Resources and Facilities

Technology

The Department of Anthropology includes multiple laboratories and technological equipment for student and faculty research, including:

  • A 3-D scanner and printer for bioarchaeological applications
  • Cameras and studio equipment and software for photogrammetry
  • Still and video cameras, microphones, and software for video production
  • Mobile RTK kit and handheld GPS for pedestrian archaeological survey
  • Ground penetrating radar, gradiometer, and magnetic susceptibility field probe for geophysical survey
  • Stereo, metallurgical, and petrographic microscopes for archaeological analysis

Collections

  • With the exception of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, we have the largest vertebrate osteological comparative collection in North Carolina in the Zooarchaeology Lab.
  • Our human skeletal collection and fossil cast collection, used for teaching and research in biological anthropology, skeletal morphology, and forensic analysis, is the second largest in the UNC system.
  • We maintain comprehensive comparative collections of ceramic and lithic artifacts and raw materials from the Southern Appalachians in our archaeology labs.
  • Our archaeological curation facility, known as “The Cave,” is a climate-controlled storage and research space that houses our archaeological collections. These collections include artifacts and documentation that have accumulated over the nearly 50 years of archaeological research undertaken by Appalachian State University archaeologists. It also contains thousands of artifacts that were once part of the collections of the former Appalachian Cultural Museum.

"The Cave" Archaeology Curation

Landscape Archaeology Lab

Human Skeletal Biology Lab

L. Jill Loucks Memorial Library

Stephen Richard Weller Memorial Student Lounge