Course Description
The expression “history is written by the victor” is particularly true in the case of colonization. Bioarchaeology overcomes this issue by investigating lived experiences of past peoples directly from skeletons. Examination of the impacts of past colonization and culture contact on health, activity patterns, and identities using skeletal evidence.
Athena Title
Bioarchaeology of Colonization
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
- Compare models of social interaction (hybridity, creolization, syncretism, mixtures) - Evaluate and compare different bioarchaeological and archaeological methods of estimating identity - Explain transformations in health and lifestyle as resulting from different colonial contexts - Locate, in time and space, key examples of human population movements and cultural change associated with colonization - Debate various deleterious and advantageous impacts of contact and colonization using examples from the human skeleton
Topical Outline
Possible topics include: 1) Models of social interaction: hybridity, creolization, syncretism, mixtures 2) Social and physical expressions of identity 3) Theoretical perspectives on the formation of new identities (ethnogenesis) 4) Pots are not people: how bioarchaeology complements archaeology in the study of past culture contact 5) Bioarchaeological methods of estimating ancestry, identity, migration, and lifestyle 6) Problems when cultures collide: marginalization, structural violence, disease, novel environments, and environmental degradation 7) Cultural and physical geography of the Mediterranean region 8) Colonization in the Mediterranean and Near East: from Minoans, Mycenaeans, and the Indo-European invasion to Greeks and Romans abroad 9) Prehistoric and historic New World colonization 10) Urbanism and its impacts on health, activity patterns, and population structure