Introduction
Welcome to An Introduction to Anthropology: The Biological and Cultural Evolution of Humans! This book was created as a means to provide an Open Educational Resource (OER) for University of Nebraska-Lincoln students enrolled in ANTH 110: Introduction to Anthropology. The book was inspired by the OERs Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd edition, created by the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges. Inspiration also comes from Dr. Michael Wesch and his OER text, The Art of Being Human: An Invitation to Anthropology. This book combines the authors’ respective specializations in forensic, archaeological, and cultural/medical anthropology, as well as uses examples from our research and lives. Funding for this work was provided by the Open Educational Resource Seed Grant from the Center for Transformative Teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
About the Authors:
Dr. William Belcher
I (Bill Belcher) was born into a military family at Madigan General Hospital on Fort Lewis, Washington. After moving around to several areas, including Texas and Hawaii, our family settled on a small, subsistence-style farm in southwestern Washington State. After graduating from Tumwater High School, I went to Western Washington University where I began studies in computer science, physics, and mathematics. However, while taking a class in Introduction to Archaeology and Anthropology, I got hooked in applying scientific and mathematical aspects to this new field of study (at least it was new to me!). I had always watched several TV shows on Marmes Rockshelter in eastern Washington and the Ozette Village site on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. I was fascinated by ancient peoples and related many of the skills I learned in Scouting to these archaeological sites. Also, I think that working and growing up on a subsistence farm gave me a unique perspective in subsistence practices, including farming, animal husbandry and butchery, and fishing at the local Black Creek. Later my sophomore year at Western, I attended a field school at the C.W. Cooper site in west-central Illinois under the auspices of Larry Conrad and Duane Esarey of Western Illinois University. After graduating I went to University of Maine to work on a Master’s degree in Quaternary Studies, where I completed a multidisciplinary program focused on climate reconstruction and archaeology. My thesis was focused on the subsistence and seasonality of the Knox Site in East Penobscot Bay, Maine where much of the work focused on the analysis of fish remains. Finally, I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I had an opportunity to work on one of the earliest civilizations on our planet, the Indus Valley Civilization (or Tradition). My research focused on the reconstruction of fishing at 5 different archaeological sites in Pakistan and conducting an ethnoarchaeological project to understanding traditional fisheries procurement and butchery. Due to my experience doing archaeology outside the United States as well as training in human and non-human animal remains, I gained a position as a staff anthropologist and archaeologist with the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii (the pre-cursor of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency). Twenty-one years later, in 2019, I retired as the Deputy Laboratory Director and began a position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dr. Phil Geib
Dr. Geib is an archaeologist who received his M.A. in Anthropology from Northern Arizona University and his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. His research interests include: Hunter-gatherers, Transition to Agriculture, North American Southwest & Great Basin, Prehistoric Technology, Cooperation & Warfare.
Dr. Taylor Livingston
Taylor Livingston, PhD, IBCLC is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in Anthropology and Director of the College of Arts and Sciences Inquire Program. She is a cultural and medical anthropologist and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). Her research examines how social support networks, cultural meanings of motherhood, political frameworks and policies, and current and historical views of the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomics in the US, particularly the American South, shape health behaviors and decisions. Her research interests include: breastfeeding and lactation, Critical Medical Anthropology, Applied Anthropology, health inequities, perinatal health outcomes, anthropology of the US South, biocultural perspectives on maternal and child health, women’s health, and intersectional feminism. Her interdisciplinary, applied work bridges anthropology, biomedicine, and public health. She conducts community-based participatory research using both ethnographic and mixed methods.
Dr. Tim Sefczek
Dr. Tim Sefczek is a lecturer at University of Nebraska. After finishing his undergraduate degree at University of Vermont in Wildlife Biology, Tim switched tracks to studying anthropology. He received his MA from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. His research interests are focused on primate behavior and morphology, with a special focus on aye-ayes, a nocturnal lemur from Madagascar.
Dr. LuAnn Wandsnider
I (LuAnn Wandsnider) grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee, which, at that time in the 1960s, was still being developed. As a child, I would snag my younger brother for the day and off we would go to explore drainages and fields and bits of woods, making maps as we went. On days not spent exploring, we would lounge in the pit structure we had created, roofing it with sticks and tall grass and stocking it with currants, gooseberries, and apples. And, we would plan campaigns against the other gang who roamed the neighborhood, establishing forts from which to mount offensives for territory. I was mesmerized by all things “primitive.” Until I got to college, I did not know that I could turn my childhood passions into a career. I happened upon Anthropology after trying various forms of Engineering. I had taken a Prehistory of North America class with Alice Kehoe at Marquette University as part of my Engineering breadth requirements and had done well, especially relishing research on the nearby Mississippian archaeological site of Aztalan. After I started getting Ds in my Engineering classes, I knew it was time to make a change. Now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I accompanied a friend to her Linguistics class and was hooked. Somehow, someway, I was going to be an anthropologist and an archaeologist.
I became a trained archaeologist and methodologist. I have researched how archaeologists interpret time–averaged assemblages. This project led me to attempt to develop exemplars of how longer-term social processes unfold, so as to probe the conditions under which material expressions for these processes become archaeologically visible. In this light, I have assembled geospatially linked historical documents to create a laboratory for late 19th C Custer County, Nebraska.
