Top Archaeology Graduate Schools in the United States

Are you an aspiring archaeologist? We’ve done some research on the top six archeology schools in the United States.  You will have your own criterion to consider when selecting a school, but this is a good place to start.

Ranking	University	Public/ Private	Rural/ Urban	Tuition	Graduation Rate	Job Placement Success	Class size	Faculty Size	More Information
1	Harvard University	Private	Urban	$20442/year	97.6%	76%	6655	4.4	http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~anthro/grad_arch.htm
2	University of Michigan	Public	Urban	$11908/full term	88%	59%	26208	4.8	http://www.umich.edu/~ipcaa/
3	University of Chicago	Private	Urban	$58995/ year	91.8%	62%	5066	4.8	http://anthropology.uchicago.edu/graduate/archaeology.shtml
4	Stony Brook University	Public	Urban	$14774/ year	61.4%	82%	16395	3	http://www.stonybrook.edu/anthro/graduate.shtml
5	Stanford University	Private	Urban	$12900/year	94.4%	70%	6602	3.7	https://www.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/cgi-bin/drupal/prospective-graduate-students
6	Washington University	Private	Urban	$20475/semester	93.7%	69%	7046	3.4	http://bulletin.wustl.edu/artsci/archaeology/#text

When choosing an archaeology school, you should consider the degree level you wish to pursue. Some schools only offer an associate's or bachelor's degree in archaeology or anthropology. This will limit career advancement in the field. In contrast, other schools offer programs leading to masters and doctoral degrees which can provide opportunities for supervisor or curator roles within archaeological digs and museums, as well as teaching positions at colleges and universities. 

It's also important that you research the credentials of faculty members, including their areas of specialization. Determine if a particular school allows you to study a specific concentration in archaeology. The life of an archaeologist is split between fieldwork and laboratory study. For this reason, you would do well to select a school that boasts a state-of-the art laboratory where you can study artifacts excavated from the field. Finally, archaeology and anthropology graduate level programs may often require that you complete a thesis, which is a written dissertation in which a you must thoroughly research a particular theory.

Sources:
http://www.uscollegeranking.org/science/top-ranking-college-for-archaeology.html
http://collegemeasures.org/reporting/institution/
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges 

ThinkGeek :: DIY Blood Typing Test Kit

ThinkGeek :: DIY Blood Typing Test Kit

ThinkGeek has the coolest stuff.  This one is kind of gross, but kind of neat, which pretty much sums up everything McMichael's is about.  It's a home blood type test kit.  If you don't know your blood type, maybe you should. I'm not sure why, I've never been asked.  But I think it's one of those things that you should probably know if someone does ask.  Plus, the kit is only $8.99.

Here's the link: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/8f3d/. 

As for me, would I ever share that with all of you? Oh, probably not. Negative. :)

Neanderthals and Michael Crichton

One of my favorite movies is the 13th Warrior, starring Antonio Banderas and (be still my beating heart) Vladimir Kulich.  I would watch the movie for those two alone, but it's a rare movie that I can watch over and over and over again, and not grow tired of the story.  It's the combination of real history and fiction, the historical fiction genre, that I love so much.

I'm one of those people that always reads the book before watching the movie, then complains about how inaccurate the movie was (I know, how annoying, right?).  But I didn't even know this movie was based on a book at all!  Apparently, it was based on Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead.  Now, I know I should read the book, but it may be too late!  I am really worried it will ruin the movie for me! 

In the movie, the story of the "wendol" is never fully developed.  They are menacing, true, but who were they? I assumed a tribe of humans that believed they were bears.  Had I read the book , I would have known that they were intended to be a surviving band of Neanderthals.  And you know, I heart Neanderthals.  

The book itself was based on the epic poem, Beowulf, and the true accounts of Ahmad ibn Fadlan.  The Beowulf part I figured out while watching the movie, since Vladimir "Heart-Skips-A-Beat" Kulich plays a king called "Buliwyf".  So, yeah, obviously Beowulf, duh.  But Ibn Fadlan's true stories of his travels in the 10th century are available in an English translation, as Ibn Fadlan's journey to Russia: a tenth-century traveler from Baghad to the Volga River. I feel like I'm following the White Rabbit down a trail of books.


I suppose I have just convinced myself that both  Eaters of the Dead and Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia, must be added to my wishlist and consumed immediately. But they better not ruin the movie for me!

Facebook Fan Page

I've done it! I've finally started a Facebook Fan Page!

I don't really have a way to interact with most of you, other than the standard "Your order has shipped" automated emails.  But I'd like to know what you really think of the skull and fossil replicas.  What would you like me to carry? Do you have ideas for new inventory?

On the Fan Page, you can leave reviews, start discussions, post to the wall, add photos of your skulls... anything you'd do on your regular Facebook page. 

Click here to stop by and become a fan of McMichael's!

You can also cut & paste this link into your browser: http://www.facebook.com/pages/McMichaels-Fossil-Replicas/369695098461?ref=nf

See you soon!

Global Warming Cycles Threaten Endangered Primate Species

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2009) — Two Penn State University researchers have carried out one of the first-ever analyses of the effects of global warming on endangered primates. This innovative work by Graduate Student Ruscena Wiederholt and Associate Professor of Biology Eric Post examined how El Niño warming affected the abundance of four New World monkeys over decades.

Wiederholt and Post decided to concentrate on the way the oscillating weather patterns directly and indirectly influence plants and animals in the tropics. Until the research by Wiederholt and Post, this intricate network of interacting factors had rarely been analyzed as a single system. "We know very little about how climate change and global warming are affecting primate species," explains Wiederholt. "Up to one third of primates species are threatened with extinction, so it is really crucial to understand how these changes in climate may be affecting their populations."

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Fossils of North America's smallest dinosaur identified

By John Johnson Jr.

October 21, 2009

Scientists have found the fossilized remains of the smallest dinosaur yet discovered in North America, a house-pet sized creature that would have scurried between the legs of its larger relatives.

The new species, Fruitadens haagarorum, weighed less than 2 pounds and was about 28 inches long, scientists say.

The tiny dinosaur would have been an agile and fast runner, said study coauthor Luis Chiappe, director of the Los Angeles Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Institute. It had to be nimble to survive the hazardous time in which it lived, the late Jurassic period 150 million years ago, which was ruled by giant meat-eaters such as the allosaurus.
 

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It's all in the wrist: Humans lack a knuckle-walking ancestor (EARTH Magazine)

October 1, 2009
Zahra Hirji


Though counterintuitive, scientists have turned their attention away from the feet and to the wrist and forearm to better understand how humans evolved upright walking, or bipedalism. African apes are humans’ closest living relatives, and because these apes knuckle-walk, some paleoanthropologists have suggested that African apes and humans share a knuckle-walking ancestor. A new study, however, reveals that lumping the locomotion of all African apes together is a mistake: Knuckle-walking may have evolved more than once in the ape lineage. Therefore, the researchers say, humans probably did not evolve from a knuckle-walker but instead from a more general tree-dweller.

All African apes — gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos — knuckle-walk. The scientists who think that humans have a knuckle-walking heritage bolster the claim by pointing to the fact that modern and ancient humans, or hominins, such as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), retain several wrist and forearm features that are supposedly knuckle-walking adaptations, says Tracy Kivell, a paleoanthropologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and co-author of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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