Richard Blanton

Professor of Anthropology Office: STON 317
Office Phone: (765) 494-4681
Email: blantonr@purdue.edu

Specialization: Archaeology, economic anthropology, regional analysis, political anthropology, cross-cultural analysis, theory.

Courses: Taught  (Last two years)

ANTH 100 - Introduction to Anthropology
ANTH 507 - Theory in Sociocultural Anthropology
ANTH 606 - Conduct of Anthropological Inquiry


Since joining Purdue in 1976, he has done approximately 36 months of archaeological field work over many field seasons in Guatemala, Mexico, and Turkey, and has also completed several cross-cultural comparative research projects.  He has reported on this research in twelve books and 67 articles and chapters published through diverse outlets, including Cambridge University Press, Science, American Anthropologist, American Antiquity, Journal of Field Archaeology, and Current Anthropology.  He is best known for his research on the evolution of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican civilization, especially in Central Mexico and the Valley of Oaxaca, but has also contributed to several more general anthropological topics, including the economics of peasant households and household archaeology, the evolution of market systems in early civilizations, pre-modern world-systems, and cultural ecology.  Blanton's recent theoretical and comparative research on the nature of early state formation and political economy is regarded as a new departure that is making a contribution to the current discourse on the evolution of complex human societies.  This work is cited in the literatures on early civilizations in the Mediterranean, Africa, South Asia, and China, as well as the New World.  He was a founding member of the Society for Economic Anthropology and has served as its president, and now serves on a committee that is publishing a world-wide sample of archaeological cultures for comparative research, sponsored by the Human Relations Area Files.  His current research, funded by the National Science Foundation, uses a comparative method to evaluate Rational Choice and Collective Action Theory as they apply to pre-modern state formation, and he is working with two colleagues to establish a new archaeological project in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Positions at Purdue University

1983 – present     Professor of Anthropology
1976 – 1983        Associate Professor of Anthropology       
        
Service to the Profession

Executive Committees, American Anthropological Association (1992, 1995-6)

Founding Member and President, Society for Economic Anthropology (1991-1992)

Honors and Awards

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (1989- )

Research Associate in Anthropology, The Field Museum, Chicago

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