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The School of Anthropology admits students to the PhD program in Anthropology and the MA program in Applied Archaeology. Most students admitted to our programs have been in communication with potential advisors prior to submitting their application. Prospective students are therefore strongly encouraged to contact potential advisors via email to share your interests and confirm that they will be accepting students. Faculty expect and welcome this contact.
The School of Anthropology offers one stand-alone Master's degree. This is a Master's in Applied Archaeology. To find out more about this program please visit our website.
All other applicants should apply directly to our PhD program. If you don't have a Master's degree, you will earn one on your way to your PhD. The School of Anthropology offers a general program and special track programs (related to the subdisciplines and concentration areas) leading to the Master's degree. A minimum of 33 units of graduate work is required for a Master's degree.
Requirements for the special track programs are the same as those for the general program plus 3 to 9 additional units, including appropriate internships and practica. A thesis or paper, reporting substantive and original research, is required for the MA. The MA paper or thesis is written with the guidance of a committee of three members of the faculty. The final examination for the Master's degree is an oral examination, administered by the faculty committee. The oral examination is individually scheduled in the candidate's last semester of study for the degree. It is based on the required and elected coursework and the MA project or thesis.
For the MA degree, no more than 6 units of graduate work may be transferred for credit from another institution. The Graduate College requires that the cumulative grade point average for all work taken for graduate credit be at least 3.00 (on a 4.00 scale). There is no foreign language or statistics requirement for the Master's degree in Anthropology.
History - In the Beginning
(Excerpted, condensed, and adapted from Raymond H. Thompson, "Anthropology at the University of Arizona, 1893-2005," Journal of the Southwest, Autumn 2005, 47(3): 327-347)
Anthropology at the University of Arizona began in 1915 with the appointment of Byron Cummings as Professor of Archaeology and Director of the Arizona State Museum. He came to Arizona from his position as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Utah. He had received his B.A. from Rutgers University in 1889 and his M.A. there in 1892. Cummings served Utah as Professor of Greek and Latin, Head of the Department of Archaeology, and for many years as Dean of Men and briefly as Dean of the College of Medicine. He played an important role in the life of the University of Utah, even organizing its first football team the first year he was there. The football stadium at Utah is named Cummings Field in his honor.
The 54-year-old Cummings left Utah after 22 years of distinguished service at the oldest university in the Far West to throw in with one of the newest in the West. In 1915, the University of Arizona community consisted of 70 faculty members and 463 students, and there were 24,045 books in the University Library. Arizona had become a state only three years before and the population of Tucson, still the largest city in Arizona, was about 15,000. When Cummings arrived on campus, University President von KleinSmid took him to an overflowing storage area, opened the door, and said something like, "Here's the museum, go to it!"
Cummings was vigorous in responding and quickly made the University of Arizona a center for archaeology. In 1928, three of his students, Clara Lee Fraps (Tanner), Florence M. Hawley (Ellis), and Emil W. Haury, received the first M.A. degrees in archaeology awarded by the University. They all stayed at Arizona as Instructors in Archaeology with academic-year salaries of $1500. Florence eventually entered graduate study at the University of Chicago where she earned her doctorate in 1934, using her excavations at Chetro Ketl in Chaco Canyon for her dissertation. She obtained a position at the University of New Mexico, where she spent 37 years as an inspiring and beloved teacher and continued an active professional life until her death in 1991 at age 84.
Emil stayed at the University for one year to study dendrochronology with A. E. Douglass and then went to Globe to work with Harold S. Gladwin at the Gila Pueblo Archaeological Foundation. He earned a doctorate under Roland B. Dixon at Harvard University in 1934 and returned to the University of Arizona in 1937 to replace Cummings who retired in 1938. Clara Lee remained at the University of Arizona where she inspired and nurtured several generations of students during a full half-century of dedicated service on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology.
College of Social & Behavioral Sciences
University of Arizona - Main - Tucson
Recommended tests:
The GRE is optional to students whose native language is English. If English is not your native language, please take TOEFL.
Required test(s):
TOEFL is required of students whose native language is NOT English.
