Course Description
The archaeology and history of eastern North America. Topics to be explored include Indigenous population movements, human-environment interactions, cultural differentiation and ethnogenesis, economy and exchange systems, mortuary practices, social organization and stratification, European exploration, settler colonialism and enslavement, and how archaeology intersects with contemporary social and political issues.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate student performance is evaluated according to higher standards. Graduate students will also be expected to produce an additional research paper on a topic relevant to their scholarly objectives.
Athena Title
Archaeology Eastern North Amer
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Upon completing this course students will: - Demonstrate a general understanding of the history of the human occupation of eastern North America. - Understand how current foci in the archaeology of this region articulate with larger disciplinary questions in anthropological archaeology. - Explore the co-development of human societies and environmental and ecological landscapes. - Gain a comprehensive understanding of the theories and methods shaping the contemporary practice of archaeology in eastern North America. - Evaluate how the history of Indigenous, European, and African American peoples in eastern North America articulates with contemporary social and political issues, including the management and stewardship of cultural heritage.
Topical Outline
1. Archaeological practice: methods, evidence, and interpretation 2. Geography and cultural ecology 3. Peopling of eastern North America 4. Pleistocene-Holocene climate change, diversity, and regional adaptations 5. Late Archaic lifeways: Early villages, monumentality, and plant domestication 6. Early and Middle Woodland networks and mortuary customs 7. Late Woodland regionalism: the first farmers 8. Northern Iroquoian and Algonquin societies 9. The Mississippian world 10. Pericolonialism: European explorers, missionaries, and Indigenous responses 11. Early colonial encroachment: Forts, outposts, and the shatter zone 12. Enslavement and plantation economies 13. Race, inequality, and postbellum archaeology and history 14. Archaeologists, descendant communities, and the evolution of cultural heritage management
Syllabus