Anthropology is the study of humankind, a multidisciplinary endeavor involving the social sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences. Anthropologists study the human species and the human condition in all its diversity. Anthropologists ask questions such as: "Who are we?" "Where did we come from?" "How did we get here?" "Why are we different from each other?" and, "How can we better understand each other?"

Studies in anthropology might focus, for example, on human paleontology, evolution, contemporary human health and biological variation, the culture of medicine and contemporary health systems, agriculture and foodways, historic archaeology of the Camino Real, Native American visual culture, Indigenous ways of knowing, gender and culture, or archaeology of the American Southwest and Mesoamerica.

Undergraduate education at New Mexico State University covers all four sub-disciplines of the field:

Biological Anthropology - the study of human origins, primate relatives, and human biological diversity

Archaeology - the study of the origin and change of the human past in both historic and prehistoric times, using material remains

Cultural Anthropology - the study of beliefs, values, shared understandings, traditions and modern practices of peoples from around the world

Linguistic Anthropology - the study of human language, linguistic diversity, and speech

The Anthropology M.A. program is designed for students who are interested in the traditional sub-disciplines of anthropology, as well as such related fields as cultural resource management, food studies, medical anthropology, museum studies, and social impact assessment. The program is directed both toward students who intend to take a terminal M.A. degree and students who intend, after NMSU, to enter a Ph.D. program. In addition to the M.A. in anthropology, our program also offers graduate minors in anthropology, archaeology, food studies, and Native American studies, as well as graduate certificates in cultural resource management and museum studies.

We offer field schools in archaeology and archaeological mapping, training in ethnographic field methods and community service learning