Education
PhD Anthropology, UCLA
BA Anthropology; minor in Museums Studies, Beloit College
Biography
Dr. Colleen Delaney is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at CSU Channel Islands. She earned her Ph.D and MA in archaeological Anthropology from UCLA, and a B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in Museum Studies from Beloit College. As an anthropologist she is committed to teaching all students the value of critical thinking, cultural awareness, and cultural understanding in the global world of today. Prior to her arrival as CSU Channel Islands, Dr. Delaney taught full time at Moorpark College and CSU Fullerton.
Dr. Delaney’s specific research interests focus on human adaptations to the natural and cultural realms. As a broadly trained anthropologist, her research interests are diverse and interdisciplinary. Primary research foci include human adaptations to the natural and cultural world, sociocultural interaction and identity, social inequality, emergent complexity, and taphonomic processes/actualistic studies. Dr. Delaney has conducted fieldwork throughout the United States as well as Germany. She is currently engaged in research in three areas:
a) one topic focuses on understanding the prehistoric habitation of Ventura County area as well as the interaction between the interior, coastal and island populations. The next stage of this research focuses on early Holocene and Pleistocene occupations in Ventura County. Current ongoing work includes excavations at archaeological sites located in the vicinity of CSUCI.
b) Another project, informally dubbed the ‘Bone Project,’ focuses on feeding goat and cow bones to different omnivore and carnivore species from America’s Teaching Zoo at Moorpark College. The bones are retrieved, processed, and analyzed, and the damage on the zoo bones are compared to bones recovered from the archaeological sites. This comparison will improve our understanding and interpretation of how the archaeological sites are formed.
c) Her final research area focuses on sociocultural interaction and warfare in the Midwestern region of the United States. In 2011 she and her colleagues undertook test excavations at the Audrey site in the Lower Illinois River valley. This village was occupied for a short period of time ca AD 1050, and may represent a village of colonists from Cahokia, 70 miles to the south.
Dr. Delaney has also published under the surname Delaney-Rivera.
When not teaching, Dr. Delaney enjoys reading fantasy and mystery books, hiking, traveling, and spending time her two children.
Representative Courses Taught
- ANTH 104 Introduction to Bioanthropology
- ANTH 105 Introduction to Archaeology
- ANTH 323 Native Americans of California to the 1850s
- ANTH 445 The Sea Coast through Time