Welcome to the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University. Our program engages the breadth of the discipline, spanning the social sciences, natural sciences and the humanities. As one of the largest anthropology programs in the country, our faculty encompasses all of anthropology’s subfields: archaeology, bioanthropology, linguistic anthropology, and social-cultural anthropology.

We are committed to a holistic approach for exploring what it means to be human, including human biology, social and cultural experience, human-environment interactions, linguistic and artistic expression, and evolutionary processes from the deep past to the present. Many of us carry out interdisciplinary research, and collaborate with researchers across Indiana University and around the world. Take a few moments to explore our website, and you will gain a sense of the diversity and strength of our research interests and teaching commitments.

We offer undergraduate and graduate training that prepares students to meet the challenges of our changing world. We encourage critical thinking, effective writing, and development of practical skills that fit individual interests. Our program provides excellent opportunities for students at all levels to conduct hands-on research and study a wide range of topics through coursework, field schools, colloquia, and research projects with faculty and centers across campus.

Students have options to pursue concentrations that cut across the four subfields, including Archaeology and Social Context, the Anthropology of Food, and Paleoanthropology. Each of the special concentrations involve faculty from two or more subfields, and engage with faculty in other departments. Our graduates have found work in business, government, and nonprofit organizations as well as educational institutions.

According to the most recent rankings by the National Research Council (NRC), our graduate program ranks 11th in the country among public universities, and is tied for 17th overall. We offer the 8th largest anthropology faculty in the USA, and the 8th largest graduate program. The American Anthropological Association’s survey of degree programs lists IU Anthropology as 7th for the number of Ph.D.s nationwide in faculty positions, which indicates our success in placing doctoral students. Moreover, IU Anthropology came in 11th in the most recent National Survey of Doctoral Programs for “overall satisfaction.”

Feel free to contact us. We will be happy to answer your questions and share our work.

Andrea Wiley
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology