Global anthropology research at the University of Alberta

0: It all begins here

This is the Tory building at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Anthropologists in UAlberta's Faculty of Arts teach, write research here, when they're not globetrotting and discovering ancient artifacts, investigating unique cultures or delving deep into languages.

1: Andie Palmer, Waitangi Tribunals

Andie Palmer is in New Zealand, witnessing the Waitangi Tribunals from an anthropological perspective. She is comparing these land claims hearings between the government of New Zealand and the Maori to  First Nations people in B.C. To read an article about her perspective, click here.

2: Pamela Willoughby, ancient human remains

Pamela Willoughby recently discovered early modern human teeth that might be more than 200,000 years old; if so, these would be among the world’s oldest modern (=Homo sapiens) remains. To read more about Pamela’s research, click here.

3: Andrzej Weber, Baikal-Hokkaido Archaeology Project

The Baikal-Hokkaido Archaeology Project (BHAP) is an international and multi-disciplinary team of scholars investigating Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer culture dynamics in two regions of the world:  the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, Russia and Hokkaido, Japan. Andrzej is the project director. To read all about it, click here.



Other UAlberta faculty involved in this project include:
Fiona Bamforth
Andrew Bush
Robert Losey
*There are also several graduate and undergraduate students at UAlberta involved in this project.

MacEwan University researchers involved in this project include:
Hugh McKenzie

4: Andrzej Weber, Baikal-Hokkaido Archaeology Project

The Baikal-Hokkaido Archaeology Project (BHAP) is an international and multi-disciplinary team of scholars investigating Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer culture dynamics in two regions of the world:  the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, Russia and Hokkaido, Japan. Andrzej is the project director. To read all about it, click here.



Other UAlberta faculty involved in this project include:
Fiona Bamforth
Andrew Bush
Robert Losey
*There are also several graduate and undergraduate students at UAlberta involved in this project.

MacEwan University researchers involved in this project include:
Hugh McKenzie

5: Gregory Forth: "Hobbit" humans

Greg Forth studies pygmy humans, also nicknamed “hobbit” humans, on the island of Flores. He examines local peoples’ attitudes towards these mini-humans and their presence in folklore. To read more about these extinct species of human, click here. To read more about Greg's research, click here.

6: Mark Nuttall, anthropology of resources and climate change

Mark Nuttall conducts research in Greenland, as well as Northwest Canada, Finland, Scotland and Alaska. His current research projects include political identities, nation-building and resources in Greenland; the political ecology of climate change in Greenland; the historical anthropology and political ecology of resource development in northwest Canada; the nature of ferocity and images of landscape and wilderness in North America, Scandinavia, and Finland. Ongoing work explores anthropology’s engagement with climate change, the cultural and political responses to climate change, and the negotiation and management of both shifting geographical terrains and climate policy processes.

Mark is also involved in UAlberta's water research initiatives.

7: Jack Ives, Indigenous artifacts

Jack Ives has found moccasins and fabrics very well intact in Utah because of the dry climate; he does research and archaeological work in the Promontory caves in Utah.

This work that he collaborates on with other anthropologists is part of the Institute of Prairie Archaeology. The Institute, based out of UAlberta, is meant to "enhance public, First Nations and rural engagement with the University of Alberta in these research areas, and particularly, to provide leadership in the training of archaeologists through field schools and other professional work."

8: Jack Ives, Indigenous artifacts

As part of his research, Jack Ives holds field schools in Alberta to educate students about prairie archaeology.

This work that he collaborates on with other anthropologists is part of the Institute of Prairie Archaeology. The Institute, based out of UAlberta, is meant to "enhance public, First Nations and rural engagement with the University of Alberta in these research areas, and particularly, to provide leadership in the training of archaeologists through field schools and other professional work."

9: Robert Losey, "dog archaeology"

Robert Losey's primary research interests are in human-animal relationships, both in the present and in the far distant past. Dr. Losey’s specialization is zooarchaeology, which involves the study of animal remains from archaeological contexts. Most of Dr. Losey’s current fieldwork is conducted in Siberia.

Much of Dr. Losey’s present research time is dedicated to the study of humans’ relationships with dogs as evidenced in the archaeological record of Eastern Russia. For example, in his fieldwork in this region, Dr. Losey has shown that some hunting and gathering groups occasionally buried their dogs within human cemeteries, often in graves just as elaborate as those containing humans. To read more about this, click here.

10: Sandra Garvie-Lok, diets of medieval Greeks

Sandra Garvie-Lok is studying the diets of medieval Greeks from the Ottoman control era through skeletal biology; she studies bone chemistry from cemeteries in Greece as a way to learn what medieval Greeks ate.

Her research led her to study a vampire, so to speak. Read the full story. 

11: Lesley Harrington, small humans

Lesley Harrington studies early post-glacial Holocene South Africa and researches the small body size of humans found there, why they  might be small and who they might be related to. Read more about her research.

12: Pamela Mayne Correia, forensic anthropology

Pamela Mayne Correia is a forensic anthropologist and helps Edmonton police examine remains for identification and evidence purposes.

13: Jean DeBernardi, food rituals

Jean DeBernardi researches food and ritual behaviours, including tea ceremonies, in China and Singapore. Read more about her here.

14: Marko Zivkovic, post-communist Serbia

Marko Zivkovic studies the post-communist society in Serbia, including art and design components. He takes a psychological perspective in his anthropological research. He also researches the cultural aspect of science. Read more about his art and design related collaboration.

15: Helen Vallianatos, health and healing

Helen Vallianatos studies health and healing in India, especially concerning Indian women. She also examines what happens when they immigrate to Canada and change their diets. She also works within the School of Public Health at UAlberta on these issues. Read more about her research.

16: Kathleen Lowrey

Kathleen Lowrey has carried out ethnographic fieldwork with Guaraní speaking communities in the South American Gran Chaco region since 1997.

17: Joseph Hill, Sufi profets

Since 2001, Joseph Hill has focused on global Sufi Islamic movement, the Faydah Tijaniyyah, examining how discourses and practices of mystical knowledge and authority not only accommodate contradictions and paradox but productively highlight them. In looking at these questions, he draws especially on linguistic and semiotic theories of multiplicity and simultaneity. Read more about his research.