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The course is an introduction to the social organization of material production and to the theoretical, ethnographic, and historical frameworks used by archaeologists to link the technologies of the past to salient sociocultural information about the people who employed them. Comparison of metallurgical, ceramic, lithic, and textile industries in different cultural and historical settings will inform critical discussions of how and to what extent analyses of artifacts, workshops, and industrial installations can provide insight into past societies.

Due to the dominance of pottery in the archaeological record for the past 10,000 years, its analysis has attracted a great deal of research attention, making it imperative that all archaeologists have at least a working knowledge of ceramics. This course provides classroom and laboratory perspectives for understanding the information about ancient society, economy, and culture that can be plausibly derived from pottery and the visual, structural, and compositional methods that best help obtain that information.

This course explores many aspects of food in human history from an archaeological perspective. We will discuss how the origins of agriculture helped to transform human society; how food and feasting played a prominent role in the emergence of social hierarchies and the development of civilization; and how various foodways influenced particular cultures. We will also conduct experimental studies to understand how certain methods of food procurement, preparation, and consumption can be recovered archaeologically.

Archaeobotany, also known as paleoethnobotany, is the study of the interrelationships of plants and humans through the archaeological record. Knowledge and understanding of Archaeobotany sufficient to interpret, evaluate, and understand archaeobotanical data. Dominant approaches in the study of archaeobotanical remains: plant macro-remains, pollen, phytoliths, and starch grains in the identification of diet and environmental reconstruction.

This course deals with the skeletal biology of past populations, covering both the theoretical approaches and methods used in the study of skeletal and dental remains. Issues surrounding the reconstruction of the individual and population, which include age, sex and other paleodemographic factors, will be explored. The health and disease of teeth and bones, and the biomechanical and chemical analyses of bone will also be explored to illustrate how the variety of methods available to bioarchaeologists can be used to reconstruct past lifeways. While this course will be of primary interest to students interested in skeletal biology and archaeology, it is not exclusive to those pursuing careers in biological anthropology. The emphasis is on critical analysis, research skills, and communication skills that can be useful to students pursuing careers in other sub-disciplines of anthropology, laboratory research, or other lateral health-related fields. Required readings will be selected from current literature, and in some classes there will be practical material/exercises so that students can learn some of these techniques. The class is intended to be an interactive learning process in discussion format, and students are required to take an active part in class along with lectures.

This seminar will explore foundational concepts currently employed within heritage practice and debates. Readings will examine the historically formative context of colonial-era and nationalist discourses on stewardship and culture, as well as postcolonial reformulations of such concepts as cultural property, cultural recognition and public history. The seminar will engage the question of the relationship between foundational concepts and the current cosmopolitan and internationalist vision for heritage, probing the enduring dynamics of North-South divides in heritage development and archaeological practice.