The Stone Age Meets the Information Age:
an introduction to archaeology
IFS 1998
Professor Jeanne Sept
Anthropology Department
Student Building 038 (office)
855-5395; sept@indiana.edu
Lisa Maiorino (intern)
Links to individual assignments:
Microtheme assignment Date due Microtheme 1: The meaning of garbage Tuesday August 4 Microtheme 2: Olduvai Tuesday August 11 Microtheme 3: Identity Tuesday August 18
Research Report assignment Date due Research Report 1: Home artifacts Monday, August 3 Research Report 2: Library research: changing material culture Wednesday, August 5 Research Report 3: Olduvai Wednesday August 12 Research Report 4: Indiana Jones (optional) Friday August 14 (afternoon OK) Research Report 5: Indiana archaeology Wednesday, August 19
WWW Assignment Date due Web Report 1: archaeology around us Monday August 10 Web Report 2: experiments Monday August 17 Web Report 3: pick-a-site Friday August 21
Essay Assignment Date due Essay 1 Thursday August 6
(optional rewrite due Monday August 10)
Essay 2 Friday August 14 Essay 3 Friday August 21
Micro-theme 1: The meaning of garbage (5 pts)
In a concise paragraph of ~100 words explain how garbage can yield information about people that can be different from (or contrasts with) other types of evidence, such as written documents or oral accounts. Focus on this question as an epistemological issue. Describe two specific examples from Rathje's article (article 15) to support your argument. This assignment is due in class tomorrow (Tuesday, August 4).
Since you may still be unfamiliar with word processing, you can turn this assignment in hand-written, if you like. All future assignments should be typed (e.g., using MS Word or equivalent on a computer in Teter or one of the campus clusters).
Micro-theme 2: Site Formation in a changing landscape: explain FLK-Zinj
Why can we find ancient artifacts and fossilized animals bones lying exposed on the modern landsurface at the FLK-Zinj site? (Explain the processes that led to the preservation and exposure of the site.)
Micro-theme 3: Cultural Identity
In a concise paragraph describe an example of the types of evidence that archaeologists use to try to define aspects of "cultural identity" or ideology preserved in the archaeological record. Refer specifically to your readings, and/or to examples that we discuss in class.
Research Report 1: Changing material culture (5 pts)
1. Team up with a classmate for this assignment.
2. Choose one type of artifact that you think has probably changed a lot during the last 100 years. (This can be the same artifact type you reported on from home, or a different one.
3. Do research in the library on the history of your chosen artifact type. Your goal will be to document at least 50 years of change but see how far back you can trace it, using historical documents. Suggested references:
4. Working together, try to document at least 10 stages in the history of your artifact type that could be differentiated, based on stylistic and/or technological attributes. Make xeroxes of pictures of each stage, if you can.
5. Write a brief description of how you recognize each stage: e.g., how it can be distinguished from what came before and what came after.
6. Turn in a joint report that includes:
7. Your joint research report is due in class on Wednesday Aug 5.
Research Report 2: Investigating Olduvai
Working through the CD-ROM, take notes to help you figure out who the possible "culprits" were in the formation of the FLK-Zinj site at Olduvai. Who dunnit? (Keep your notes to help with research for Essay 2)
Research Report 4: Archaeology in Indiana
In class we've discussed the peopling of the New World and the archaeological record in North America. during the first week you had the chance to visit the Glenn Black Lab to learn about the 15th c. AD site that IU's archaeology field school dug up this summer. Now, return to the Glenn Black Lab on your own (its open til 4:30 pm on weekdays) to visit the museum display of archaeological sequence in Indiana. Take notes on the displays, and write up a short (1 page) summary of the types of archaeological materials that have been found in Indiana. What major "culture groups" are represented here... how old are they and what were their main distinctive characteristics (e.g. material culture, settlement types, etc)?
Essay 1 Assignment: Historical Archaeology
Write an essay (~3 typed pages / 750 words long) that addresses the following question in relation to your assigned readings and class resources:
How can archaeological research augment and / or challenge historical understanding of the lives of American slaves (traditionally based on written or oral historical sources)?
Cite examples from both the printed articles (e.g. the Hermitage and Monticello projects), and refer specifically to the types of archaeological evidence (e.g. style of artifacts) and how they have been interpreted in relation to historical sources. (Feel free to incorporate ideas from your first micro-theme on the meaning of garbage in this essay where appropriate.) Include a bibliography at the end of your paper that includes complete references to all the sources of information you used (including WWW sites, etc).
- Refer to our class web page for Aug 5 for WWW links to Monticello, etc.
This essay is due Thursday, August 6. It will be graded quickly and returned to you by Friday. You will have the opportunity to revise it over the weekend, and turn in a second draft to potentially improve your grade. The revised versions will be due on Monday, August 10. Note that this essay is a little shorter (3 pp) and weighted more lightly (15% of grade) than subsequent essays. This will be a good chance for you to practice editing and revising your written work, and to calibrate your own expectations against your professor's standards.
Essay 2 Assignment: Interpreting Olduvai Gorge
Due Friday, August 14
Write a 3-4 page essay (750-100 words) to address the following topic.
