Covers the concepts, methods of inquiry, and theory of biological evolution and their application to the human species. There is a specific focus on molecular, Mendelian and population genetics, mechanisms of evolution, primatology, paleoanthropology, biocultural adaptations, and human variation. The scientific method serves as the foundation to the course.

Introduces students to the methods and theories used by archaeologists to find, recover, and interpret such remains in an effort to reconstruct and understand the lives of earlier peoples. The class uses archaeological case studies, films, and hands-on examples of tools and other artifacts produced by simple stone age hunters and more complex civilizations that lived in California and other parts of the world.

Focuses on analyzing the historically conditioned political, economic and social factors that have contributed to cultural diversity in the U.S; a critical anthropological approach is developed to explore the intersection of race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality; the political economy of institutions and ideas, such as racism, classism, sexual stereotyping, family, religion, state, color-blindness, multiculturalism, etc.; and, discourses of cultural diversity in the U.S.

Covers human prehistory, from the emergence of culture through the domestication of plants and animals, and the origins of complex societies. Included are major cultural developments on every continent, emphasizing similarities and differences in the nature and timing of key technological, cultural, and sociological changes. Methodologies for learning about the past, major archaeological discoveries, important personalities, and contributions to the modern world are discussed in the context of understanding the strengths of a scientific approach to understanding the human past.

Prerequisite: Any lower-division Area B2 GE course

Examination of cult movements, involving comparisons of the ideals, objectives and symbolic processes common to ecstatic religious movements throughout the world -- from Melanesian cargo cults to the Peoples' Temple. Anthropological perspectives are used to examine religious cults as conscious attempts to perpetuate traditional values and social goals or to radically change the status quo; millenarian movements, crisis cults, nature communes, exotic religious importations, and cult characteristics of modern secular movements.