* a free alternative to expensive Introduction to Cultural Anthropology textbooks

* includes a full textbook and several original videos

* includes 10 "challenges" (assignments)

* a hub of original and found resources for teaching and learning anthropology

* a “connected course” of many faculty around the world sharing instructional materials

* an open course freely available to anyone online

* an emerging producer of original anthropological videos and other digital content

In this class, we will explore America's diversity through questions of immigration, race, gender/sexuality and class--some of the major ways our culture is organized. It is comprised of 9 lessons based on online resources, plus 2 auto-ethnography assignments. This class was originally taught by Huma Mohibullah at Renton Technical College. 

Modified-accessible documents to accompany the text Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology by Beth Shook, Katie Nelson, and Kelsie AguileraFiles include:accessible versions of the lab assignments in HTML format, with student worksheets as a separate documentoriginal PDF copies of the textbook, with the addition of accessible HTML versions of the preface and appendicesaccessible PowerPoint slides 

Religion is a significant aspect of human cultures everywhere. In these lessons, we explore questions such as: What are the main elements of religion? Why is believing in a higher power important to human beings across cultures? How is religion related to our social orders? How is religion related to the politics of today's world?This resource is comprised of 7 lessons based on online modules, plus a final presentation assignment. Each lesson includes a discussion or written assignment. This class was originally taught by Huma Mohibullah at Renton Technical College. 

This is a collection of mini lectures created by anthropologists and those in conversation with anthropology as supplimental material to assist college and university instructors who were made to shift their courses online because of COVID19.For more information, see here.To contribute, please create an OER author account and send your name and OER registered email to AnthropologyTeaching@gmail.com.

ANTH 150 World Archaeology
Introduction to archaeology and cultural change from the earliest times to the advent of state-level societies.

Course Description:
• When did we become fully modern humans?
• When (and why) did we stop being hunter-gatherers?
• When did inequality emerge?
• Why did some people decide to start living in cities?
• What led to the development of complex state-level
societies?
These are important questions about what it means to
be human that archaeologists address. In this course,
we’ll consider these topics while providing an
introduction to archaeology and the study of world
prehistory. The course provides an overview of human
prehistory from modern humans up to the
development of literate civilizations. The approach will
be problem oriented and comparative. We will
consider ancient cultures from around the world in
order to foster an appreciation for human cultural
diversity. Explaining why cultural developments
occurred is often hotly debated among archaeologists,
and different perspectives will be explored critically
throughout this course.

The following pages describe anthropology's relationship with colonialism. The reading emphasizes why colonial history is relevant to students' lives and emphasizes practical ways to practice cultural relativism. 

The following pages describe anthropology's relationship with colonialism. The reading emphasizes why colonial history is relevant to students' lives and emphasizes practical ways to practice cultural relativism. 

The following pages describe anthropology's relationship with colonialism. The reading emphasizes why colonial history is relevant to students' lives and emphasizes practical ways to practice cultural relativism. 

The Antiquities of Wisconsin, Increase A. Lapham's most important published work, includes 92 pages of text, illustrated with 61 wood engravings, and 55 lithographed plates and was the result of his research into the Indian effigy mounds found on Wisconsin's Landscape.

Archiving for the Future is a free training course designed to teach language documenters, activists, and researchers how to organize, arrange, and archive language documentation, revitalization, and maintenance materials and metadata in a digital repository or language archive. Then entire course can be completed in approximately 3-5 hours.

This course was developed by the staff of the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America at the University of Texas at Austin in consultation with representatives of various DELAMAN (https://www.delaman.org/) archives and other digital data repositories in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Cameroon.

The course material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-1653380 (September 1, 2016 to August 31, 2020). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. “Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage,” Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. “Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. … It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one’s hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a “heroic” profession.” What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world’s jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology.

Becoming Human is a fast-paced, irreverent introduction to evolutionary theory, especially human origins. The book is based on the Open2Study MOOC, 'Becoming Human,' created by Dr. Greg Downey and Open Universities Australia. The book discusses traces of evolution in our bodies, basic evolutionary theory from Darwin to the genomic revolution, sexual selection and reproduction, and how human brain development affects our evolution, including into the future. Copiously illustrated, with some interactive diagrams, videos of Dr. Downey presenting the material are also available through Open2Study.

Welcome to Beliefs: An Open Invitation to Anthropology of Magic, Witchcraft and Religion. This book was the combined efforts of the authors, contributors and editors who have been teaching these concepts to students for a number of years. While there are many great textbooks that teach the concepts covered in this textbook, there was a need for an Open Educational Resource (OER) for students. The success of Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology and Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology inspired this project in 2020, when the authors began curating the OER at Los Angeles Valley College. The project quickly grew over the next two years to include many talented anthropology instructors, thanks to the support and guidance of ASCCC.

How this course is intended to be used: This course is set up to be used as either fully online, face-to-face (f2f), or hybrid. Note that the course outcomes and some assessments have variations available for each type of course (e.g., Public Awareness Campaign, Dancing Skeletons Essay & Discussion)

Resources for this course:
OER resources: The majority of materials used in this course are OER and can be found via this page (under Course Modules).

Paid resources: Only one small textbook is suggested for the course, the ethnography Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa by Katharine Dettwyler (ISBN-10: 088133748X). It's approximately $13.00 new and can be found for approximately $5.00 used. It's used for the Unit 3 assessment, Dancing Skeletons Essay & Discussion. We think that it's an integral part of the course, due to its focus on human biology and biocultural/environmental interactions. It also provides an excellent portrayal of an anthropologist's experience in the field. If you require additional or alternate textbooks, we have put together a list of texts available for around $30.

Explanation of approach: As you peruse the reading material in the course module pages you might find that they contain less detail than what you would see in a "normal" textbook. This is intentional. One thing we find incredible about higher education is that the student often reads the textbook only to go into class and have the professor lecture for two hours on the exact same material. Because of this repetition of the material, students often become exasperated and either stop reading the material or stop paying attention in class. We've also found that students in the introductory anthropology courses frequently struggle with picking out the basic concepts from among the myriad of material from the textbook. We think that students in introductory anthropology courses such as this one, most of whom are not going to be anthropology majors, should read the basic information outside of class. This allows the instructor to focus on providing more explanatory details and help students work through critical thinking about the material in class. Therefore, the readings in the course modules have the basic information. Through in-class activities, discussions, and homework assignments, the job of the instructor is to help students move deeper into and synthesize the material.

Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their related non-human primates and their extinct hominin ancestors. It is a subfield of anthropology that provides a biological perspective to the systematic study of human beings. This textbook explores evolutionary theory, including the core concepts of basic genetics and the modern synthesis of evolution. Students will examine, critically evaluate and explain scientific claims about the origins of humankind and modern human variation as well as biocultural evolution. Students will develop critical thinking and communication skills through the application of essential anthropological approaches, theories, and methods.

Students will need an assigned text to assist with these activities, identify bone and features, understand the proper use of Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, significance of primate taxonomy, and specific information about various early human forms.

A boomburb is a new urban phenomena that has emerged in the last 20 years along with the growth of the Sunbelt and its suburban-dominated forms of urbanization. Boomburbs are rapidly growing suburban cities and represent a new metropolitan form; even as boomburbs grow, they remain essentially suburban in character. Nearly 9 million Americans live in boomburbs. In this activity students examine data to define "boomburb," observe the location of several boomburbs to make generalizations about their location and relationship with larger urbanized areas, and finally look at the services and urban functions provided in boomburbs along with problems and issues associated with these urban phenomena.