SDSU Department of Anthropology

Keep swiping for some photos of the anthropology commencement reception! Congratulations to our graduates and thank you to the family, friends, and past graduates who came to celebrate.

Anthropology and friends had a great showing at the Digital Humanities Showcase! This event keeps growing every year.

Last week, Dr. Riley won the 2026 Faculty Global Engagement Award for Outstanding Global Research, Teaching, and Creativity with her collaborative work on the moor macaques of Sulawesi! She gave a quick talk about how researches the interactions between humans and other primates for conservation.

The Department of Anthropology presents what is sure to be an engaging talk by Dawn Mulhern, Ph.D. titled Forensic Anthropology in Rural Landscapes. The talk is on Thursday, April 16th at 2pm in 201 Ellen Ochoa Pavillion. See more info below and see you there!

“What happens when human remains are discovered in the mountains and canyons of the Four Corners Region? In rural areas, biological anthropologists are often the first people investigators call when remains are found, whether they are from a thousand years ago or last month. Interpreting the context, recovering and analyzing human remains, and serving as a liaison among relevant agencies may all be part of the role of an anthropologist. For over twenty years, Dr. Dawn Mulhern of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado has worked with local law enforcement, state and federal agencies, and tribal partners to solve cases involving decomposed or skeletonized remains. In this talk, Dr. Mulhern will share some of her most fascinating cases, the unique challenges of doing forensic work in rural landscapes, and what it’s like to serve on the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT)-a group deployed to help after mass fatality events.”

We had an amazing time at Explore SDSU! It was great to meet so many future anthropology majors and minors. Thank you to all of the students and faculty who shared our passion for anthropology at our table, info session, and lab tour.

Next Tuesday, come to a great talk on capuchin research by Dr. Katharine Jack from Tulane! It is on Tuesday, April 14, 2026 from 4:00 - 5:30 pm in Storm Hall 231.

“In this talk, Dr. Katharine Jack draws on nearly three decades of longitudinal fieldwork on a population of wild white-faced capuchins (Cebus imitator) in Costa Rica, demonstrating the utility of long-term studies as a powerful research methodology. Beginning with a simple question, “why do presumably unrelated males cooperate?”, she traces how following the fates of dispersing males transformed our understanding of capuchin social structure, and how each answer uncovered a deeper set of questions about when, how, and why some males become alphas and others do not. Drawing on an ever-expanding toolkit of behavioral, genetic, hormonal, and demographic data, she maps the arc of a research program that has grown from its earliest questions about male cooperation to investigating the chemical signatures of dominance, reflecting along the way on the remarkable and sometimes startling things (lethal aggression and cannibalism!) only long-term study can reveal.”

We’re excited to share a new open-access publication by Dr. Isaac Ullah (Professor of Anthropology, SDSU) in Advances in Archaeological Practice:

Sampling Matters: What Simulation Modeling and Microrefuse Sampling Practice Reveal about Archaeological Sampling, Training, and Design

This article examines how archaeologists design sampling strategies and tests those practices using 22,000 simulation experiments.

The key takeaway is that random sampling consistently performs best, but is almost never used in practice.

The paper also introduces tASEL (the Archaeological Sampling Experiment Laboratory), an open-source tool designed to:
- test sampling strategies before fieldwork
- evaluate tradeoffs between effort and accuracy
- support teaching and training in archaeological methods

The article includes ready-to-use teaching exercises and a field-planning workflow, making it directly applicable for both classroom and professional contexts.

📖 Read the full article here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-archaeological-practice/article/sampling-matters-what-simulation-modeling-and-microrefuse-sampling-practice-reveal-about-archaeological-sampling-training-and-design/7DAB02D2650D5E86DACCC3B1CA9BC18D

Congratulations to Dr. Ullah on this contribution to archaeological practice and methodology!

Sampling Matters: What Simulation Modeling and Microrefuse Sampling Practice Reveal about Archaeological Sampling, Training, and Design | Advances in Archaeological Practice | Cambridge Core Sampling Matters: What Simulation Modeling and Microrefuse Sampling Practice Reveal about Archaeological Sampling, Training, and Design