Anthropology focuses on human biological and cultural variation in time and space, with four traditionally recognized subfields: archaeology, biological (or physical) anthropology, ethnology (cultural or sociocultural anthropology), and linguistic anthropology. The anthropology program at Texas Tech University is a four-field department. We teach, train students, and do research across the four subfields and have faculty in each. Our undergraduates and graduate students learn, at the appropriate level, the fundamentals of the four subfields, their interactions and links with one another, and their relation to other academic fields.

Our mission is to advance, increase, and disseminate knowledge of anthropology through research (both scientific and humanistic), analysis and interpretation, teaching, writing, and other forms of outreach. We routinely address, associate, cooperate, and collaborate with students and research colleagues in many other departments and university programs.