The Human Animal Lab (HAL), founded and directed by Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, explores humans as a culture-using animal by examining some of the earliest information technologies developed by our species. These include symbolic behaviors such as storytelling, visual art, body and artifact decoration, song, dance, games, and names. These behaviors emerged tens of thousands of years ago, when all humans lived in oral cultures and made their living as hunter-gatherers. Accordingly, HAL research examines the origin of symbolic behaviors in terms of the knowledge demanded by a hunting-and-gathering way of life. HAL conceptualizes these behaviors as information storage and delivery systems that encode local ecological knowledge and provide learning opportunities that help develop local subsistence skills.

HAL includes both research and teaching components. We offer opportunities for highly motivated students and volunteers to gain experience in archival ethnographic and ethnoecological research, content analysis, and data entry. For more information about these opportunities, contact Dr. Scalise Sugiyama. For more information about our research and teaching mission, see our open educational resource, Talking Stories.