Faculty of Arts

Department of Anthropology

Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity that addresses human issues from cultural and biological perspectives. The Department of Anthropology is committed to community engagement and research on the rich, diverse and multifaceted ways of being human. We seek to build understanding across the differences that separate us in an effort to find more equitable and respectful ways to address the most challenging issues of our time.

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Students working in Anthropology lab examining artifacts.

Programs of study

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What is Anthropology all about?

Learn about what to expect in your first year of study, typical courses and career opportunities.

One-page printable overview (PDF)

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Archaeological field schools

Some summers, the Department of Anthropology offers ANTH 3910: Archaeological Field School, giving students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience excavating and analyzing artifacts at a local site.

In the past, our students have uncovered artifacts at significant archaeological sites around Winnipeg, including the Seven Oaks House Museum, Lockport and Upper Fort Garry.

Check back here to see if the course will be offered for the coming year.

Student resources and opportunities

Anthropology Students' Association (UMASA)

UMASA presents talks to explore research, graduate studies and careers. Membership is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. They also offer fun events to help students connect. 

Follow UMASA on Instagram

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Explore your career options in Anthropology

Employers are interested in the skills that anthropology majors tend to possess. These may include:

  • knowledge about biological, ecological, and cultural factors that influence human behavior
  • theoretical approaches and practical methods for enhancing cross-cultural understanding
  • knowledge of a variety of ethnic groups and cultures
  • skills in social research, qualitative interviewing and fieldwork, as well as quantitative methods
  • a basic understanding of human evolution and genetics
  • experience in writing both descriptive reports and analytical papers
  • the ability to analyze the root causes of social problems, and to work towards solutions with people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds

Plan your university journey. Get the information you need for academic planning and connect with experiences to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes that employers are seeking. 

View the Anthropology Career Compass

Undergraduate research awards (URA)

Undergraduate students have the opportunity to work with our leading faculty researchers and gain valuable experience.

Learn more and apply for a UM URA

You may also want

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Become a graduate student in Anthropology at UM

Together, the students, faculty and staff of the Department of Anthropology have developed an outstanding learning and research environment.

Once you decide on an area of specialization for graduate studies, it is a good idea to contact a professor or two with whom you might like to work both to introduce yourself and to ask for more information about their interests and research.

Learn more about being an anthropology graduate student at UM

Research

Our department makes use of diverse resources across the university to address a range of research questions and stimulate disciplinary and interdisciplinary research that provides unique opportunities for our students.

  • Headshot of Chenée Merchant standing in front of a white wall.

Telling the stories in our bones

When a loved one goes missing, the search for closure can last a lifetime. Currently the RCMP have more than 700 unidentified human remains in their national database with no way to link these victims with their grieving families. Forensic researchers like UM master’s student Chenée Merchant, seek to find new answers hidden in our bones. Her research explores new methods for identifying key features of the skull which could hold important clues to our ancestry.

In 2022, Merchant's research was recognized as a Top 25 national finalist in the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Storytellers Challenge.

Watch Chenée Merchant's video entry

  • PhD alumni Jose Sanchez standing in front of a wall of green shrubs.

When old bones are young

Jose Sanchez's PhD dissertation makes a novel and innovative contribution to anthropology and the forensic sciences. Jose wanted to explore how to determine gender from a detailed examination of child and adolescent skeletal remains by finding a reliable method of determining at what age visible and measurable sex differences in the pelvis begin to appear and stabilize throughout childhood and adolescence.

His research resulted in a University of Manitoba Distinguished Dissertation Award. The awards are given to graduating doctoral students who have been nominated by their faculty/college/school for a dissertation that represents a ground-breaking piece of original work. Awardees receive a $3,000 prize.

Read more on Jose Sanchez's 2022 award winning dissertation 

Our facilities

Archaeological

The archaeological collections housed in Anthropology include sites that represent the cultural and technological diversity of people who’ve lived in Manitoba over the past 10,000 years. Our department houses significant archaeological collections from southwestern Manitoba, the Winnipeg Region, Manitoba’s Boreal Forest and the coast of Hudson Bay.

Bioanthropological

State of the art image technology brings great potential to the study of physical anthropology and archaeology. The Bioanthropology Digital Image Analysis Laboratory (BDIAL) was established to integrate 2D and 3D digital imaging techniques for advanced visualization, modeling and interpretation of anthropological data. BDIAL combines bioarchaeological analysis with thin sectioning, digital microscopy and radiology, 3D scanning and rapid prototyping.

Paleobotanical

Our paleobotanical research facilities consist of a laboratory for extraction of pollen and phytoliths and a comparative collection of pollen, seeds, wood and charcoal which comprise the The C.T. Shay Archaeobotanical Collection. The extensive comparative collection focuses on plant species from the northeastern Great Plains, the Aspen Parkland and the southern Boreal Forest. The Shay Collection also houses microscopes for examination of botanical remains.

Zooarchaeological

Our zooarchaeological facilities include an extensive comparative collection of land and sea mammals, birds, fish and invertebrates and two fume hoods for preparing comparative specimens. The comparative collection houses species local to Manitoba, as well as the Pacific Northwest, Europe and West Asia.

