Cultural Evolution

The Department of Anthropology at the University of Iowa has long-standing expertise in the archaeological study of cultural evolution from diverse theoretical perspectives. Faculty members in archaeology study social political, and economic structures in the contexts of Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies in Europe, Puebloan agricultural societies of the American Southwest, chiefdom-level societies of Neolithic and Bronze Age Iberia, state-level societies in the Basin of Mexico, and Classical Roman and Greek civilizations in mediterranean and northern Europe. Graduate students in recent years have conducted research on such topics as Early Stone Age tool technology and subsistence in Botswana, Middle and Late Formative societies on the Mexican gulf coast, World System Theory in Mesoamerica, ethnobotany and zooarchaeology of the Middle to Late Woodland in Iowa, settlement patterns in the Caribbean, Roman frontier economy and Roman urban faunal exploitation, both in the Netherlands, and health, subsistence, and funerary behavior in Neolithic Greece.

Faculty with Current or Recent Research Projects in Cultural Evolution

Thomas H. Charlton
James G. Enloe
Katina Lillios
Glenn Storey

Current and Recent Graduate Students Conducting Research in Cultural Evolution

Margaret C. Bradford -“Caribbean Perspectives on Settlement Patterrns: The Winward Island Study” Ph.D. 2001

Erik Filean-“Domestic Cattle and Political-Economic Change in the Roman-Period Lower Rhineland:The Civitas Batavorum” Ph.D. 2006. Supported by a Wenner-Gren Foundation Individual Research Grant.

Margot Neverett -“A Zooarchaeological Analysis of the Middle to Late Woodland Transition at the Gast Farm Site (13LA12) in Southeastern Iowa” Ph.D. 2001

Grant McCall-“The Lithics of Tsoaba: Breaking Down Assumptions Concerning Early Hominid Behavior” M.A. 2003

Grant McCall – “Lower Paleolithic Lithic Technology and early hominid behavior in Africa”, Ph.D. 2006

Anastasia Papathanasiou - “A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Health, Subsistence, and Funerary Behavior in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin: A Case Study from Alepotrypa Cave, Greece” Ph.D. 1999

Megan Pfaff – “Precapitalist World-Systems Theory in Archaeology: A Mesoamerican Perspective”, M.A. 2003

William Whittaker “Zooarchaeological Analysis of the Roman Frontier Economy in the Eastern Netherlands” Ph.D. 2002 National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences