Fall 2007
New College of Florida
Professor Uzi Baram
Class meets Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 – 11:50 a.m. in the Anthro Lab
Office: College Hall 205
Office Hours: Tuesday 12:30-2:30 & by appointment
Office Telephone: 487-4217
Email: Baram@ncf.edu
Catalogue Description:
This seminar surveys the field and analytical methods of archaeology, and examines the theoretical premises of the discipline. The course will focus on the structure and history of the discipline, field and laboratory methods, and temporal and behavioral frameworks, and theoretical principles. Prerequisite: an introductory course in archaeology, or permission of the instructor.
Prospectus:
Archaeology faces a grand challenge: taking the remaining materiality from human societies and revealing insights into material culture, human behaviors and actions, and social and cultural change. Bridging objects from the past to concerns, academic and otherwise, in the present requires methods and theory. This course explores the history of archaeological theory, several significant methodological concerns, and a range of contemporary theoretical approaches as well as ethics, representations, and presentation of archeology today. The main assignments for the course - seminar-style discussion and a case study using a theoretical approach – are central to a satisfactorily completion of this upper-level requirement for the Anthropology Area of Concentration.
Goals for the Course:
For students focusing on archaeology, the course title fits the goals for the course. The course surveys, examines, and considers methods and theories in archaeology as well as techniques and significant scholarship in archaeology. The subfield has a large and increasingly interesting range of approaches and understandings of artifacts, human material activities, and the past and we will endeavor to gain a sense of the variation of theories and methods and struggle to situate our work within the context of the subfield.
For students focusing on one of the other components of anthropology, the course title can be shifted to Method and Theory from Archaeology to Illuminate the Role of Theory and Method in Anthropology. As the study of the range of human variation across all time and as the study of material culture, archaeology can and does contribute to general anthropology. The goal for cultural anthropology students can revolve around the contribution of various schools of thought to our understanding of diachronic change, human interactions with the physical world, and understandings of material culture.
Uniting the subfields of Anthropology is concern over the human variation and diversity. This course covers several approaches to conceptualizing those aspects of the study of human variation that have been used in archaeology for analyzing and interpreting material culture, tangible heritage, and landscapes in terms of the diversity of human societies.
Format:
As an upper-level requirement for the Anthropology area of concentration, the course will be run as a seminar. The success of seminars comes from the active participation of all members of the class. Quality, not quantity is the key for in-class discussions. I expect you to use your background in anthropology to work through the major ideas in this course and the contributions of the various scholars. I like to think of discussion as an opportunity to work through notions and to engage in a dialogue and discussion with your fellow students, the professor, and the scholars we are reading. Raising questions is an expected part of your contribution to class discussion. The final evaluation will include commentary on preparation for class discussions. I am always willing to talk over any issues and concerns during my office hours or via email.
Requirements:
Completion of all the readings is expected. For each class meeting, members of the class are responsible for participating in the discussion of topics and readings. Attendance at each and every class meeting is required; please contact the professor by email, voice mail, or campus mailbox for an excused absence, all typical reasons for absences will be honored if requested before the class meets that day.
There are three written assignments for this course. The work must use and cite readings from the class. I can explain the reasoning for using course readings explicitly. The assignments are meant to provide opportunities for demonstrating mastery over method and theory as well as being an outlet for your intellectual creativity. The details for the three assignments are provided at the end of this syllabus.
Archaeological analyzes, interpretations, and presentations from around the world constitute the core materials for this course. With Survey of Archaeology as the recommended prerequisite for the course, students are expected to know the basic background for the epochs and for the culture areas employed in the readings. The culture history background is available in Survey’s textbook - Brian Fagan 2006 People of the Earth (12th edition). The basic set of definitions for methods and techniques comes from Revealing Archaeology. A wide range of other courses should provide further depth in culture areas, regional archaeological traditions, and theory in Anthropology. One research skill for this upper-level anthropology is being able to locate the appropriate context for the various arguments being made in the readings and class presentations for archaeology, anthropology, and the social sciences in general. Another skill is the ability to organize a diffuse set of concerns, examples, and paradigms into a meaningful structure.
Texts:
All of the above, except for the Leone volume which is on reserve at the Cook Library, are available for sale at the Campus Bookstore. The articles and book chapters listed in the outline of readings are on electronic reserve and on the Anthro Lab computer.
Mini-Class: 9/27
The Multiple Roles of Archaeology in Anthropology
I. Background on Theory and Method in Archaeology
Week 1: 8/30
Introduction: The Place of Method and Theory in Archaeology
Readings:
1. AIP Zimmerman – Consulting Stakeholders
2. Kent V. Flannery 2006 “On the Resilience of Anthropological Archaeology” Annual Review of Anthropology 35:1-13.
3. Paul E. Minnis 2006 “Answering the Skeptic’s Question” The SAA Archaeological Record 6(5):17-20.
Week 2: 9/4 & 9/6
History of Archaeology
Readings:
1. Barbara Bender 1998 “Where do (my) ideas come from? (or a short intellectual autobiography)” Stonehenge: Making Space, pages 13-23.
