• Interdisciplinary Research

    Disentangling long-term cultural and historical processes using a comparative approach spanning space and time

  • Regional Focus

    The program draws its strengths from active research programs driven by anthropological issues in the Pacific Rim

  • Research

    Monumental pillars, ancient city of Sisupalgarh, India

  • Research

    Population mobility in the American Southwest

  • RESEARCH

    Indigenous responses to colonialism

  • RESEARCH

    Archaeology of Danish slavery in the Virgin Islands.

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Anthropological Archaeology at UCLA-Anthropology

Anthropological archaeology investigates the essential long-term cultural and historical processes of our contemporary world, using a comparative approach spanning space and time. Current research by UCLA archaeologists examines economic networks and production, urbanism, human-environment interactions, colonialism, and the origins of social inequality and complex political systems. Our faculty and students conduct research and collaborate with scholars from around the world, including in Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Our research is distinguished by its multiscalar approach and analyzes how human and environmental systems operate at scales ranging from individual actions to global networks.

UCLA archaeology is facilitating the redefinition of archaeological research to include a strong focus on the meaning of cultural heritage as a component of identity in the present. We are at the forefront of what we describe as engaged archaeology, where descendant communities, Indigenous groups, and other stakeholders are involved in our work. Archaeologists at UCLA are also leading the way in using archaeology to address and mitigate issues of social justice and inequality, using our research findings to highlight the diverse experiences of human communities within a variety of cultural and physical landscapes.

Our methods are diverse, spanning techniques drawn from the geological, biological, and physical sciences to frameworks for interpreting material and visual culture deriving from a range of disciplines. We are passionate about addressing cultural and environmental change, social and political tension, economic challenges, population growth and migration, conflict, and ultimately the strategies that permit peaceful human cooperation. We work closely with colleagues in other departments and schools at UCLA – ranging from psychology, urban geography, and sociology to mathematics, design, and education. Our archaeology faculty and students are affiliated with the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, which serves as a forum for interaction with archaeologists outside of anthropology and provides a dialogue among archaeological disciplines that is unique within the United States.