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) Teter Hall room xxx   lmaiorin@indiana.edu

readings | writings | grading | schedule

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Course Work and Grading

Readings: Most of our readings will come from two sources:

• Annual Editions Archaeology 98/99 is an edited volume of over 40 short articles about archaeology, taken from popular magazines and archaeology books and journals. They cover a range of topics, from "experimental archaeology" to ethics, and will give you a good sampling of what our field is all about. Not all these articles will be assigned reading for the course, but enjoy browsing through them!
• Investigating Olduvai. Archaeology of human origins CD-ROM. During the second week of the course most of your reading and writing assignments will come from this CD-ROM. It is designed to run on either Mac or Windows OS machines. Unfortunately, UITS has increased security codes on the campus PC clusters to the point where it is no longer possible to run the CD-ROM on campus Windows NT clusters. It will run on personal Windows machines, and on any Mac with a CD-ROM drive on campus.

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Writings: You will be given an assortment of written assignments with different textures and flavors.

• 5 reports: these will ask you to research a particular question or questions, collaborating with other students, and write up a simple, brief report on your results (which will also be presented to the class.)
• 3 micro-themes: these will be short, focused essays related to particular readings and topics discussed in class.
• 3 essays: these will ask you to address more integrative questions, drawing on examples from the readings and your own research, in essays of ~1000 words.
• 3 WWW presentations: these will ask you to collaborate with other students to rewrite selections of text and collect images from our work in class to present summaries of our class projects for other students visiting our class WWW site.

Attendance: You will be expected to attend all the classes and participate in all the in-class activities. You will lose 1% course credit for each in-class activity you miss without an approved medical excuse. (We will have 2-3 in-class activities each day.)

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Grading:

Final grades will be based on the following point distribution and grading scale:

Reports @ 5 pts each	25 possible points
Micro-themes @ 5 pts each	15 possible points
WWW presentations @ 5 pts each	15 possible points
Essay 1 @ 15 pts Essays 2 & 3 @ 20 pts each	55 possible points
TOTAL	110 possible points

 

A+ >100 A 95-100 A- 90-94

B+ 87-89 B 84-86 B- 80-83

C+ 77-79 C 74-76 C- 70-73

D+ 67-69 D 64-66 D- 60-63

F < 60

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Schedule of Topics and Assignments

Date & Topic	Readings (read before day)	Assignments	Assignment Due
Mon / Aug. 3 What is archaeology? visit to Mathers Museum		Micro-theme 1: The meaning of garbage	Research Report 1: Home Artifacts DUE
Tues / Aug. 4 What do archaeologists study? (library 11:30-12:30)	Articles 15 & 5:	Library research & team report 2	Micro-theme 1 DUE
Wed. / Aug 5 History & Archaeology	Articles 1-3	Essay 1: Historical Archaeology	Research report 2 DUE
Thur. / Aug 6 Archaeology of Time visit to GBL with Leslie Bush	Article 24 & handout	Team field project on campus: stratigraphy	Essay 1 DUE
Fri. / Aug 7 WWW archaeology		Create a web page
Mon / Aug. 10 Dating and Mapping the past	Handout	Micro-theme 2: Integrating evidence from Olduvai	Web report 1 DUE (revised Essay 1 DUE)
Tues / Aug. 11 Fossil record for human evolution	CD-ROM part I	CD-ROM research report 3 & debate preparation	Micro-theme 2 DUE
Wed. / Aug 12 Stones & Bones	CD-ROM part II	Essay 2: Interpreting Olduvai	Research report 3 DUE
Thur. / Aug 13 Prehistoric Activity Patterns	Article 19	PM movie! complete a worksheet on the film (optional report 4)
Fri. / Aug 14 Site formation and ethnoarchaeology survey		Team field project on campus: vacant lot archaeology & web report 2	Essay 2 DUE Optional Reseach report 4 DUE
Mon / Aug. 17 Ice Age to Agriculture	Articles 17, 18, 12 + Catal Hoyuk handout	Micro-theme 3:	Web report 2 DUE
Tues / Aug. 18 First Americans Cultural heritage debates	Articles 9-11, 28, 30-31	WWW research report 5 Essay 3	Micro-theme 3 DUE
Wed. / Aug 19 Maya (guest Anne Pyburn)	Articles 22 & 40	WWW report 3.	Research report 5 DUE
Thur. / Aug 20 Ethics, science and archaeology	Articles 37-38, 41		Web report 3 DUE
Fri. / Aug 21		Neolithic picnic	Essay 3 DUE

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readings | writings | grading | schedule

class home page

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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 Page

Last updated: 14 August, 1998

URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/index.html
Comments: sept@indiana.edu
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Jeanne Sept

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