Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology “Anthropology is the study of humanity, in all its biological and cultural aspects, past and present. It is a four-field discipline comprised of biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. The focus of this book is biological anthropology, which explores who we are from biological, evolutionary, and adaptive perspectives.”
The History of Our Tribe: Hominini “The book explores the field of paleoanthropology past and present. Beginning over 65 million years ago, Welker traces the evolution of our species, the environments and selective forces that shaped our ancestors, their physical and cultural adaptations, and the people and places involved with their discovery and study. It is designed as a textbook for a course on Human Evolution but can also serve as an introductory text for relevant sections of courses in Biological or General Anthropology or general interest.”
How the World Changed Social Media This book is the first in a series titled Why We Post, which “investigates the findings of anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the research and explores the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce.” Note that this book is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Human Security in World Affairs: Problems and Opportunities (2nd edition) “This first and only university textbook of human security, intended as an introductory text from senior undergraduate level up, and includes chapters by 24 authors that encompass the full spectrum of disciplines contributing to the human security field. It is based on the four-pillar model of socio-political security, economic security, environmental security and health security. The chapters include learning outcomes, extension activities, and suggested readings; a comprehensive glossary lists key terms used throughout the book.”
Impact of Materials on Society Developed by an interdisciplinary team to support a course on the impact of materials on society, this book “offers an exploration into materials (including ceramics, clay, concrete, glass, metals, and polymers) and the relationship with technologies and social structures.”
Introduction to Anthropology “Designed to meet the scope and sequence of your course, OpenStax Introduction to Anthropology is a four-field text integrating diverse voices, engaging field activities, and meaningful themes like Indigenous experiences and social inequality to engage students and enrich learning. The text showcases the historical context of the discipline, with a strong focus on anthropology as a living and evolving field. There is significant discussion of recent efforts to make the field more diverse—in its practitioners, in the questions it asks, and in the applications of anthropological research to address contemporary challenges. In addressing social inequality, the text drives readers to consider the rise and impact of social inequalities based on forms of identity and difference (such as gender, ethnicity, race, and class) as well as oppression and discrimination. The contributors to and dangers of socioeconomic inequality are fully addressed, and the role of inequality in social dysfunction, disruption, and change is noted.”
Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology (2nd edition) Each chapter in this open textbook covering essential topics in cultural anthropology is written by a different anthropologist. The book includes teaching resources from the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges.
Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom By Dr. Melissa Tombro of FIT, this book “is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethnographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition.”
Additional Open and Zero-Cost Resources
Allegra “Allegra seeks to provide its contributors with the chance to showcase their best critical thinking, replete with the originality of their own perspectives, on issues affecting the world today.” Articles published before April 5, 2021 have a CC BY 4.0 license; articles published since then have a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.
anthro{dendum} “Anthro{dendum} is a group blog devoted to ‘doing anthropology in public’—providing well-written relevant discussion of sociocultural anthropology that everyone will find accessible. Our authors range from graduate students to tenured professors to anthropologists working outside the academy.”
Anthropology Tutorials These tutorials on major topics in anthropology were created by Dr. Dennis O’Neil of Palomar College.
Cultural Anthropology “Cultural Anthropology is the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association.” Since 2014, it has been an open access journal.
Fieldsights Published by the Society for Cultural Anthropology, Fieldsights provides essays reviewed by the editors of Cultural Anthropology as well as teaching tools, podcast episodes, and supplemental teaching materials.
Human Origins Initiative From the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the Human Origins Initiative shares research and other educational resources related to the study of human evolution and origins.
Introduction to Anthropology: Holistic and Applied Research on Being Human This OER includes 20 modules that are “designed to provide students and instructors with a quality, peer-reviewed free resource that depicts a diversity of perspectives, approaches, and topics related to sociocultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology.” Modules include class activities, discussion prompts, questions for review and assessment, glossaries, videos, and suggested readings.
Sapiens This “editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research” is published with the University of Chicago Press.
Worldmapper “Worldmapper is a collection of world maps called cartograms, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.”