2. Timothy Earle 2003 “Anthropology Must Have Archaeology” Archaeology is Anthropology” pages 17-26.
3. George Armelagos 2003 “Bioarchaeology as Anthropology” Archaeology is Anthropology” pages 27-40.
4. CA-TC: Clyde Klukhohn 1972 "The Conceptual Structure in Middle American Studies"
5. CA-TC: Lewis Binford 1962 "Archaeology as Anthropology"
A Range of Approaches in Archaeology: Traditional, New, and Post-Processual
Readings:
1. CA-TC: Walter Taylor 1972 "Old Wine and New Skins: A Contemporary Parable"
2. CA-TC: Kent Flannery 1967 "Culture History versus Cultural Process: A Debate in American Archaeology"
3. RAT: Flannery and Marcus
4. RAT: Leone
II. Methods and Techniques of Archaeology
Week 4: 9/18 & 9/20
Field Methods in Archaeology: What to do with a Trowel and the Results of Diggings
Readings:
1. AIP David – Finding Sites
2. AIP Balme and Paterson – Stratigraphy
3. Michael Shanks and Randall McGuire 1996 "The Craft of Archaeology" American Antiquity 61(1):75-88.
4. Linda E. Patrik 1985 "Is There an Archaeological Record?" Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8:27-62
5. Johannes Loubser 2003 "Peeling Off Layers" Archaeology: The Comic, pages 43-69.
Week 5: 9/25 and 9/27
Temporal Analysis, Archaeologists will date just about anything
Readings:
1. AIP Holdaway – Absolute Dating
2. Paola Demattè 2006 The Chinese Jade Age: Between Antiquarianism and Archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology 6(2):202-226
Week 6: 10/2 and 10/4
Classification and Artifact Analysis: Organizing and Making Sense of Stones, Pots, Gravestones, and other artifacts
Readings:
1. AIP Clarkson and O’Connor – Stone Artifact Analysis
2. AIP Ellis – Ceramics
3. AIP Lawrence – Historic Artifacts
3. CA-TC: James Deetz 1967 "Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow"
4. RAT: Holser
5. RAT: Clarkson
III. Humans in the Biological and Physical Worlds
Week 7: 10/9 & 10/11
When Did Human Intelligence Start?: Rock-Art and Human Skeletons
Readings:
1. AIP McDonald – Rock-Art
2. RAT: Mithen
3. RAT: Lewis-Williams
4. Margaret Conkey 1985 "Ritual Communication, Social Elaboration, and the Variable Trajectories of Paleolithic Material Culture" Prehistoric Hunter-Gathers, pages 299-323.
5. CAT: Gilman
6. CAT: Barrett
Week 8: Fall Break
Week 9: 10/23 & 10/25
Environmental and Ecological Analysis
Readings:
1. AIP O’Connor and Barrett – Animal Bones
2. AIP Beck – Plant Remains
2. CAT: Hastorf and Johannssen
3. CAT: Mithen
Week 10: 10/30 & 11/1
Material Culture, Prestige, and Exchange: the Meaning of Things
Readings:
1. Wobst, H. Martin 1977 “Stylistic Behavior and Information Sharing” For the Director: Research Essays in Honor of James B. Griffin, pages 317-342.
2. AIP Lawrence – Artifacts of the Modern World
3. CAT: Kohl
4. CAT: Orser
5. CAT: Shanks
6. Wobst, H. Martin 1999 “Style in archaeology or archaeologists in style” Material Meanings: Critical Approaches to the Interpretation of Material Culture, pages 118-132.
Week 11: 11/6 & 11/8
History and Archaeology
Readings:
1. AIP Little – Historical Sources
2. RAT: Peebles
3. RAT: Cobb
4. William Y. Adams 1969 "On the Argument from Ceramics to History: A Challenge based upon evidence from Medieval Nubia" Current Anthropology 20(4):727-744.
5. James Deetz 1988 “American Historical Archaeology: Methods and Results” Science 239:362-367.
6. Blakey, Michael 2001 "Bioarchaeology of the African Diaspora in the Americas: Its Origins and Scope" Annual Review of Anthropology 30:387-422.
V. Recent Approaches to Theory in Archaeology
Week 12: 11/13 & 11/15
The Post Processual Reaction and its Legacy: Historicity, Feminism, and Communities
Readings:
1. Kent Flannery 1982 "The Golden Marshalltown: A Parable for the Archaeology of the 1980s" American Anthropologist 84(2):265-278.
2. RAT: Whitney
3. RAT: McGuire and Saitta
4. Timothy Pauketat 2001 "Practice and History in Archaeology" Anthropological Theory 1(1):73-98.
5. RAT: Knapp
6. RAT: Watson and Kennedy
7. CAT: Spector
Week 13: 11/20; no class on 11/22
Feminist Archaeology and Archaeologies of Gender
Readings:
1. Ruth Tringham 1994 "Engendered Places in Prehistory" Gender, Place&Culture 1(2):169-203.
2. Lynn Meskell 1998 "An Archaeology of Social Relations in an Egyptian Village" Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5(3):209-243.
3. Margaret W. Conkey and Ruth E. Tringham 1995 "Archaeology and the Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archaeology" Feminism in the Academy, pages 199-247.
4. Karina Croucher 2005 “Queerying Near Eastern Archaeology” World Archaeology 37(4):610-620.
VI. The Social Context of Archaeology and the Social Responsibilities of the Archaeologist
Week 14: 11/26 & 11/29
Ethics in Contemporary Archaeology: Public Archaeology and Communities that Matter
Readings:
1. AIP Huckleberry - Sediments
2. CAT: Trigger
3. CAT: Vizenor
4. CAT: Anawak
5. RAT: White Deer
6. Carol McDavid 2002 “Archaeologies that Hurt, Descendants that Matter” World Archaeology 34(2):303-314.
8. AIP Zimmerman – Consulting Stakeholders (again)
1. AIP White – Producing the Record
5. Troy Lovata 2007 “The Fake Anasazi of Manitou Springs” Inauthentic Archaeologies: Public Use and Abuses of the Past, pages 49-76.
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