At the FLK-Zinj site Mary Leakey uncovered a huge concentration of stone tools and fragmentary animal bones (including the bones of two different hominid species). Archaeologists have long debated the meaning of what was found at this site.
For example:
- Does this site preserve the "garbage" of one or both hominids, or did the stones and bones accumulate through some other (natural) process? What was the influence of carnivores on the site?
OR
- What can evidence from this site tell us about what early hominids ate and/or how they acquired their foods?
Pick ONE of these questions and develop an hypothesis and supporting argument to answer it.
As in the case of most archaeological evidence, we don't have ALL the clues necessary to answer these questions with 100% certainty. So describe what you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each type of specific evidence that is relevant to the question. (For example, the relative abundance of cutmarks on some bones, but not others, can be interpeted how ......?). Which types of evidence can you interpret with the most confidence, and why? Which types of evidence cannot be interpreted unambiguously, and why?
Essay 3 Assignment: Who owns the Past?
This week in class we are looking at several examples of how archaeologists work in a public arena, including issues of repatriation of cultural remains under NAGPRA.
1. Visit the following two web sites to read more about the importance of NAGPRA from the different perspectives of scientists and Native Americans:
- Information on NAGPRA sponsored by the National Archaeology Database
- American Indian Ritual Object Repatriation Foundation public education site
2. Do some library research to find a recent newspaper or magazine article describing a recent case of NAGPRA "in action". (Note: you can search online databases that include the full text of newspaper articles... ask a librarian how!) One example would be the Kennewick controversy, but you can use any one you want.
3. Write an essay of ~4 -5 pages describing the circumstances of the particular case you have researched, and putting it in the context of the range of opinions and perspectives about NAGPRA that you have read about among scientists and different members of the American public, including Native Americans, government officials, etc.
Your goal, in this essay, should be to clearly lay out the specific issues involved in your case study, in relation to the general issues of NAGPRA. Which issues to people agree on? Where do they disagree? Try to explain the rationale of each perspective.
Web Report 1: Archaeology all around us
Friday in class you will be learning to construct a simple home page on the web. Your weekend assignment is to create another web page that relates to our class topics. Finish your web page by Monday afternoon, and email the URL of your webpage to Professor Sept before 5pm on Monday.
1. Create a simple home page for yourself on EZInfo (you should be able to do this during class time on Friday).
2. Create a second simple web page (linked to your home page) summarizing something that interested you about what we studied this week in class that you think might interest other IFS students such as:
- your research on the history of material culture (e.g. put part of the text and images of your report "online") .. why does this relate to archaeology?
- garbology... why does this relate to archaeology?
- sidewalk stratigraphy ( put your extra credit "special report" online!)... why does this relate to archaeology?
- our visit to the Glenn Black Lab... what is something interesting you learned about archaeology in Indiana?
- our research on historical archaeology... what can archaeological research ADD to the study of historical periods?
- based on what you have read and looked at during the first week of our class, what have you learned about archaeologists that was different than what you knew on the first day? ... e.g. compared to Indiana Jones?
Try to include at least one picture/image on your page (e.g. of a telephone) you can snag these from an existing website, or include a digital image we took in class.
Include at least three links on your class page (e.g. one to your own homepage, one to the IFS homepage, and one to our class homepage), and optional links to an archaeology website that relates to your topic (e.g. the Five Points site).
Web Report 2: Experimental Archaeology
(Due on Monday August 17)
Why and how do archaeologists use experiments and/or observations of living people (or chimpanzees!) to help them interpret evidence at archaeological sites?
Refer to our readings and/or class videos and activities to describe, for the benefit of other IFS students, one example of how experimental archaeology (or ethno-archaeology) can help develop the principles we use to interpret ancient remains. (Relevant readings include chapters 17-19 and the CD-ROM).
In effect, you could address (and illustrate with a link to one of our online gallery photos!) the question:
"What am I doing in this photograph, and what does it have to do with archaeology?"
Write a paragraph aimed at other IFS students, and put it up on the web either as a new www page linked to your home page, or as an update (new section) on the first www assignment page you created. You can be casual in your description (e.g. use language fellow students would understand), but take the question seriously.
Web Report 3: Experimental Archaeology
(Due "online" on Friday, the last day of class)
Visit the ArchNet WWW meta-site, (or follow one of the WWW leads listed on pp 4-5 of your article reader) and find an archaeological site that we have not discussed in class that you find very informative and interesting. Make a web page linking to this site, and describe the site on your web page, noting the age, location, and interesting artifacts and features of the site, and explaining what other IFS students might learn about if they visited it, and why you found it particularly interesting.
Jeanne Sept does field research related to the archaeology of human origins in East Africa,
and teaches in the Anthropology Department at Indiana University, Bloomington.
visit her main web page Human Origins and Evolution in Africa or the following topical pages:
Africa | Primates | Human Evolution | Paleoecology | Archaeology
IU Anthropology | Sept teaching interests | Sept research | Sept Personal Home PageLast updated: 3 August, 1998
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/index.html
Comments: sept@indiana.edu
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Jeanne Sept