ANTH 5203

 

Other Online Course Material areas:

ANTH 5203 Applications of Archeological Method and Theory
Fall 2008
Instructor Fred Limp
This material is available at: http://www.cast.uark.edu/home/education/university1/Online-Course-Material/anth-5203.html
A PDF version of this document is available here.
The course is designed as a graduate level survey of the various "schools" or paradigms of archeological theory today and their antecedents.  It has as its objectives the development of student skills in assessing alternative theories, developing practical skills in using theory for the interpretation/understanding of archaeological materials from surveys and sites and to inform the selection of methods.
     Class Schedule     Readings      Office and lab hours    General Policies     Class content and structure   
        Class premise       Class Components       Class Evaluation      Readings        Theory defined 

 

Class Schedule


The  class meets Tuesday and Thursday in the JB Hunt Center Room 330


Students will also be given access to JBHT 228 for computer access for the wiki and blog components of the class but any network connected computer can serve. There is no Computer Lab TA for this course but Limp will provide lab support hours, especially in the first of the semester. Specific times that Limp will be in the lab will be provided.

Since grading is not curved students are strongly encouraged to form study groups and work together. The JBHT 228 lab will be open at all times except for other classes and for special periods to be announced. Note that the J.B. Hunt Center is locked each evening and is locked on week-ends. However, students enrolled in the class will be able to use their UA student ID cards to access the building and computer lab after-hours.

All students and faculty using any UA computer facilities are required to comply wiht the University fo Arkansas' Code of Computing Practices. The full code is avaialble at http://uits.uark.edu/policies/code.htm.  Note that there is very specific guidance as to approved and not approved use. Violations of these rules will be cause for disciplinary and, potentially, legal action. In particular, no system is to be used for any activities that violate any law including loading of unauthorized or pirated software and/or distribution of illegal materials. More infromtion on computer use and access to support information is provided http://www.cast.uark.edu/home/support.html


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Office and Lab Hours


Limp can be contacted at 5-7909 (JBHT 309) or by e-mail at Turn on JavaScript!. Office hours are by appointment only. Prof. Limp is frequently called off campus. He is very interested in meeting with students but you should plan to make an appointment. He will be happy to meet with you if he is available when you just "drop by" but it is very likely that he will have other appointments, or be out of town etc.

 

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General Policies


Unless the University is officially closed, class will be offered. If, for any reason, the instructor is unable to meet the class he will notify the CAST receptionist and (if possible) send e-mail to student accounts. Please check with Ms. Karen Wagner (5-8614) or your e-mail if you have any question. If student religious requirements necessitate absences from class at times other than those normally scheduled by UAF policies they should make these requirements known during the first week of class and new schedule alternatives will be developed. Absences from class during exams or other scheduled work which are not approved in advance will mean that the exam will be assigned a zero grade. Other extraordinary circumstances will be evaluated on a case by case basis. 

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Class content and structure


Required texts and readings:

  • Archaeological theory today. Ian Hodder (ed) 2001 Polity. ISBN 0-7456-2269-0. "Hodder" in readings.
  • Archaeological theory and scientific practice. Andrew Jones 2002. Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-79393-9. "Jones " in readings.
  • A history of archaeological thought. (2nd edition!!!) Bruce Trigger. 2006. Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-60049-9. "Trigger" in readings.
  • Archaeology as a process. Micahel O'Brien, R.L. Lyman and M. Schiffer. University of Utah Press. "O'Brien" in readings

All but O'Brien are available in paperback. Local information on the books can be found at the on-line link: UA Bookstore class book information

They are also available from sources such as Amazon.com, etc.

In addition there will be additional articles as listed in the readings list. The great majority will be available via Mullins full-text resources. Using an on campus computer and your UARK login you should be able to access the article directly from the links that are provided in the syllabus. Those accessing the links from off campus should follow directions provided at: http://libinfo.uark.edu/access/. Those materials without current on-line access will be available through Mullin's on-line reserves and indicated by Reserve in the syllabus. These reserves can be accessed at http://library.uark.edu/search/r?SEARCH=ANTH+5203 . You will require a password to access the materials. It will be provided in class.

Comment on materials. With the exception of the readings from the required texts, the majority of the readings are drawn from journals, not edited volumes. There is a pragmatic and a philosophical rationale for this. Pragmatically the resources are (largely) available via the full-text sources of Mullin's library and thus easier to obtain. Philosophically, journal article are both peer reviewed and widely distributed. As such they are probably a better "snapshot" of the intellectual situation of the field at the time of their publication. Edited volumes can (sometimes) just represent the result of a group of scholars getting together and convincing a publisher to print their latest musings. Alternatively edited volumes can often represent emerging, not yet accepted, but influential ideas and can serve as central element in the intellectual growth of a field. I have (generally) ignored them at your (and my) peril. What gets published in journals versus what shows up in edited volumes is, all by itself, a very interesting issue.

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The Class Premise


"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct theorist"

Keynes 1936:383 General Theory

but also ...

I looked for the large in the small, the macro in the micro .... It is, I think the journalist's vice to believe that all history can instantly be reduced to experience: ("Pierre, an out of work pipe fitter in the Suburb of Boulougne, is typical of the new class of chômeurs ...") just as it is the scholar's vice to believe that all experience can be reduced to history ("The new world capitalist order produced a new class of chômeurs, of whom Pierre, a pipe fitter was a typical case ...")

