Research Guides: Anthropology: Find Articles & Journals

Databases

The following databases will contain scholarly journal articles from anthropologists; JSTOR is highly recommended for starting your research for scholarly journal articles.

This list is not exhaustive, so depending on your area of focus, you may want to visit other subject-specific library research guides to find databases that cover other disciplines. I have also included several social sciences and multi-disciplinary databases that include anthropology or social sciences literature that may be helpful depending on your topic.

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)
This multi-disciplinary database provides access to full-text articles from popular magazines and scholarly journals (including peer-reviewed) journals. Includes topics in social sciences, humanities, science, education, and most areas of academic study.
JSTOR (All Subjects)
JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization which provides an electronic archive to specific scholarly journals. There is typically a gap from 1 to 5 years between the issues being published and the content becoming available in JSTOR. Artstor images also included.
Anthropology Plus
This is the comprehensive Anthropology index which combines the holdings of Anthropological Index and the Anthropological Literature databases. This database covers the anthropological literature (articles, reports, commentaries) from the 19th century to the present.
MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO)
The MLA International Bibliography is useful for finding journal articles in Linguistics.
America: History and Life (EBSCO)
America: History & Life is the major database on American history from pre-history to the present. Use it to find articles on American Anthropology, and Ethnohistory.
Historical Abstracts (EBSCO)
Historical Abstracts is a database that covers journal articles in world history from 1450 to the present. Consider using it for Historical Anthropology and Ethnohistory topics.
Project Muse
Project Muse is an interdisciplinary database that indexes journals in Anthropology among other fields of study.
Dissertations and Theses Full Text - Part A: Humanities and Social Sciences (ProQuest)
Search for Doctoral Dissertations and some Master's Theses in Dissertations and Theses Full Text. Many of the included sources are full text. Great for identifying new research topics and mining bibliographies. Remember that these are frequently book-length items, so don't wait until the last minute to use this database!
eHRAF World Cultures
The eHRAF World Cultures is a cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life. The annually-growing eHRAF database is unique in that the information is organized by cultures and ethnic groups and the full-text documents are subject-indexed at the paragraph level
Social Sciences Full Text (EBSCO)
Social Sciences Full Text™ provides access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language social science journals.
Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)
CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1650 journals and other serials publications as well as conference papers, books, and dissertations. The database contains a total of 640,000 records. It is updated monthly and contains backfiles to 1963.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is one place to locate find scholarly articles, though best used for certain purposes due to the sheer amount of content. The videos linked below review how to link your SacLink account to Google Scholar so you can bypass paywalls in addition to how to conduct a cited reference search (i.e., seeing who has cited a specific published work, thereby finding newer research on a topic).

Linking Sac State to Google Scholar (Video)
How to set your Google Scholar settings to link to Sac State so you can bypass paywalls.
Cited Reference Searching in Google Scholar (Video)
Reviews how to locate sources that have cited a published work, which can help you identify more current sources related to the original published work.

How to Search Databases

The following video covers basic searching in Academic Search Complete. While not every database will have the same search interface, the majority of databases work similarly, so your search skills will transfer between databases.

Last Updated: Apr 8, 2024 1:09 PM