History of Archaeological Theory

(4 Credits)

This course will review the development of archaeological theory from the beginnings of antiquarianism in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries to the emergence of the post-processual movements beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. The topics to be covered include the development of archaeology as a scientific/humanistic discipline, diffusionism and Childe’s modified diffusionism, the beginnings of modern archaeological theory, Lewis Binford and the processual movement, and the diversity of post-processual approaches.