Anthropology Laboratories

Hands-on learning at NAU

More than a dozen laboratories on the Flagstaff campus give students in anthropology and its subfields the opportunity to take their learning outside the classroom.

The anthropology labs are housed in two buildings:

1. The Ralph M. Bilby Research Center (Building 52) opened in 1982 as the first facility on campus designed exclusively for research. Named for a Flagstaff businessman and Regent, the $1.2 million, 19,499-square foot mini-dome structure was meant to resemble the Walkup Skydome that is visible just across East McConnell Drive.
2. The Anthropology Laboratory (Building 49) houses biological anthropological and bioarchaeological work. This lab features the Ethan and Susan Braunstein Biological Anthropology Seminar Room, and hosts researchers from the Center for Health Equity Research, that, in concert with Anthropology, obtained $500,000 in NIH funding. This funding was used to build NAU’s capacity to recruit and graduate minority students in the biomedical and behavioral science areas, to recruit new high-research faculty in these areas, and to sponsor research projects which address health disparities.

Bilby Research Center Labs

• The Social Science Community-engagement Lab
• Cultural Medical Anthropology Analysis Lab
• Medical Anthropology Practice Collective
• Archaeology Imaging Laboratory
• Social Science Forensic Laboratory
• Historical Archaeology Laboratory
• Mesoamerican Archaeology Laboratory
• Faunal Analysis Laboratory
• Lithic Casting, Research, and Teaching Laboratory
• Ethnographic Collections
• Ceramic Analysis Laboratory
• Ethnobiology, Food, and Ethnomedicine Collaboration and Teaching (EFECT) Lab

Anthropology Labs Building

• Human Biology and Health Lab
• Paleodiet Laboratory