Introduction to Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology:

 

Humanity's Journeys

 

Dr. Kathryn Denning

 

Anth 2140, Sept 2005 - Apr 2006

 

 

 

Herjolfsnes Hood, Greenland c. 1300

 

27 Sept 2005... Welcome!

 

 

Plan for the day

 

1   Course business/ announcements.

2  Back to Archaeology: 10 Principles and your thoughts about York as an archaeological site.

3  A few more general truths about archaeology

Break

4  Part of: The Lost Vikings of Greenland - video exercise (to be continued in tutorial tomorrow)

 

 

 

Course business/ Announcements

 

Our second textbook - the course kit - is now at the bookstore

 

Syllabus - hand out. (extras available outside my office, Vari 2029)

 

Schedule

Tues Oct 4: NO CLASS

Weds Oct 5: NO TUTORIAL

Tues Oct 11: lecture and quiz review. Reading from kit: Putting the World in Perspective, The Essence of Anthropology, and The Nature of Anthropology

Weds Oct 12: tutorial and QUIZ #1, on all readings to date. Format: very short answer, fill in the blank, label the diagram. Review guidelines will be posted here.

 

Tutorial changes: (see policy here)

Come down at the break if you still need a tutorial change or CAN change.

 

Tutorial evaluation:

TOTAL: 20

7 for attendance

7 for mini assignments (which you can only do if you're there)

6 for participation

 

 

 

Reading you should have done for this class, Sept 27

For today, you should have read Fagan 31-85, and continued to familiarize yourself with the general contents of the book.

We may not directly discuss the textbook in lecture sometimes, but you still have to know it.

 

 

 

Last week's lecture: Archaeology: 10 Principles

 

 

1) Archaeology is about buried treasure…. but maybe not the treasure you think!

2) "Truth" in archaeology changes.  

3) Archaeology is rational but not perfectly so.

4) The past is powerful and should be treated with care.

5) The archaeological record includes a lot of "noise" but also messages -- messages meant for other people, but also for us.

6) “The past is a different country. They do things differently there.” 

7) They even think differently there. Even our most basic categories of thought can be completely transcended.

8) Literature and history can tell us what people wrote.  Archaeology can tell us what they did.
9)  We need to cultivate ignorance about the past, as well as wisdom.  We often have to unlearn what we think we know about the past. We have images…. they come from somewhere and they are neither neutral nor accidental.

10) Past people were… people.

 

 

 

 

Returning briefly to your assignment from last week

 

 

 

... and to #9, above ...

 

 

Let's consider some assumptions which appear in some of your work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now: A few more truths about archaeology

 

 

 

 

 

1.  Labelling is necessary – we have to have words to talk about things and people and times – but always problematic.

 

 

 "Ancient Egyptian. Reconstructed bead necklace; found at Amarna. Grape beads, white petal-beads; red poppy petals; red date pendants; yellow mandrakes; yellow ovals; turquoise pendants; greeb and blue corn flowers; green palm-leaf pendants; some beads broken. Eight rows of beads."

 

Amarna: The capital city of king Akhenaten (c. 1351-1334 BC). Location:  on the Nile, halfway between modern Cairo and Luxor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Viking Sword from cemetery at Kilmainham, near present-day Dublin, Ireland.  Pagan period, between 841 and 903 AD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. People in the past had a past, a present, and a future.

 

 

 

3. How you talk about something can really shape how you think about it.

 

 

 

4. What you bring to archaeology will determine partly what you see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

The heart of archaeology

 

 

 

What has archaeology been about?

 

 

And at its best, what can archaeology be about?

 

 

 

 

The Lost Vikings of Greenland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html

 

Tutorial change policy

Please simply attend your scheduled tutorial if this is at all possible.

If you absolutely cannot attend your scheduled tutorial, then you must:

a) find someone else to switch with

b) Go TOGETHER to see Betty Hagopian in the Dept of Anthropology, Vari 2054.
Mrs. Hagopian can do this switch for you.

Please note that you may NOT regularly attend a tutorial in which you are not
registered. You must attend the tutorial in which you are registered. Exceptions
can only be made on rare occasions.