Assignment for class, 4/26/06

• Research papers are due, in class (no e-mail submissions, please!).

• Questions for the take-home final will be distributed at the end of class, due 5/3 in class.

• Organization of individual or group summaries of research papers, to be presented orally 5/3 in class.

• Assigned readings

  • T&K:  Ch18

  • S&Y:  Ch14

  • Also:  look over material on CRM & contract/public archaeology in T&K Ch17 and S&Y Ch13.

• Planned topics of discussion:

  • Archaeological indicators of cultural change (review T&K Ch15 & S&Y Ch12, assigned previously)

  • Who owns the past? and other ethical issues in archaeology

  • Contract archaeology

  • Other, as time allows...

Assignment for class, 4/19/06

Read, or at least get familiar with, these chapters:

• T&K:

  • Ch13 (Reconstructing Social and Political Systems of the Past)

  • Ch15 (Understanding Key Transitions in World Prehistory)

• S&Y:

  • Ch11 (Interpreting Past Cultural Systems)

  • Ch12 (Understanding Culture Change)

Assignment for class, 4/12/06

• Think about AND complete the short essay questions on the video shown in class, The Lost Vikings.

  • Consult the PBS website on the video if you wish; see ANT 426 Links.

• Finish reading the chapters assigned below on environment, adaptation, settlement, subsistence, etc.

• Make substantial progress on your research paper!

Assignment for class, 4/05/06

• Tentative list of sources for the research paper.

• We will finish classification & analysis, so be sure you have read:

  • T&K Ch9 (Dimensions of Archaeology:  Time, Space, and Form)

  • S&Y Ch6 (Classification and Analysis of Artifacts)

• We will start on discussions of environment, adaptation, settlement, and subsistence, so get started reading:

  • T&K

    • Ch11 (People, Plants, and Animals in the Past)

  • S&Y

    • Ch09 (Environment and Adaptation)

    • Ch10 (Understanding Past Settlement and Subsistence)

  • Sorry; the above authors and chapters were reversed, but are now correct; 4/05/06.

Assignment for class, 3/22 and 3/29/06

• Four groups assigned to prepare brief presentations on selected topics

• Read and think about archaeological dating methods:

  • T&K Ch8 (Chronology Building:  How to Get a Date)

  • S&Y (Ch7 (Determining Time)

Other resources to consider:

• A link to some of the PowerPoint slides shown in class on 3/29 in the discussion of radiocarbon dating error and calibration.

• Some of many good internet links available on archaeological dating.

Assignment for class, 3/15/06

• None.  Topics:

  • Librarian Rui Wang's visit; discussion of reference tools for archaeological research.

  • Discussion of research paper topics and format

  • Discussion of research design & field methods in Peru.

Assignment for 3/08/06

• SPRING BREAK -- you're on your own!

Assignment for class, 3/01/06

• Study for the MIDTERM!

Assignment for class, 2/22/06

• Read T&K Ch6

• Read (or finish reading) S&Y Ch5 (do not bother with Ch6 yet).

• Read/skim the article "Archaeological Settlement Patterns" by Jeffrey R. Parsons, 1971, Annual Review of Anthropology vol. 1:127-150, available on line through CENTRA (the library's hard copy is checked out and overdue).

• Optional:  glance through David Wilson's Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Lower Santa Valley, Peru, which should be available very soon on two-hour reserve.

• Also fun (not required) to browse through, coming soon to ANT 426 reserve:  Peru from the Air, 1930, by George R. Johnson, one of the first and most spectacular efforts to combine (fledgling) aerial photography and archaeology.  A truly unique, historical masterpiece!

Assignment for class, 2/15/06:

• Read S&Y Ch5
• Read T&K Ch4 and skim Ch5

Processualism vs Postprocessualism?

• Congratulations, ANT 426-ers, on your lively, diverse, and contemplative comments following our first immersion as a class into this subject!
• Please keep in mind that I, as instructor, have no agenda in class regarding these positions, except to help make you aware of them and assist and stimulate your thinking and criticism.  My responses to student comments will often be from the perspective of "devil's advocate" to call attention to alternative views.  My own position on controversial issues such as this is largely irrelevant to the class and, in any case, is probably more complex and less absolute than might appear from my comments.
• Think about these oppositions some more!  Reread the relevant sections in both course textbooks, and for the ambitious reader, see what other authors have to say about the subject.  Here are some optional resources already (or soon to be) on reserve for ANT 426:
  • Renfrew & Bahn 2004, Archaeology Theories, Methods, and Practice, pp. 40-47.
  • Hodder 1999, The Archaeological Process:  An Introduction.
  • Preucel 1991, Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies:  Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past.
  • Whitley 1998, Reader in Archaeological Theory:  Post-processual and Cognitive Approaches.
  • Ch1 of Hunt, Lipo, and Sterling 2001, Posing Questions for a Scientific Archaeology.
  • In the CMU library but not on reserve:
    • Numerous basic textbooks on archaeology
    • Other texts authored or co-authored by Ian Hodder, also by Robert Preucel, Mark Leone and others (see ANT 426 References)
    • VanPool, C. S., and T. L. VanPool 1999, "The Scientific Nature of Postprocessualism." American Antiquity 64:33-53.
      E51 .A52 (Periodicals).
• Interested in the article by Kent Flannery discussed in class?  See "Archaeology with a Capital S," in Redman, ed., 1973, Research and Theory in Current Archeology, pp. 47-53, on reserve.

Assignment for class, 2/08/06:

• Read Ch4, "The Archaeological Record," in Sutton & Yohe.
• Read the hand-out "Point-Counterpoint:  Archaeology vs. Anthropology" by Robert Kelly.
• Recommended:  read "Introduction" (pp. 1-13) and skim "Archaeology as Anthropology" (pp. 20-32) in An Archaeological Perspective, by Lewis Binford, on two-hour reserve.

Assignment for class, 2/01/06:

Read one chapter each from both textbooks:

• Thomas & Kelly Ch3
• Sutton & Yohe Ch 3

Read the two articles below, and write your comments concerning these articles (1-2 pages, to be submitted in class).  Both articles were published 2001 in the journal American Antiquity 66(4):669-685.  You may access both articles together as a vertical file on reserve for ANT 426, on the shelf in the Non-Circulating Periodicals  (E51.A52); or on line by looking up American Antiquity in Centra, and going to JSTOR from an approved computer (such as in the library).

• Binford, Lewis R.  Where Do Research Problems Come From?
• Odell, George.  Reserach Problems R Us.

Some Useful Links

• Conference Program - What's hot & what's not; April 2006 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, in Puerto Rico

• Archaeological dating

• PowerPoint slides (some) shown in class on radiocarbon dating

• Lost Vikings of Greenland - PBS, from Secrets of the Dead series

• More Viking links

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