Thin-Section

Our thin-section facility contains equipment for thin-sectioning shells, teeth, bones and ceramics. The equipment enables researchers to embed samples in resin (with or without vacuum impregnation), cut and polish sections, mount sections for thin-sectioning, cut thin-sections and polish thin-sections. Equipment for advanced microscopic analysis of thin sections is available in an adjoining dry lab.

Research highlights

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Warren Clarke

As a Black male of Barbadian heritage, Dr. Warren Clarke examines youth cultures, social citizenship, neoliberalism, gentrification, race & ethnicity, anti-colonialism and masculinity.
Kent Fowler.

Kent D. Fowler

Dr. Fowler’s research focuses on the development and collapse of complex societies using a variety of evidence for the organization of past economies. He directs a project examining the political economy of the Zulu Kingdom in South Africa and the Ancient Prints Project, which uses finger and palm prints on artifacts to understand age, sex, gender and labor organization in past societies.
Julia Gamble.

Julia Gamble

Dr. Gamble is a bioarchaeologist and dental anthropologist who investigates past health using a life course approach. This investigation integrates microscopy and virtual recording of teeth to document stress, and skeletal analysis for palaeodemography, patterns of skeletal growth and palaeopathology. Dr. Gamble is also interested in understanding diverse aspects of population health and demography through methodologies that include ancient DNA analysis and proteomics. Current research includes work on medieval populations from Austria and Denmark.
Lara Rosenhoff Gauvin.

Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Dr. Rosenoff Gauvin's research continues collaboration with one extended family (clan) in Acoliland, Northern Uganda. Examining community initiatives, concerns and discourse, she will create a public oral history (with radio broadcasts) on land in the post-conflict and post-displacement context. Building on previous work on Acoli indigenous governance, and more broadly, Acoli indigenous knowledge as social repair, she is interested in conceptions around land, and people-land relationships after the recent period of prolonged displacement and violence.
Man with scarf and blazer standing in front of a research poster.

Haskel Greenfield

Early urban neighbourhoods in the southern Levant – excavation of EBA Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel. Productive intensification and the spread of animal secondary products in the Old World. The origins and spread of metallurgy in the Old World: analysis of butchering marks on Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age animal bones from archaeological sites in Europe and Asia. Pleistocene butchering patterns from North America and Europe: analysis of megafaunal remains (mammoth and giant ground sloth remains from Wisconsin, Ohio and Poland). Non-elite urban subsistence systems in the Early Bronze Age of the Near East (Israel and Turkey). Urban household subsistence and taphonomy in the southern Levant: analysis of zooarchaeological remains from Tel es-Safi (ancient Gath), Israel.
Rob Hoppa.

Rob Hoppa

Dr. Hoppa's research has broadly focused on issues of health and well-being in past populations. His primary area of research is in human osteology and more specifically the skeletal biology of past peoples. This research seeks to answer questions regarding the relationships between health and mortality, and changing social, economic and cultural conditions. His research is strongly anchored in the biocultural tradition that recognizes the complex interaction of biological and social factors related to health and disease in populations.
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Derek Johnson

Derek Johnson’s research is at the intersection of development, environmental and economic anthropology, political ecology, and wellbeing. He has long been interested in how power suffuses efforts to manage human-environment relations, particularly in the context small-scale fisheries in Asia and Canada. In recent years, he has been engaged in several transdisciplinary collaborations on food, including millets, maize, and fish. Dr. Johnson leads the SSHRC funded International Partnership Dried Fish Matters.
www.driedfishmatters.org
Laura Kelvin.

Laura Kelvin

Laura Kelvin's research focuses on community-based archaeology, northern archaeology, unsettling/decolonizing methodologies, oral histories, digital archaeology, non-invasive archaeology, knowledge production.
Fabiana Li.

Fabiana Li

Dr. Fabiana Li’s research and teaching explores the intersections between food, culture, environment and social justice, with a focus on Latin America. Her work examines conflicts over resource extraction and the production of knowledge in controversies over pollution, water, agriculture, community rights and corporate accountability.
Man speaking into a microphone waving hand animatedly.
Kent Fowler.
Julia Gamble.
Lara Rosenhoff Gauvin.
Man with scarf and blazer standing in front of a research poster.
Rob Hoppa.
Headshot of man smiling.
Laura Kelvin.
Fabiana Li.

News and events

Each year the Department of Anthropology hosts a variety of public lectures and other events.

Check back here for updates. 

 

New publication

  • Evolution of immune genes is associated with the Black Death

    Nature
    October 2022

    Dr. Julia Gamble, along with a number of international collaborators, has recently published an article in "Nature".

    Infectious diseases are among the strongest selective pressures driving human evolution. This includes the single greatest mortality event in recorded history, the first outbreak of the second pandemic of plague, commonly called the Black Death. To identify loci that may have been under selection during the Black Death, we characterized genetic variation around immune-related genes from 206 ancient DNA extracts, stemming from two different European populations before, during and after the Black Death. The research provides empirical evidence for the role played by past pandemics in shaping present-day susceptibility to disease.

    Read the full article

  • A collage of four images including an ancient gravesite, a map and two graphs.

Contact us

Department of Anthropology
432 Fletcher Argue Building
15 Chancellor Circle
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada

anthro@umanitoba.ca
204-474-9361
204-474-7600