to critically evaluate potential hoaxes and fictional accounts of the past by investigating a wide variety of cases that range from attempts to rewrite history using fake discoveries, to the simply outrageous claims created in order to promote racist agendas, to make money, or just for the fun of duping an unsuspecting public.

This course provides an introduction to the evolutionary significance of mating behaviours and sexual reproduction in modern humans. Students will explore human sexual behaviour with an emphasis on the evolutionary explanations for our mating strategies in relation to other primates. Through lectures, films and readings students will examine such topics as sexual selection, anatomy, sexual development, social organization, and mating patterns.

This course explores human food use and nutrition from a broad anthropological perspective. It examines archaeological evidence of dietary patterns of human ancestors and examines contemporary phenomena such as the preference for sweetness and lactase persistence that are the legacy of ancestral adaptations. It explores significant food revolutions, from the origins of agriculture to the relatively recent phenomenon of biotechnological food production and looks at both the positive and negative effects of these changes on patterns of human growth and health. The goal of the course is to provide students with a basic understanding of nutrition science that is contextualized in contemporary anthropological debates about the costs of changing food systems.

This course is a quest for the secret of human uniqueness. The success of Homo sapiens, has been described as "a spectacular evolutionary anomaly" that has resulted in human domination of the Earth's biosphere. We will use the comparative method to journey through the Animal Kingdom in hopes of discovering the preadaptive elements that enabled such incredible evolutionary success. On our way we will survey chimpanzee warfare, tool using octopuses, eusocial ants, and night-time hunter-gatherer sentinels - all of which will allow us to better understand the forces that shaped unparalleled cooperative networks in humans. Finally, we will investigate the cognitive and behavioural blessings and curses associated with the drive to belong to a group. The goal of the course is to equip students with a greater understanding of the human condition - and how to leverage this understanding to improve their lives.

This course introduces students to the many strategies anthropologists use to understand patterns of health and disease in human populations through time. It will serve as an entry point into the Anthropology of Health focus and will be a prerequisite for later courses in Growth and Development, Infectious Disease, and the Advanced Seminar in the Anthropology of Health. In this course, the concept of health is examined using bioarchaeology, biomedicine, medical anthropology, and epidemiology. The course examines evolutionary, epigenetic, and life history approaches to understanding chronic disease risk in human populations, culminating in an investigation of the role of poverty and social inequality on disease burden. Although the course is designed as an introduction to the Health focus, it is suitable for students seeking training in pre-health disciplines and is open to all students possessing the necessary prerequisites.

The ultimate question that all life is bound to ask is: how do I survive? Our species, evolved a uniquely human answer, which led to our ascendance as the most dominant on the planet but at what cost? This course explores a central human paradox: how altruism, community, kindness, and war and genocide are all driven by the same core adaptation. We'll call this the Trust Paradox and the evolution of this suite of traits, best described as coalitionary cognition, is one of the most complex and ancient in our species. We will explore how this, often imperceptible drive, is responsible for our capacity for both cooperation and competition, and allowed us to navigate increasingly complex social landscapes. But in our vast modern world, has this blessing become a curse?

Special course on selected topics in biological anthropology and/or archaeology; focus of topic changes each year. The contact hours for this course may vary in terms of contact type (L,S,T,P) from year to year, but will be between 24-36 contact hours in total. See the UTM Timetable.

Cultural Heritage Management, also known as cultural resource management or applied archaeology, aims to protect traces of the past such as artifacts, archaeological sites and cultural landscapes, that have meaning for people in the present. This course takes a broad look at cultural heritage, why it matters in the present, and why we need to preserve aspects of it for the future. Topics may include stakeholders and the politics of the past, mechanisms for the protection of heritage and archaeological sites, the heritage management industry, and the methods used to identify, document, and mitigate impacts to archaeological sites, and to preserve the materials recovered.

Introduction to the field of forensic anthropological field techniques and scene interpretation. A 2-week field school will be held on the U of T Mississauga campus (Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., two weeks in August). Weekly 2-hour classes will be held during the fall term. In these classes, students will examine casts, maps, photos and other evidence collected in the field, for the purposes of scene reconstruction and presentation in court. Limited Enrolment and Application Process: see Anthropology department website for more details.

This course will introduce the process of archaeological research, from project design through report write-up. The student will create a project proposal, choose methods of survey and excavation, describe and organize data for analysis, and summarize findings in a project report.

The exploration of the remarkable prehistories of China, the Koreas and Japan challenge western thought on agricultural origins, complex hunter-gatherers, urbanization and the development of centralized authority. This course evaluates current thinking about these issues in the three regions and examines the impact of local archaeological practice on the construction of narratives about the past.

