Ph.D., Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 1990.
M.A., Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 1983.
B.A., Anthropology, Duke University, 1977.

The development of complex societies in northern China: including social stratification, craft specialization, and urbanism.

When Anne Underhill began her career, foreigners were not allowed to participate in archaeological fieldwork in the People’s Republic of China. She did independent analyses of burials and pottery vessels from published archaeological reports, and analyzed pottery stored in museums in Henan and Shandong provinces. She also studied modern potters (ethnic minorities) in Guizhou and Xinjiang provinces who use traditional production techniques. In the early 1990’s, new laws permitted foreigners to participate in collaborative field projects. Anne developed one of the first collaborative archaeological survey and excavation projects involving American scholars. She has been fortunate to work with archaeology professors at Shandong University, Jinan city, Shandong, since 1995. She continues as the American director of a field project located in the Rizhao area of southeastern Shandong. Knowing their expertise in regional survey in Mexico, Anne asked Gary Feinman and Linda Nicholas (both at The Field Museum) to join the research team. To date our team has conducted six winter seasons of regional settlement pattern survey (1995-2001). We have discovered a settlement hierarchy around the Longshan period (ca. 2600-1900 B.C.) center at Liangchengzhen. During the fall of 1999 and 2000, Anne and her Shandong University colleagues began excavations at the large site of Liangchengzhen.