Dr. Christopher Davis
Anthropology is a fascinating topic for people across the globe. There’s something about examining our past, learning where we came from, and connecting that with the language, culture, and biology of today that speaks to our shared experiences and fosters a deeper appreciation for our collective humanity over time.
This was also true for MCC Anthropology instructor Dr. Christopher Davis.
Davis is an archaeologist by trade, specializing in archaeoastronomy and rock art. He focuses on Amazonian archaeology, paleoindians, and the peopling of the Americas. But his bachelor’s degree was originally in chemistry.
“When I graduated from undergrad, I worked as a chemist in Massachusetts for about two years,” he said. “It was a nice job, but it was a ‘9 to 5’ job. I would go home feeling bored, so I watched a lot of documentaries about history and learned things that I had never heard in any of my schooling. This intrigued me enough to go to the library and look into these topics a bit more.”
Davis found that he couldn’t always find answers to his questions, so he decided to pursue his own research and enroll in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to pursue archaeology. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Davis went on to teach archaeology and anthropology at Northern Illinois University, UIC, Governors State University, Malcom X City College of Chicago, and began at MCC as an adjunct instructor in 2019, becoming full time in 2022.
“One of the best things about archaeology is that in the United States, it is taught as part of anthropology,” he said. “In grad school, I learned about living cultures, languages, human biology, and genetics in addition to archaeology. Anthropology has allowed me to remain interested in a very diverse range of topics. Archaeology specifically makes anything humans do relevant as a possibility for what humans have done in the past.”
Even if his students aren’t planning to pursue a career in anthropology or archaeology, many of the lessons learned in his classes can be applied to a variety of careers.
“Many career choices funnel people into doing a narrow range of things and only seeing the world through a narrow lens,” Davis said. “Anthropology encourages and enables you to be a jack-of-all-trades.”
Davis has also shared his expertise in a variety of publications, lectures, and broadcasts, the most recent of which being the Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse by Graham Hancock. Davis appears halfway through season two, episode two and is also featured at the end of episode six.
In the documentary, he talks about his research on the rock art of Monte Alegre in the Brazilian Amazon, which shows signs of archaeoastronomy to track the sun throughout the year.
“There are also drawings of comets and possibly stars and constellations—in addition to animals, handprints, and human faces,” Davis said. “I excavated stone tools and paint that dates from 13,200 to 10,500 B.C. This period coincides with the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) until the Younger Dryas, which is the time frame Graham Hancock was interested in.”
Davis initially got involved with the documentary because Hancock read one of his articles about the Monte Alegre site. At the time, Hancock approached Davis to put a photo of his site in his book, America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilisation.
In spring 2023, producers of Ancient Apocalypse contacted Davis and asked if he wanted to show the Monte Alegre site to Hancock in a documentary. He agreed and they flew him to Brazil in August 2024.
“It was nice coming back to the archaeological park. The government built a visitor center and installed stairs so tourists could more easily climb up one of the hills,” Davis said of revisiting the site. “The filming was done in a single day, and it was very hot that day. We filmed the segment that appeared in the documentary that morning. We were going to film at a second location after lunch, but the heat reached a dangerous temperature, so the visitor center closed the park for the rest of the evening.”
MCC students can benefit from Davis’s anthropology expertise in several classes, including ANT 290-World Prehistoric Cultures and Civilizations, ANT 160-Physical (Biological) Anthropology, or ANT 155-Archaeology. MCC also offers a unique archaeology field school in the summer, where students can get hands-on experience working on an archaeological site.