1 - 10 of 87 results for: ARCHLGY

Aims, methods, and data in the study of human society's development from early hunters through late prehistoric civilizations. Archaeological sites and remains characteristic of the stages of cultural development for selected geographic areas, emphasizing methods of data collection and analysis appropriate to each.

What does it mean to be a Native American in the 21st century? Beyond traditional portrayals of military conquests, cultural collapse, and assimilation, the relationships between Native Americans and American society. Focus is on three themes leading to in-class moot court trials: colonial encounters and colonizing discourses; frontiers and boundaries; and sovereignty of self and nation. Topics include gender in native communities, American Indian law, readings by native authors, and Indians in film and popular culture.

Preference to sophomores. Focus is on excavation, features and finds, arguments over interpretation, and the place of each site in understanding the archaeological history of Europe. Goal is to introduce the latest archaeological and anthropological thought, and raise key questions about ancient society. The archaeological perspective foregrounds interdisciplinary study: geophysics articulated with art history, source criticism with analytic modeling, statistics interpretation. A web site with resources about each site, including plans, photographs, video, and publications, is the basis for exploring.

The human-animal relationship is dynamic, all encompassing and durable. Without exception, all socio-cultural groups have evidenced complex interactions with the animals around them, both domesticated and wild. However, the individual circumstances of these interactions are hugely complicated, and involve much more than direct human-animal contact, going far beyond this to incorporate social, ecological and spiritual contexts.n This course delves into this complexity, covering the gamut of social roles played by animals, as well as the methods and approaches to studying these, both traditional and scientific. While the notion of `animals as social actors¿ is well acknowledged, their use as proxies for human autecology (the relationship between a species and its environment) is also increasingly recognized as a viable mechanism for understanding our cultural and economic past. It will piece together the breadth of human-animal relationships using a wide geographic range of case studies.

While the tools of Digital Archaeology frequently change, using digital tools has been part of the discipline for decades. These tools and approaches provide new forms of research, visualization, and outreach to archaeological investigations. This course is designed to introduce students of archaeology to the digital research methods useful to the discipline, and provide them with hands-on experience in three types of digital method: digital mapping, visualization, and 3D modeling. The goal of the course is for students to learn about the state of digital archaeology, to become familiar with common methods, and become aware of the resources available for research.

Perhaps the most controversial era in ancient Egyptian history, the Amarna period (c.1350-1334 BCE) was marked by great sociocultural transformation, notably the introduction of a new 'religion' (often considered the world's first form of monotheism), the construction of a new royal city, and radical departures in artistic and architectural styles. This course will introduce archaeological and textual sources of ancient Egypt, investigating topics such as theological promotion, projections of power, social structure, urban design, interregional diplomacy, and historical legacy during the inception, height, and aftermath of this highly enigmatic period. Students with or without prior background are equally encouraged.

This interdisciplinary research workshop will critically engage the issue of the growing currency of human rights discourse within cultural heritage. Epistemological and practical areas of tension between rights discourse and cultural discourse will be surveyed within the context of current global challenges facing heritage practice, conservation and archaeology. Topics will include the inequities of cultural recognition between North-South globalizations, questions of cultural property and rights, the role of tourism, and the impact of environmental conservation discourse on cultural rights.

This course is an archaeological/anthropological course that surveys the different indigenous prehistoric culture areas of North America, and the archaeological approaches to its academic and non-academic study. Topics covered in this course include: the peopling of the New World, subsistence strategies, trade, settlement systems, warfare, religion, social inequality, egalitarianism, the origins of agriculture, identity, gender, environmental relations, and colonial empires among many others. These topics will be explored in class using archaeological case studies paired with instructor lectures as a means to bridge the student's regional competency of ancient cultures with in-depth archaeological research methods.

The decades between the early-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries saw substantial change in the region Europeans referred to as the Near East, characterized by the decline of the Ottoman empire, the disarray of World War I, and the establishment of modern national borders. You will learn to analyze, interpret, and critically evaluate archaeological data and the ways in which that data is used to construct an historical narrative. Readings include ancient texts in translation; archaeological field records and reports; travelogues, personal letters and autobiographies; and scholarly articles on the art and archaeology of the Near East.