Bones 'n Stones

I was notified via a phone call from the DGS last Friday. There's another user who posted their acceptance on the result page recently saying they accepted the offer, but I haven't received anything official yet, nor does my application page in the portal look any different.

Any of the other Brown admits hanging around this thread? I received the phone call Friday and I'm super excited! I also have an admit at Arizona State and a campus recruitment visit at Penn State so I have a decision to make, but I'm really leaning towards Brown. In the archaeology program at Brown but more bioarch in general.

Does anyone know how the Penn State timeline works? I had a Skype interview with three faculty members including POI a couple of weeks ago and just this past Friday received an email inviting me on a campus visit, but no official admission yet. Anyone here familiar with their admission timeline?

Thanks for the reply bioarch_fan! Thanks for the heads up on the two schools. I hadn't contacted Verano yet, so that is good to know, but I did see another post of yours somewhere about Dr. Martin and the need of violence-centered research. Luckily, one of my big interests is population-level skeletal indicators of environmental stress (i.e. violence, workload, and malnutrition), so I'll definitely take that angle with that application! I have looked at Dr. Ryan Harrod, as I've seen his book, but the thought of grad school in Alaska is so very depressing. I've been trying to escape Michigan's winters for 21 years! As far as a region, I would love to keep my research in the Maya region, although I'm open to others. I absolutely love the people down there (the modern ones that is!), I'm fascinated with the culture, and all of my fieldwork and lab research has focused on the Maya (I did my fieldschool in Belize this summer). I can definitely see the avenue and need for research like this down there. Strontium isotope analysis and mobility are big down there right now, and a huge interest of mine, not to mention the multitude of endemic warfare and collapse theories revolving around environmental stress and/or climate change. I'd love any other suggestions you end up thinking of. My interests are pretty broad, so I'm not 100% focused on the bioarchaeology of climate change, on the widest scale I'm just interested in the human-environment interaction as seen in the skeletal record. My top choice right now is Brown, with Dr. Andrew Scherer. He does a lot of work with the intersection of landscape archaeology and bioarchaeology, and recently on mortuary landscapes. I think bringing an environmental aspect to his approaches would be very revealing.

I'm currently working on narrowing down my list for the Fall 2016 app cycle as I finish prepping for the GRE at the end of the month. I had a solid list, and then my interests shifted slightly so now I'm adjusting as necessary and contacting new POIs. I'd love any help or recommendations any of you can offer in terms of programs that fit my interests. My interests are in bioarchaeology, more specifically environmental bioarchaeology. I'm particularly interested in the human reaction to past episodes of climate change and other periods of environmental stress. In that endeavor, I'm interested in looking at changing ritual patterns (esp. mortuary ritual and body treatment), mobility and population movement in terms of Str isotope analysis, large scale abandonment of space and drastic landscape alterations, and skeletal indicators of malnutrition, increased workload and stress, violence, etc. I also have strong methodological interests in GIS and 3D. That said, I am currently looking at ASU, UNLV, Brown, Penn State, Tulane, and Vanderbilt. Any others I am not aware of and should look at? Thanks for any suggestions!