OU Department of Anthropology

Archaeology

Current Faculty Research Projects

Early social stratification at Casas Grandes, northern Mexico; ecological anthropology paleoethnobotany (Minnis).
Mobility, subsistence, and territoriality of Paleo Indian and Archaic hunters of the Plains; faunal analysis (Bement).
Village life, architecture, mobility, agricultural dependence, and identity in Mimbres and southeastern Arizona (Gilman).
Pre-Clovis sites and environments; Oklahoma archaeology, lithic technology, hunter-gatherers (Wyckoff).
Proto-historic and prehistoric farmers in the southern Plains; ecological anthropology, trade (Vehik).
Prehistoric village agriculturalists in the Southern Plains; cultural resource management, public education (Brooks).
Early Spanish-Native contact at the Berry site in North Carolina; Mississippian Southeast; Formative Andes; colonialism; agency; social change and organization (Beck).
Social and political change in the late prehistoric southeast; origins of social inequality, complex societies, ceramics, computer and quantitative methods in archaeology (Livingood).
Social organization and labor mobilization of Mississippian societies; Caddo archaeology in eastern Oklahoma; experimental archaeology; ceramics (Hammerstedt)
Caddoan societies of the Red River Valley in Oklahoma; Mississippian/Protohistoric transition in the Southeast; ceramic analysis; multivariate statistical analysis (Regnier)

Research Facilities

Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum Natural History—includes Woodland mound sites and Plains materials
Oklahoma Archeological Survey
Oklahoma Historical Society

Program Requirements

We expect that a graduate student focusing in archaeology will have had an archaeological field school or the equivalent in field training before matriculation.

The Ph.D. program requirements include 60 hours of course work beyond the Master's, including four core courses, the advanced archaeological theory class, and the research design class, and 30 hours of dissertation research, a general exam, and a dissertation. Students who have obtained an M.A. degree in anthropology elsewhere must complete 60 credit hours, including 30 dissertation hours, a general exam, and a dissertation.

The M.A. program requires 30 hours of coursework, including four core courses, and four hours of thesis credit. A thesis is required. Faculty focus on the Greater Southwest, the Plains, and the Southeast, as well as cultural evolution, cultural ecology, ideology, and inequality. Students may participate in the many field research opportunities with faculty members. Faculty also provide specialized training in the analysis of various artifacts such as architecture ceramics, lithics, faunal materials, and paleoethnobotany.

Faculty

Dr. Robin Beck
Dr. Lee Bement
Dr. Robert Brooks
Dr. Patricia Gilman

Dr. Patrick Livingood
Dr. Paul Minnis
Dr. Susan Vehik
Dr. Don Wyckoff