| Professor: Dr. Chris Beekman | E-mail: Chris Beekman |
| Office: Admin., Suite 270 | Class Location: Anthro Dept. Library |
| Office phone: 303-556-6040 | Class Time: T 5:30-8:10pm |
| Anthropology dept phone: 303-556-3554 | Office Hours: TR noon-2pm |
| Course website: http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~cbeekman/teaching/anth6317.html | |
COURSE OBJECTIVES
This class is the second of two graduate seminar courses dealing with archaeological theory and method, and is directed towards graduate students intending to specialize in archaeology. Whereas Anth 6307 focused on grand theory ("How do humans interact with wider society?"), this course will tighten the focus and force students to grapple with how archaeologists operationalize that theory ("How do I study that using pottery?!"). In other words, it is important to discuss different conceptual approaches, but how can they be addressed through material culture?
On the other hand, students may be coming into this course with an interest in certain materials or methods ("I like lithics"). I want to shift your interests towards research topics, within which a variety of methods might be applicable ("I'm interested in economy"). Accordingly, this course will be organized in a topical manner. Students will be confronted with subjects and questions and will be exposed to different methodological and conceptual approaches used to address those questions.
The primary goal for this course is to give students a solid grounding in archaeological method as the operationalization of theory. This will provide the basis for your comprehensive exams and MA thesis research, it will prepare you for the many possible careers in archaeology, and will provide you with the skills to speak and write professionally about archaeological data.
EVALUATION OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE
General policies and expectations – As with any course at UCD, there are certain basic policies with which students must comply. Do not bring pets, children, noisy laptops, or active cellphones/beepers to class. Students are responsible for making sure that they are actually enrolled in the course, and for completing coursework on time. In order to earn the credit that this course (or any other) is worth, you must be willing and able to invest the time that is required - everyone has outside commitments, jobs, and family life, so do not expect that academic standards will be relaxed just because you have overcommitted yourself. Assignments turned in late will be docked one letter grade for each day they are late, i.e. a paper due Tuesday that is turned in Thursday cannot get better than a "C". Incompletes are granted at the end of the term only for unfinished work, and only when a legitimate and proven excuse exists. Academic dishonesty is never tolerated, and students should familiarize themselves with the regulations on pages 31-38 of the current catalog. Students with special needs should contact the AHEC Disability Service Office immediately to make arrangements, and I should also be informed as soon as possible.
I strongly encourage students in this course to be both creative and analytical. There is no exam in this course, but there is a great deal of reading, active discussion, and writing. Class participation is worth 10% of your grade. You are expected to keep up with reading and to participate in the class discussion. On any given day, we will try to assemble the disparate positions found in your readings and evaluate how the methods reflect the objectives. This course will be of little use to you unless you participate and directly grapple with these issues. In other words, be brave, speak up, and join the discussion in a useful way. Remember that while the readings are fair game for criticism, this course forces you to be constructive - if you see problems with the readings, you should be prepared to offer alternatives.
A weekly summary of each week's readings that summarizes the main issues that you found important in distinguishing between the different approaches. This is not a sentence about each article, but rather a synthetic treatment that brings out issues that are relevant to several or all of the articles. This should be about one or two paragraphs (a page) each week, typed, and they will be turned in at the beginning of class so that we can incorporate them into the discussion. You need to write them for weeks 2-15 (hence 14 weeks). Each one will be worth 1% of your grade and I'll give you the points for the missing week, so altogether they will be worth 15%.
A critical paper of about 10 pages will be worth 25% of your grade. For this paper you are asked to examine an archaeological research project from anywhere in the world that has already produced a number of significant publications. This is your opportunity to study a real project in depth and evaluate its research questions, and the methods used to address those goals. What is this project's theoretical orientation? What have the director(s) chosen to be the research questions? What methods were used to address them? Were they appropriate, or were issues critical to the topic left unexamined? Can you suggest what they might have done differently? Your job is not to evaluate the theoretical position of the authors, but whether their research questions and methods follow logically from that position. Recent projects that have few publications but a significant quantity of material available online (you have to clear the significant part with me) can be the subject of your study. A project name and a bibliography of the project publications that you will be examining will have to be turned in partway through the term.
A research proposal for a project of your choosing will be worth 50% of your grade. 40% of this will be the paper, and 10% will be your presentation to the group on our final day of class. This is an extraordinarily practical assignment that will give you experience useful for writing proposals for either research or CRM projects, or the many projects that lie somewhere in-between. I strongly encourage you to think of this as the research proposal for your graduate thesis. The proposal should follow the format required by grant institutions like the National Science Foundation, for which you must include:
REQUIRED READINGS
There are no textbooks for this course, but there will be a collection of readings that will be available in a coursepack in the anthropology department copy room. Readings for this course are extensive, and participation in this means that you will keep up with the heavy load. You will need to develop the important graduate student skill of "skimming in depth". This means developing the ability to discern the point of the article, to understand what they were trying to do and how the methods related to their objectives and their conclusions, even while you skim. This is hard, but it is important.
