Department of Anthropology Originally Posted: May 15, 2020 The Department of Anthropology congratulates the class of 2020 with video messages from the Department Chair, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Graduate Studies and the Co-Director of Health and Society. Click the link below to watch the videos and download the graduation presentation: https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Academics/Departments/Anthropology/About/Graduation
Digital Trends Originally Posted: March 1, 2020 Sometimes, location is everything. When Dr. Eric Bing started working at Dallas’ Southern Methodist University (SMU), the person in the office next to his would give him a new perspective on how virtual reality can be instrumental in teaching medical students. SMU happens to have one of the world’s best graduate schools for video game design and Bing’s office neighbor, Professor Anthony Cuevas, helps create the curriculum for it. Surgery and first person shooters may seem worlds apart, but over the course of several months, the professors’ neighborly chitchat gave rise to a low-cost VR training system that can be implemented in locations where medical schools are limited, such as sub-saharan Africa. READ MORE
Nature Originally Posted: Jan. 23, 2020 Ann Horsburgh, a molecular anthropologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, says the study adds little to our understanding of African prehistory. READ MORE The ancient-genomics revolution is finally reaching the cradle of humanity: Africa. Researchers have sequenced the genomes of four children who lived in what is now Cameroon several thousand years ago. Their genomes — the first to be collected from any ancient human in West Africa — raise questions about the origins of a migration that carried languages and agriculture across the continent, and hint at older events in human history, such as the emergence of Homo sapiens and its spread out of Africa. But the findings underscore the yawning gap in scientists’ understanding of African population [...]
SMU News Being the first to go to college can be hard. SMU senior, Kaityln, shares her TOP TEN TIPS to help you through the experience. Watch
SMU News Originally Posted: December 9, 2019 The daughter of a single mom who worked two jobs to support her family, Kaitlyn Contreras was determined to attend college. “I knew I wanted to go to college; I just didn’t know how,” she says. “But I followed the advice of my grandmother. She never went to school and never learned to read or write, but she taught me to always ask questions.” As an eighth-grader, Kaitlyn began asking questions, seeking a more challenging high school than the one in her neighborhood. What Kaitlyn couldn’t know then was that asking questions would open the door to unique opportunities. READ MORE
D Magazine Originally Posted: Nov. 12, 2019 Remember Sunday Eiselt from our 2017 profile of her? She’s a former Marine, archaeologist, professor, and director of SMU’s Archaeological Research Collections (ARC). She’s also our best chance of saving some of North Texas’ oldest, most important history. Last week I met up with her to tour the ARC facilities, located in Heroy Hall. It’s been a little over two years since our initial interview, and in that amount of time she’s managed an amazing transformation of the three rooms that comprise ARC. What follows is an update, including before-and-after photos. But prior to getting there, give the photo above a look. That’s Eiselt in one of the rooms surrounded by musty brown boxes, each packed to capacity [...]
Science Magazine Originally Posted: August 30, 2019 About 16,000 years ago, on the banks of a river in western Idaho, people kindled fires, shaped stone blades and spearpoints, and butchered large mammals. All were routine activities in prehistory, but their legacy today is anything but. The charcoal and bone left at that ancient site, now called Cooper’s Ferry, are some 16,000 years old—the oldest radiocarbon-dated record of human presence in North America, according to work reported this week in Science. The findings do more than add a few centuries to the timeline of people in the Americas. They also shore up a new picture of how humans first arrived, by showing that people lived at Cooper’s Ferry more than 1 millennium before melting glaciers opened an [...]
Eureka Alert Originally Posted: August 29, 2019 DALLAS (SMU) - Humans started making an impact on the global ecosystem through intensive farming much earlier than previously estimated, according to a new study published in the journal Science. Evidence of the earliest domesticated plants and animals dates back to around 10,000 years ago. But findings from a team of more than 250 archeologists, including two from SMU (Southern Methodist University), show that by 3,000 years ago our ancestors had dramatically changed the world to grow food. "Our study shows in detail the progression from the origins of agriculture to its spread around the world," said SMU anthropologist Mark D. McCoy. "It turns out that earth science models are probably too conservative, and intensive reshaping of the environment [...]
Event date: 9/4/2019, Time: 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM (CT) Contact: Tiffany Powell The Department of Anthropology and the Boshell Family Foundation are pleased to present Dr. Stephen E. Nash, Director of Anthropology and Senior Curator of Archaeology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. His talk,Stories, Souls, and Silhouettes: A Fantastic Journey through Southwestern Archaeology, discusses the rich tapestry of Southwestern Archaeology. In this lavishly illustrated and humorous lecture, Dr. Nash will take you on a historically-grounded and fascinating journey through the history of Southwestern (and by extension North American) archaeology. All the while, he will keep a firm anthropological eye on what it means to be an archaeologist and student today. Colorful personalities, challenging and changing socioeconomic and political contexts, occasionally bizarre behavior, [...]