Course Description
Cultural variation in the Americas from the end of the Pleistocene to the time of intensive European contact, with emphasis on human/environmental interactions.
Athena Title
NEW WORLD ARCH
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course surveys the archaeology of North, Central, and South America from the time of the earliest human inhabitants until the 16th century A.D. Students will become familiar with the outstanding aspects of the archaeological record of the Americas. This is a broad survey course covering the time from the first peopling of the Americas to the Colonial period. The geographical range is from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America, including Amazonia, the Inca and their predecessors, the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and the Native American central and natural areas of North America. 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. Paleoindian 3. Arctic 4. Great Basin 5. NW Coast of North America 6. SW North America 7. NE North America 8. SE North America 9. Mesoamerica 10. Central America 11. Caribbean 12. Northern South America 13. Eastern lowlands of S. America 14. Andes 15. Parallel worlds
Syllabus