We focus on the prehistoric archaeology of the Old World and provide students with the theoretical, methodological, and practical tools to address critical questions of ancient human behavior and evolution.

Our geographical foci include Africa (McBrearty), the Near East (Munro, Smith), and Eurasia (Adler, Munro), and the temporal context of our research spans the Pleistocene (McBrearty, Adler, Munro), the early Holocene (Munro), and the mid-Holocene (Smith).

We offer practical training in Zooarchaeology (Munro), Archaeobotany (Smith), Lithic Technology (McBrearty, Adler), the Human Fossil Record (McBrearty), Human Osteology (McBrearty), Geoarchaeology (McBrearty, Adler), Taphonomy (Munro, McBrearty), and Quantitative Methods (Adler)

Graduate Program

Some of our integrative research combines archaeobotanical, archaeozoological, and paleontological datasets. 

We occupy a renovated suite of labs in Beach Hall, completed in 2003, and we maintain close ties with the UConn Center for Integrative Geosciences and the Departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB), Molecular & Cell Biology (MCB), and Geography. Igor Ovchinnikov (MCB) and Robert Thorson (Geosciences & EEB) have joint appointments with the Department of Anthropology and provide valuable resources for ancient DNA research and geomorphology.

The UConn Department of Geography provides training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology maintains a new state-of-the-art forensic and ancient DNA facility, the Center for Applied Genetic Technology (CAGT) in Beach Hall, opened in 2004.