Articles in bold are available online if you access them from a school computer terminal or if you log in to the school system from home with a PPP account (talk to CINS about how to do that - it's easy). The articles in bold listed here are available through the JSTOR, Expanded Academic Index, or Kluwer fulltext databases.
COURSE ORGANIZATION AND READINGS
| Week | Date | Topic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug. 19 (T) | Research Design in Archaeology | |
| 2 | Aug. 26 (T) | Chronology | |
| 3 | Sep. 2 (T) | Site Location and Intersite Settlement Patterns | |
| 4 | Sep. 9 (T) | Intrasite Settlement Patterns - Function, Occupation, and Abandonment | |
| 5 | Sep. 16 (T) | The Landscape. Turn in critical paper topic | |
| 6 | Sep. 23 (T) | Paleo-Demography | |
| 7 | Sep. 30 (T) | Subsistence and Food | |
| 8 | Oct. 7 (T) | Labor, Production, and specialization | |
| 9 | Oct. 14 (T) | Exchange and Communication | |
| 10 | Oct. 21 (T) | The Social Life of Things. Turn in critical paper | |
| 11 | Oct. 28 (T) | Politics and Warfare | |
| 12 | Nov. 4 (T) | Mortuary Patterns, Religion, and Ideology | |
| 13 | Nov. 11 (T) | Social Organization I: Inequalities | |
| 14 | Nov. 18 (T) | Social Organization II: Kinship, Gender, and Personhood | |
| 15 | Nov. 25 (T) | Presentations of Research Proposals. Hand out materials on law and ethics | |
| 16 | Dec. 1 | Turn in Research Proposal |
Readings
Pickering, Robert B. and Ephraim Cuevas. 2003. The Ancient Ceramics of West Mexico… American Scientist 91(3): 242-249.
Hale, John, Jan Heinemeier, Lynne Lancaster, Alf Lindroos, and Asa Ringborn. 2003. Dating Ancient Mortar… American Scientist 91(2): 130-138.
Cobb, Charles R. and Brian M. Butler. 2002. The Vacant Quarter Revisited: Late Mississippian Abandonment of the Lower Ohio Valley. American Antiquity 67(4): 625-641.
Lertrit, Sawang. 2003. On Chronology-Building for Central Thailand through an attribute-based ceramic seriation. Asian Perspectives 42(1): 41-71.
Nash, Stephen E. 2002. Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating at the Millennium. Journal of Archaeological Research 10(3): 243-275.
Week 2 - Chronology
Week 3 - Site Location and Intersite Settlement Patterns
Branting, Scott and Geoffrey D. Summers. 2002. Modelling terrain: The Global Positioning (GPS) Survey at Kerkenes Dag, Turkey. Antiquity 76(293): 639-640.
Wandsnider, LuAnn and Eileen L. Camilli. 1992. The Character of Surface Archaeological Deposits and its Influence on Survey Accuracy. Journal of Field Archaeology 19: 169-188.
Crumley, Carole. 1979. Three Locational models: An Epistemological Assessment of Anthropology and Archaeology. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 2, edited by M.B. Schiffer, pp. 141-173. Academic Press, New York.
Wilkinson, T.J. 2000. Regional Approaches to Mesopotamian Archaeology: The Contribution of Archaeological Surveys. Journal of Archaeological Research 8(3): 219-267.
Week 4 - Intrasite Settlement Patterns - Function, Occupation, and Abandonment
Kent, Susan. 1992. Studying Variability in the Archaeological Record: an Ethnoarchaeological Model for Distinguishing Mobility Patterns. American Antiquity 57: 635-660.
Schlanger, Sarah H. 1990. Artifact Assemblage Composition and Site Occupation Duration. In Perspectives on Southwestern Prehistory, edited by P.E. Minnis and C.L. Redman, pp. 103-121. Westview Press, Boulder.
Dewar, Robert E. 1991. Incorporating Variation in Occupation Span into Settlement-Pattern Analysis. American Antiquity 56: 604-620.
Mathews, W., C.A.I. French, T. Lawrence, D.F. Cutler, and M.K. Jones. 1997. Microstratigraphic Traces of Site Formation Processes and Human Activities. World Archaeology 29(2): 281-308.
Hoffman, Brian W. 1999. Agayadan Village: Household Archaeology on Unimak Island, Alaska. Journal of Field Archaeology 26(2): 147-161.
Week 5 - The Landscape
Close, Angela. 1996. Carry that weight: The Use and Transportation of Stone Tools. Current Anthropology 37: 545-553.
