Introduction to Archaeology

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

This course provides an introduction to how archaeology is used to tell stories about the past, especially that part of the human past beyond the scope of written history. Readings, lectures, and section discussions and lab activities explore the practical and social dimensions of archaeology. We study how American archaeology developed historically as a discipline, and the contrast between popular images of archaeology and its real social and political context today. We then explore how archaeologists gather data and how they reconstruct social behavior and cultural meaning from material remains. (ARKEO-COS)