SJSU Anthropology

Emeriti and Associate Faculty

Professor Emeritus
James M. Freeman
Ph.D. - Harvard, 1968

Dr. Freeman retired from the Department of Anthropology in January, 2000. His work has focused on research in India and Vietnam; symbols and rituals; cultural anthropology; life histories; refugees. His current work focuses on unaccompanied minors in Southeast Asian refugee camps, refugees/immigrants in Santa Clara County, and social responses to cultural diversity.

Dr. Freeman joined the Silicon Valley Cultures Project (SVCP) in 1992 and continues his research and writing in the area of work and family life in Silicon Valley with Chuck Darrah and Jan English-Lueck.

Professor Emeritus
Robert Jurmain
Ph,D. - Harvard, 1975

Dr. Jurmain is the author of the leading textbooks in his field, as well as Stories from the Skeleton, a book concerning his specialty in human osteology and numerous recent articles in professional journals. He is a co-author of Introduction to Physical Anthropology which is now in its eleventh edition and of Essentials of Physical Anthropology which is in its 6th edition. For more information contact Thompson Wadsworth Publishers.

Professor Emeritus
Thomas Layton
Ph.D. - Harvard, 1971

Dr. Layton is a specialist in North American archaeology and cultural ecology, with research foci in California and the Great Basin. He offered courses in New World and Old World archaeology, archaeological method and theory, and California Indians. A former director of the Nevada State Museum, he taught for more than 25 years in the CSU system. He is particularly interested in the interactions of Native Americans and Euro-Americans. He is also interested in 19th century commerce. This work includes the Frolic Shipwreck Project, focusing on commerce across the Pacific Rim, and the Mendocino Research Project, which investigated the prehistory of the Pomo and Coast Yuki peoples and the now vanished logging mill town of DeHaven.

Dr. Layton employed field archaeology, archival research and oral history to carry out his investigations. His students have completed Masters Degrees in topics ranging from Chinese ceramics to prehistoric settlement and commerce in Mendocino county, based on obsidian hydration and geological sourcing.

Dr. Layton's career was devoted to developing methods to make archaeological knowledge more accessible and meaningful to the public. These efforts included working jointly with professional illustrators, and museum professionals and careful interpolation between the archaeological facts to tell stories that include people. Dr. Layton's Frolic Shipwreck research was featured in two museum exhibitions: at the San Francisco Maritime Museum through 1999, and at the Oakland Museum through 1998. In 1997 the Discovery Channel featured his work on The Search for Amazing Treasures.

In 1996 Dr. Layton received the Mark Harrington Award for conservation from the Society for California Archaeology. In 1998 he received the Austin Warburton Research Award from the College of Social Sciences at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of a full year National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for college teachers.

Tom Layton has retired working on his third book of his Frolic Shipwreck series for Stanford University Press: Dixwell's Concubine: Lost Generations of an American Family. The first two volumes, also published by Stanford are: The Voyage of the Frolic: New England Merchants and the Opium Trade (1997) and Gifts from the Celestial Kingdom: A Shipwrecked Cargo for Gold Rush California (May 2002).