iBerry

multidisciplinary nature of archaeology, comparative examination of the origins of agriculture and the rise of early civilizations in the ancient Near East and Mesoamerica: readings

no-frills, all information experiment, notes from 2 introductory, core university courses: Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Archaeology (with lab).

Lectures and Workshops, Documentaries/Video Diaries

analytical survey of social & cultural history of Near East, tracing variety of cultural developments from prehistory to end of Iron age, archaeological evidence & textual sources examined: Early settled communities, Neolithic settlement, social complexities in Mesopotamia, Ceremonial centers, Early Dynastic period, Royal tombs of Ur, city state of Lagash, Gudea & Second dynasty of Lagash, Akkadian kingdom in Southern Mesopotamia, Middle Bronze Age, site of Ebla, Hittite kingdom in Anatolia, Early Iron Age, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Babylon & Neo-Babylonian kingdom, Persepolis & Persian Empire

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, section discussions, and out-of-class exercises explore the practical and social dimensions of archaeology: Computer Exercises
On-line Quizzes, links

basic methods and theoretical approaches used to reconstruct the past, major developments in human prehistory including human origins, the peopling of the globe, the origins of agriculture, and ancient Egyptian and Maya civilizations: study guide, assignments (video introductions, exercises), midterm and final essay questions, writing guide

introduction to the study of material culture, interpreting archaeological evidence, archaeological methods, site formation processes and dating techniques, interpreting early Oldowan technology sites, Acheulian technology, definitive evidence for hunting, Ice Age environments, Middle Paleolithic to Upper Paleolithic, Peopling of New worlds, ethics of archaeological research, Archaic to Mississippian in North America, origins of food production in the Near East

history of American archaeology, can archaeologists get it wrong?, 15k years in 50 minutes, environments of ice age, clovis and pleistocene extinctions, post-clovis settling in, archaic foragers everywhere, general patterns, eastern archaic, plains archaic & great basin archaic, western, arctic & subarctic archaic, woodland traditon, southwest (Hohokam, Mogollon & Anasazi, Mississippian tradition, historical archaeology in North America

goals, methods, theories, and practice of archaeology: archaeological-isms, dating, types, seriation, components, culture history, finding sites, reading culture from maps, data without digging, square holes, site formation, linking arguments, ethnoarchaeology, experimental & faunal analysis, archaeobotany, bioarchaeology, DNA, groups, status, inequality, gender, cognitive, native Americans