This course examines major schools of archaeological thought over time. We will explore how theoretical approaches to archeological explanations of the human past affect and are affected by how archaeologists investigate research questions and interpret archaeological evidence. Readings include historically important key works as well as recent syntheses.

This course is a survey from an archaeological perspective of Indigenous history in Ontario and the Eastern Woodlands of North America from earliest times until colonization. Themes examined will include technology, subsistence, shelter, landscape use, art, and trade and how these vary in time and space.

Introduction to archaeological field methods. Practical component of the field school takes place on the UTM campus during the last two weeks of August (Monday-Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm). Morning lectures (week one) covering note taking, map making, cultural landscapes, material culture identification and survey and excavation methods, are followed by afternoons in the field applying skills taught that morning. Week two is spent excavating at an archaeological site. During weekly laboratory sessions September – December students learn to process, identify, and catalogue artifacts recovered during the field component. Limited Enrolment and Application Process: see Anthropology department website for more details.

Using hands-on learning as a primary approach, this course focuses on insights into social and cultural processes provided by the study of ancient and historic technology. Experimental, ethnographic, archaeological, and textual data are used to examine topics such as organization and control of production, style of technology, and the value of objects. Throughout, we will discuss social and cultural as well as economic and functional reasons for the development and adoption of new technologies.

A second revolution in human existence began when people developed agriculture long after the origin of modern humans and Upper Palaeolithic culture. This course critically evaluates the shift to agriculture in the context of current ecological and archaeological perspectives. The concept of "agriculture" is evaluated by considering plant and animal domestication as well as resource management in a broad range of contexts.

Human sexual behaviours will be examined through the lens of evolutionary theory. Through lectures and readings, students will examine such topics as genetic, hormonal, and environmental determinants of sex, sexual selection, and the influence of sex on life history and behaviour. Students will discuss research that has been published in this area, and will develop critical assessments of the literature and films.

What does it mean to be human? Paleoanthropologists address this question by using fossil evidence to piece together our evolutionary history. Who we are today is a product of our biological and geological past. We will begin this quest by looking at ourselves as primates, and then we will traverse back through time to study primate origins, evolution, adaptations, and behaviour until we reach our genus, Homo.

What does it mean to be human? This course will examine the evolutionary journey through the genus Homo by examining the fossil evidence and the archeological record. Through this examination we will discover the unique biological and behavioural characteristics of modern humans.

In this course students are given hands-on experience in the identification of the normal anatomy of the adult human skeleton with accompanying muscle function. Metrical variation, growth and development, bone histology, and methods of individual identification are introduced.

This course examines the fundamental biological principles of growth and how these are expressed throughout evolution. It explores the evolution of growth patterns among primates and hominins and compares patterns of growth among the living primates. The course examines human growth and development throughout infancy, childhood, and adolescence and explores the influence of genetic, epigenetic, and endocrine processes on the plasticity of human growth that ultimately produces the variability observed in our species. The goal of the course is to provide students with a complex understanding of how evolutionary and environmental processes interact in the production of growth and health in human populations.

This lab methods course focuses on laboratory techniques used by biological anthropologists to assess growth, health, and risk of chronic disease in human populations. In this course students will gain practical, hands-on experience in nutrition assessment, anthropometry, physical activity and sleep assessment, and human energy expenditure. State-of-the-art instruments and software are employed, ensuring students gain valuable knowledge of data management and analysis using applications suitable in both clinical and research settings.

This course instructs students in the osteological methods used to interpret the life course of past populations, and the theory underlying these analyses. We will explore how skeletal analyses are employed to interpret group identity and behaviour using a biocultural approach and will address ethical issues pertaining to human remains, including the goals of descendant populations. The theoretical underpinnings of osteobiographical analyses, biological distance studies, paleopathology, and paleodemography will be outlined. Students will observe human morphological skeletal variation as a result of taphonomic processes, sex, age, pathological conditions, and non-metric variance.

Infection is situated at the intersection of social and biological experience. This course examines why infectious disease occupies such a central position in our contemporary understanding of health. It examines the many theoretical and methodological approaches currently used to understand how humans experience infectious illness. Perspectives from bioarchaeology, demography, environmental anthropology, medical history, biocultural anthropology, and medical anthropology are used to examine the way epidemics and infections have been understood throughout human history and how those understandings continue to shape human perceptions of risk, the body and identity. Social inequality is a major focus of inquiry; the course explores how colonialism, globalization and injustice lead to significant and persistent health inequalities for many populations.