Course Description
Introduces students to the field of archaeology. Students will gain a basic understanding of the history of archaeology as a discipline, the nature of archaeological data, the core concepts and various methodologies used by archaeologists, and how archaeologists use anthropological theories and approaches to interpret the past.
Athena Title
Intro Prehistoric Archaeology
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is intended as an introduction to prehistoric, anthropological archaeology. The course will provide students with a knowledge of the historical development of archaeology, contemporary archaeological theory, the nature of the archaeological record, the techniques archaeologists use to recover archaeological information in the field and analyze it in the laboratory, and the data and techniques that archaeologists use to reconstruct and understand past cultures. Students will gain insight into the way archaeologists work and the limitations and strengths of archaeology as a way to understand how human culture has developed over the past several thousand years. All students will be required to write a 10-20 page term paper that will account for 25 percent of their course grade. These papers will focus on controversial topics in archaeology, identified by the instructor, and will require the student to 1) research the topic, 2) analyze and evaluate the different positions regarding the topic that have been published in the scientific literature, and 3) provide a coherent argument for a solution to the controversy. Since archaeology is by its nature interdisciplinary, drawing on contributions from prehistory, geology, soil science, paleoenvironmental research, chemistry, and cultural anthropology, most paper topics will require that the student grasp and integrate published material from several different disciplines.
Topical Outline
1) Introduction 2) The Development of archaeology as a discipline 3) Archaeology as science 4) The nature of archaeological evidence 5) Middle range theory: understanding the archaeological record 6) Archaeological research design 7) Archaeological data recovery 8) Field processing and classification of archaeological material 9) Chronology building 10)Artifact, ecofact, and feature analysis 11)Reconstructing prehistoric technology and subsistence 12)Reconstructing prehistoric settlement pattern 13)Reconstructing prehistoric social systems 14)Reconstructing prehistoric belief systems 15)Processual studies in archaeology 16)Challenges for archaeology today and in the future
Syllabus