Replacement, Consolidation, and Upgrade of Existing Anthropology Laboratory Space

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Founded in 1884, the Department of Anthropology at the George Washington University has a long history of fieldwork and laboratory-based linguistic, biological and archaeological research. Having a close relationship with the Smithsonian Institution provides access to important research collections and curatorial expertise for both students and faculty. Research and training activities are currently performed in space, originally designed for non-research purposes, which is dispersed throughout the university. Deficiencies, such as crowded conditions, inadequate ventilation, and the lack of a fume hood needed for experiments and training involving wet chemistry, have forced faculty and students to find other space on or off campus to conduct research. Funding from the NSF's ARI Program will be used to relocate, consolidate, and upgrade existing laboratory facilities in order to provide enhanced research and research training capabilities in biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and visual anthropology. Revamping of facilities for research and training in Anthropology is only part of a long-term university initiative for the department. This project will provide separate facilities for an archaeology and biological anthropology laboratory, and for a visual and linguistic anthropology video laboratory. Renovations will include provisions for adequate bench space, secure storage for materials, and proper ventilation. A newly installed fume hood will allow for the preparation of casting materials, acid washes, and chemical analysis of ceramics and other procedures presently not feasible. Upon completion, research enabled by this modernization project will include: full preparation of specimens for specialized analysis such as ancient DNA and neutron activation, experimental conservation studies of archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, casting of unique human fossils, and the analysis of communication and behavior using concordance software. Examples of research projects to be housed in the facility include studies of later Pleistocene and Holocene fossils and artifacts from Central Africa, and analysis of linguistics and social change in Indonesia and Zaire through long-term visual records. Upgraded laboratories will not only enhance faculty research but also the training of students, who have historically been overwhelmingly more than 75% women and minorities.