ANTH 2401. Archaeology and Prehistoric Culture
Fundamentals of archaeology, the study of past cultures through their material remains. Focuses on methods used to identify, date, interpret, and conserve archaeological data. Discussion of how theory, historical developments, contemporary issues and ethical concerns shape fieldwork, laboratory analyses and cultural reconstructions.
ANTH 2501. Science, Myth and Fraud
Using the tools of scientific inquiry, critical reasoning, and multicultural understanding, surveys a variety of historic and modern misconceptions about past cultures. Includes how to assess claims about the past, using archaeological data and interpretive tools; and apply these new standards to gain appreciation for some truly exciting recent archaeological discoveries.
ANTH 3250. North American Archaeology
Introduces students to indigenous societies that inhabited what is now the continental United States, Canada, and northern Mexico from earliest settlement to first encounters with Europeans. A comparative perspective highlights the richness and diversity of this archaeological record and demonstrates how deep history is interpreted using ancient material culture and early historic documents alongside their oral histories and living traditions of Native descendent communities.
ANTH 3543. Archeology of Ancient Egypt
The archaeological and historic record is used to provide a survey of ancient Egyptian sociocultural development. Emphasis is given to the interaction of economic, political and religious forces involved in state formation. The development of religious belief in Egypt is studied through surveys of iconography and an introduction to reading hieroglyphs.
ANTH 3546. Archaeology in Action: Ethnographic and Experimental Approaches
Introduces students to the theories and methods of ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology. Ethnoarchaeology is the study of living groups to better understand material culture's patterns and meanings in archaeological contexts. Experimental archaeologists use replicative studies to develop hypotheses and gain insights into past technologies.
ANTH 4144. The Rise of Agriculture
Process and variation in the development of farming and herding societies. Archaeological record pertaining to domestication of plants and animals in North and South America, Near East, Africa, and East Asia.
ANTH 4245. Rise of States
Process and variation in the early development of large-scale societies with institutionalized inequality, administrative bureaucracy, and hierarchical political organization. The course examines evidence of urban planning, monumental constructions, economic specialization, distinctive iconography and ideology, and structured mortuary practice.
ANTH 4247. Bioarchaeology: Linking Bones and Behavior
Reconstruct patterns of human behavior from integrated biological data sets. Archaeological evidence drawn from human skeletal, plant, and faunal remains. Address questions of nutrition, pathology, occupation, and mortuary ritual.
ANTH 4964. Archaeological Fieldwork
An introduction to methods used in the excavation and analysis of prehistoric sites. Surveying techniques, stratigraphy, analyses of soils and landforms, analytical fundamentals of prehistoric material remains.