Fleming, Andrew. 1987. Coaxial Field Systems: Some Questions of Time and Space. Antiquity 61: 188-202.
Wheatley, David. 1996. The Use of GIS to Understand Regional Variation in Earlier Neolithic Wessex. In New Methods, Old Problems. Geographic Information Systems in Modern Archaeological Research, edited by Herbert D. G. Maschner, pp. 75-103. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Papers No. 23, Southern Illinois University of Carbondale.
Dalan, Rinita A. 1997. The Construction of Mississippian Cahokia. In Cahokia. Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, pp. 89-102. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Grave, Peter. 1995. Beyond the Mandala: Buddhist Landscapes and Upland-Lowland Interaction in North-West Thailand A.D. 1200-1650. World Archaeology 27(2): 243-265.
Week 6 - Paleo-Demography
Rice, Don S. and T. Patrick Culbert. 1990. Historical Contexts for Population Reconstruction in the Maya Lowlands. In Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by T. Patrick Culbert and Don S. Rice, pp. 1-36. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Kardulias, P. Nick. 1992. Estimating Population at Ancient Military Sites: The Use of Historical and Contemporary Analogy. American Antiquity 57(2): 276-287.
Konigsberg, Lyle W. and Susan R. Frankenberg. 1994. Paleodemography: "Not Quite Dead". Evolutionary Anthropology 3: 92-105.
Mitchell, Douglas R. 1992. Burial Practices and Paleodemographic Reconstructions at Pueblo Grande. Kiva 58: 89-106.
Sterling, Sarah. 1999. Mortality Profiles as Indicators of Slowed Reproductive Rates: Evidence from Ancient Egypt. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18: 319-343.
Week 7 - Subsistence and Food - Select the 5 most interesting to you personally
Mithen, Steven J. 1997. Simulating Mammoth Hunting and Extinctions: Implications for North America. In Time, Process, and Structured Transformations, edited by Sander van der Leeuw and James McGlade, pp. 176-215. Routledge, London.
Schmitt, Dave N. and Karen D. Lupo. 1995. Mammalian Taphonomy, Taxonomic Diversity, and Measuring Subsistence Data in Zooarchaeology. American Antiquity 60: 495-515.
Nelson, Margaret C. and Karen Gust Schollmeyer. 2003. Game Resources, Social Interaction, and the Ecological Footprint in Southwest New Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 10(2): 69-110.
Diehl, Michael W. 1996. The Intensity of Maize Processing and Production in Upland Mogollon Pithouse Villages A.D. 200-1000. American Antiquity 61: 102-115.
Van West, Carla. 1997. Agricultural Potential and Carrying Capacity in Southwestern Colorado, A.D. 901 to 1300. In The Prehistoric Pueblo World, A.D. 1150-1350, edited by Michael A. Adler, pp. 214-227. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Chernoff, Miriam C. and Samuel M. Paley. Dynamics of Cereal Production at Tell el Ifshar, Israel during the Middle Bronze Age. Journal of Field Archaeology 25(4): 397-416.
Hamilakis, Yannis. 1999. Food Technologies/Technologies of the Body: The Social Context of Wine and Oil Production and Consumption in Bronze Age Crete. World Archaeology 31(1): 38-54.
Hedman, Kristin, Eve A. Hargrave, and Stanley H. Ambrose. 2002. Late Mississippian Diet in the American Bottom: Stable Isotope Analyses of Bone Collagen and Apatite. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27(2): 237-271.
Samuel, Delwen. 1999. Bread Making and Social Interactions at the Amarna Workmen's Village, Egypt. World Archaeology 31(1): 121-144.
Week 8 - Labor Organization, Production, and Specialization
Abrams, Elliot M. and Thomas W. Bolland. 1999. Architectural Energetics, Ancient Monuments, and Operations Management. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 6(4): 263-291.
Stark, Barbara. 1995. Problems in Analysis of Standardization and Specialization. In Pottery in Ceramic Production in the American Southwest, edited by B.J. Mills and P.L. Crown, pp. 231-267. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Clark, John E. and Douglas Donne Bryant. 1997. A Technological Typology of Prismatic Blades and Debitage from Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 8: 111-136.
Clark, John E. 1997. Prismatic Blademaking, Craftsmanship, and Production. Ancient Mesoamerica 8: 137-159.
Week 9 - Exchange and Communication
Glascock, M.D. The Status of Activation Analysis in Archaeology and Geochemistry. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 244(3): 537-541.
Jordan, Stacey C. and Carmel Schrire. 1999. Petrography of Locally Produced Pottery from the Dutch Colonial Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 26: 1327-1337.
Batten, David C. Transport and Urban Growth in Preindustrial Europe: Implications for Archaeology. Human Ecology 26(3): 489-516.