Minimum GRE Verbal: Optional; no minimum, but most successful applicants will have scores in the 90th percentile
Minimum GRE Quantitative: Optional; no minimum
Minimum GRE Written: Optional; no minimum, but similar caveats as GRE verbal above
Minimum GMAT: N/A
Minimum MAT: N/A
Minimum TOEFL: 550 for paper-based exam or 79 for internet-based exam.
GRE Institution Code (University of Arizona): 4832
Domestic Applicants:
International Applicants:
International applicants will not be considered for conditional admission by this program.
4832
ETS Major Field Code(s) for this program: 1700, 1701, 1799
33
A minimum of 33 units of graduate work is required for a Master's degree.
ANTH636–Foundations of ArchaeologicalInterpretation-3
ANTH637–ArchaeologicalMethodology-3
ANTH608B– History of AnthropologicalTheory-3
ANTH540A–CulturalResourceManagement-3
ANTH562–ArchaeologicalQuantitativeMethods-3
ANTH595A– ProfessionalSkillsandEthics-3
ANTH 606–Archaeology with Descendant Communities-3
ElectiveinNorthAmerican Prehistory (1)-3
ElectiveinLaboratoryMethods (2)-6
ElectiveinHistoricalArchaeology (1)-3
ANTH593‐Summer Internship-3
ANTH909 or 910–Master’s Report or Thesis-3
Requirements for the special track programs are the same as those for the general program plus 3 to 9 additional units, including appropriate internships and practica. A thesis or paper, reporting substantive and original research, is required for the MA. The MA paper or thesis is written with the guidance of a committee of three members of the faculty. The final examination for the Master's degree is an oral examination, administered by the faculty committee. The oral examination is individually scheduled in the candidate's last semester of study for the degree. It is based on the required and elected coursework and the MA project or thesis.
For the MA degree, no more than 6 units of graduate work may be transferred for credit from another institution. The Graduate College requires that the cumulative grade point average for all work taken for graduate credit be at least 3.00 (on a 4.00 scale). There is no foreign language or statistics requirement for the Master's degree in Anthropology.
Elective Areas: Courses Potentially Fulfilling Elective
North American Archaeology
ANTH 518 - Southwest Land and Society
ANTH 547 ? Anasazi Archaeology
ANTH 551A - Archaeology of Eastern North America
ANTH 552R ? Southwest Archaeology
ANTH 561 ? Paleoindian Origins
ANTH 696A – Anthropology of Native North America
ANTH 696A ? Southwest Borderlands Archaeology Seminar
Laboratory Methods
ANTH 505A – Introduction to Archaeological Conservation
ANTH 512A – Geoarchaeology
ANTH 514 – Quaternary Geology
ANTH 539A – Introduction to Dendrochronology
ANTH 568 ? Human Osteology
ANTH 569 ? Ethnobotany
ANTH 572 ? Zooarchaeology and Taphonomy Lab
ANTH 574 ? Archaeometry
ANTH 596f ? Ceramic Analysis (Practicum or Seminar)
ANTH 596h – Experimental Archaeology
RNR 517 – GIS for Natural and Social Sciences
ANTH 696A – Lithic Analysis
ANTH 696A – Quantitative Zooarchaeology
ARC 597J - Documentation and Interpretation of the Historic Built Environment
Historical Archaeology
ANTH 558 ? Historical Archaeology
ANTH 638 ? Culture Contact and Colonialism
ANTH 696A ? Material Culture in Historical Archaeology
Special Topics
LAW/ANTH 595k – American Indians, Anthropology, and the Law
ANTH 595A – Archaeology Special Topics
ANTH 696A – Archaeology Seminar
N/A
Please refer to the Graduate Student Handbook for students who are pursuing this program of study.
| Program-level Information | |
|---|---|
| Application Acceptance Rate | 30% |
| Med. Time-to-degree (years) | 2.00 |
| Department-level Information | |
| Enrollment Percent Male | 50% |
| Enrollment Percent Female | 50% |
| Enrollment Percent International | 0% |
| Enrollment Percent URM | 33.33% |