The UNLV Anthropology Department hosts six archaeologists that offer a wide variety of both undergraduate and graduate courses. The department also includes several functioning laboratories that support faculty research and provides student training. Geographically, archaeological research is carried out in the American Southwest, the Arctic, Central Andes (Peru), Mesoamerica (Maya), and Southwest Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean (Turkey). The archaeological research interests in the department include: archaeological method and theory, ceramic analysis, complex societies, computational methods, environmental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology and experimental studies, forager adaptations, gender and social identity, GIS, historical ecology, household archaeology, lithic technology, mortuary analysis, origins of agriculture, origins of inequalities, paleolithic archaeology, precolonial urbanism, proxemics, queer archaeology, remote sensing, landscape and settlement pattern analysis, technology and production, urbanization, and zooarchaeology.

Labs

Faculty

Archaeological faculty at UNLV includes Liam Frink, Karen Harry, Lisa Johnson, Gabriela Oré Menéndez, and Barbara Roth.

A woman holding up a tray
Liam Frink in the field on a bridge next to a body of water.
Levent Atici standing in front of Kultep-Kanesh
Gabriela Field Pic

Research and Teaching

Active archaeological research is carried out at: the Puebloan Region in Parashant National Monument, Arizona and the lower Moapa Valley, Nevada; the Mimbres Mogollon Region, New Mexico; the Yup’ik Eskimo villages, Alaska; Kaman-Kalehöyük, Kültepe-Kanesh; the Classic Maya city and UNESCO world heritage site, Palenque, Mexico; the Central Andes in Peru and Uğurlu Höyük, Turkey.

Undergraduate and graduate archaeology coursework in the department is informed by the archaeological research done in the field sites in the Americas and the Eastern Mediterranean listed above, as well as in archaeology more broadly, and includes training in archaeological theory, ceramic, lithic, and zooarchaeological analyses, in addition to digital cartography and spatial analysis. Coursework also reflects the topical interests of archaeology faculty, including gender and social identity, historical ecology, household archaeology, mortuary analysis, origins of agriculture, origins of inequalities, paleolithic archaeology, precolonial urbanism, queer archaeology, technology and production, and urbanization.

Archaeological crew researching
Crew working at another dig site.
Two men putting on a demonstration for an audience.
A group of people smiling

Collections

Archaeological collections housed at UNLV in the various labs include:

  • Archaeological materials excavated from Virgin Branch Puebloan sites in southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona.
  • Archaeological materials collected at pithouse and pueblo sites in the Mimbres region of southwestern New Mexico.
  • Zooarchaeological collections include large archaeofaunal assemblages from the following sites: (1) celebrated Bronze Age (3000-2100 BCE) urban center Kültepe-Kanesh, Turkey; (2) Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA; 10th Millennium BCE) complex forager settlement Körtik Tepe, Turkey; and (3) Neolithic and Chalcolithic (ca. 7000-5500 BCE) Seh Gabi, Iran.
  • Archaeological collections from excavations of an ancient Maya neighborhood in Mexico.

To find out more information about the collections at UNLV or to request access to work with a certain collection please contact Dr. Karen Harry (karen.harry@unlv.edu).