Washburn, Dorothy K. 2001. Remembering Things Seen: Experimental Approaches to the Process of Information Transmittal. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8(1): 67-99.
Peterson, Jane, Douglas R. Mitchell, and Steven Shackley. 1997. The Social and Economic Contexts of Lithic Procurement: Obsidian from Classic-Period Hohokam Sites. American Antiquity 62(2): 231-259.
Week 10 - The Social Life of Things
Whittaker, John C., Douglas Caulkins, and Kathryn A. Camp. 1998. Evaluating Consistency in Typology and Classification. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5: 129-164.
Lightfoot, Kent G., Antoinette Martinez, and Ann M. Schiff. 1998. Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63: 199-222.
Rainbird, Paul. 1999. Entangled Biographies: Western Pacific Ceramics and the Tombs of Pohnpei. World Archaeology 31(2): 214-224.
Bell, Alison. 2002. Emulation and Empowerment: Material, Social, and Economic Dynamics in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Virginia. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(4): 253-298.
Week 11 - Politics and Warfare
Howell, Todd L. 1995. Tracking Zuni Gender and Leadership Roles Across the Contact Period. Journal of Anthropological Research 51: 125-147.
Mudar, Karen M. 1999. How Many Dvaravati Kingdoms? Locational Analysis of First Millennium A.D. Moated Settlements in Central Thailand. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18: 1-28.
Pauketat, Timothy R. 1998. Refiguring the Archaeology of Greater Cahokia. Journal of Archaeological Research 6(1): 45-89.
Maschner, Herbert D. G. and Katherine L. Reedy-Maschner. 1998. Raid, Retreat, Defend (Repeat): The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Warfare on the North Pacific Rim. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17: 19-51.
Week 12 - Mortuary Patterns, Religion, and Ideology
Leone, Mark P., Gladys-Marie Fry. 1999. Conjuring in the Big House Kitchen: An Interpretation of African American Belief Systems based on the Uses of Archaeology and Folklore Sources. The Journal of American Folklore 112(445): 372-403.
Barrett, John C. 1996. The Living, the Dead and the Ancestors: Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices. In Contemporary Archaeology in Theory, a Reader, edited by Robert W. Preucel and Ian Hodder, pp. 394-412. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
Nelson, Ben A., J. Andrew Darling, and David A. Kice. 1992. Mortuary practices and the social order at La Quemada, Zacatecas, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 3: 298-315.
Aveni, Anthony, Anne S. Dowd, and Benjamin Vining. 2003. Maya Calendar Reform? Evidence from Orientations of Specialized Architectural Assemblages. Latin American Antiquity 14(2): 159-178.
Pollard, Helen P. and Laura Cahue. 1999. Mortuary Patterns of regional elites in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Western Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 10: 259-280.
Week 13 - Social Organization I: Inequalities - Choose the 4 that most interest you
McIntosh, Susan Keech. 1999. Pathways to Complexity: An African Perspective. In Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa, edited by Susan Keech McIntosh, pp. 1-30. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Widmer, Randolph J. and Rebecca Storey. 1992. Social Organization and Household Structure of a Teotihuacan Apartment Compound: S3W1: 33 of the Tlajinga Barrio. In Prehispanic Domestic Units in Western Mesoamerica, edited by Robert S. Santley and Kenneth G. Hirth, pp. 87-104. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Potter, James M. 1997. Communal Ritual and Faunal Remains: An Example from the Dolores Anasazi. Journal of Field Archaeology 24(3): 353-364.
Sweely, Tracy L. 1998. Personal Interactions: The Implications of Spatial Arrangements for Power Relations at Ceren, El Salvador. World Archaeology 29(3): 393-406
Little, Barbara J. and Paul A. Shackel. 1989. Scales of Historical Anthropology: An Archaeology of Colonial Anglo-America. Antiquity 63: 495-509.
Hamilton, Scott. 2000. Dynamics of Social Complexity in Early Nineteenth-Century British Fur-Trade Posts. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 4(3): 217-273.
Week 14 - Social Organization II: Kinship, Gender, and Self
Schachner, Gregson. 2001. Ritual Control and Transformation in Middle-Range Societies: An Example from the American Southwest. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20: 168-194.
Brumfiel, Elizabeth. 1991. Weaving and Cooking: Women's Production in Aztec Mexico. In Engendering Archaeology: Women in Prehistory, edited by Joan M. Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, pp. 224-251. Basil Blackwell, London.
Howell, Todd L. and Keith W. Kintigh. 1996. Archaeological Identification of Kin Groups Using Mortuary and Biological Data. American Antiquity 61: 537-554.
Gillespie, Susan D. 2001. Personhood, Agency, and Mortuary Ritual: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20: 73-112.
Comments to Chris Beekman