Gopnik 2000 Paris to the Moon

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Theory defined (?)
  • the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
  • abstract thought : SPECULATION
  • the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art "music theory"
  • belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action "her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn"
    an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances - often used in the phrase in theory "in theory, we have always advocated freedom for all"
  • a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena "wave theory of light"
  • a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
  • an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE
  •  a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject "theory of equations"

Note: The term was first used in 1592


Merriam Webster 2002
 

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Class Components


1. Class participation
A central aspect of the class is the participation of each student. You are expected to have fully read the assigned materials BEFORE the class and to be prepared to discuss them. The ability to intelligently discuss different ideas and to participate in an ongoing dialogue is a central element of your future professional life. You should expect that the discussion will, from time to time, become vigorous but each person should treat the others with professional courtesy.


2. Papers
There will be one paper required. It will involve you applying a selected  (and new) theoretical orientation -- from the ones we have been considering -- to a body of archaeological data that has previously been published.  The approach you select should be differnt from the one that was used in the published work. You should investigate how using a different theoretical orientations would have altered or influenced the structure of the investigation, the field and analytical methods used (or not used) the problem(s) addressed, and answers derived. Very early on in the class you should select a substantial study (typically a monograph level treatment) either of a substantive archaeological survey or an excavation. The study should have adequate content so that you can fully understand the methods used, the materials recovered and the conclusions/interpretations that were drawn. There are many such reports from the Arkansas Archaeological Survey but you should feel free to select a study form any area and time period. But pick the study carefully - an inadequate report will make your work much harder.

You should provide me with a single page précis of the proposed study by September 13.

The comparative paper is due December 4th.

3 and 4. Wiki and Blog
There are two components to the course that may be a bit different from other courses in which you have been a participant. We will be utilizing both a wiki and a blog format.

3. The Arkansas Archeological Theory Wiki
(AATW - we need a better acronym)
A Wiki is "a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki). A series of wiki stubs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub) are available focusing on the various theoretical schools/ideas/directions. A stub is a short article in need of expansion. An example of a stub on "feminist archaeology" is provided at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_archaeology. By way of example there are currently some 800-ish archaeology (all categories) stubs in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Archaeology_stubs). We will have some stubs that are specifically for the class. There are also a number of entries that were completed last year.

Each person will be responsible for filling out either one stub or substantively improving an exsitign one but everyone will be participating in elaboration of many of the entries. Each person's participation in each topic can (and will) be monitored and assessed as part of your (individual) grade. We will be using a controlled wiki (not wikipedia!) for the class. Only class members will be able to edit and read them. Hopefully, however, we may produce content that is of such a caliber that we can move it wholesale to Wikipedia as an improvement on the current Wikipedia Archaeology project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Archaeology !

The wiki is available at http://wiki.cast.uark.edu/doku.php?id=collaboration:method_and_theory Note that you will require a login and password. IMPORTANT NOTE - when you access the wiki it will say "permission denied" - you just need to LOG IN - you do this by clicking the button "Login" towards the lower right of the screen and entering the user and password. These will be provided to you in class. Information on loging on and using the wiki is available here.

You should have your stub or upgrade completed November 1. Between November 1 and December 1 you should update/edit/expand other entries made by your fellow students or those made in earlier years. Your edits/additions will be evaluated.

Plagiarism
Because it is soooo.. easy to cut and past with a computer, there is a tremendous pressure to plagiarize. Don't! Please review the UA Academic Dishonesty Policy (http://www.uark.edu/ua/ethics/academic.html) Be advised that discovery of substantive plagiarism in this class will be cause for a failing grade. If you "reuse" content always provide appropriate citations and maintain awareness of copyright restrictions and limits to fair use, a good source is the Stanford Library materials at http://fairuse.stanford.edu/web_resources/articles.html

4. Blog
Arkansas Archaeological Theory Blog
(AATB - ok we'll work on this one too!)
While a wiki is a collaborative environment a blog is the opposite - a vehicle for individual expression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog . Each person will have their own blog space and each person will be expected to make multiple substantive entries each week. These are NOT to be construed as a formal scholarly structure but a vehicle for you to express your ideas, opinions, frustrations, rants, raves and to respond to your classmates similar postings. Only class members will be able post and read the comments.

You will be expected to provide at least one substantive post (considered to be 200 or so words) and an equilavent level of comment(s) on at least one post by someone else EACH week.

You can access the blog at http://blog.cast.uark.edu/ . Like the wiki you will need a login and password - they are the same.

Blogging instructions are available at http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts

General computing lab assistance
On-line help for many computing lab issues can be found at http://web.cast.uark.edu/home/support/cast-how-to.html

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Class Evaluation


The evaluation of you performance in the course will be composed of 4 elements.
Quality and extent of your

contributions to the AAMWiki (20%)
contributions to the class blog (20%)
verbal participation in class (20%)
Paper (40%)
You will be provided with formal feed back on the status of each aspect of 1, 2 and 3 at one-third and two-thirds of the way through the class. You are, of course, welcome to talk with me at any point.

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Readings

Note you should generally plan on reading the materials in the order provided. Expect that the first half will be covered on Tuesday and the second half on Thursday. The third half will be covered by Click and Clack on Saturday.

Week

Dates

Topics

Reading

1

August 26
August 28

Introduction

  1. Hodder in Hodder pg 1-13
  2. Jones pg 1-22
  3. O’Brien 1-17
  4. Trigger 1-39

2

Sept 2 
Sept 4

Historical background (1)

  1. Trigger 166-313
  2. O’Brien 17-35

3

Sept 9
Sept 11

Historical background (2) and the foundations of the New archaeology

  1. Trigger 314-385
  2. O’Brien 36-120
  3. Binford , L. 1962 Archaeology and Anthropology.  American Antiquity 28(2)-217-225.  Mullins Link
  4. Flannery, K. 1972 The cultural evolution of civilization. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 2:399-426 Mullins Link

4

Sept 16
Sept 18

Less new, new archaeology (1970s-80s)

  1. Trigger 386-444
  2. O’Brien 120-218
  3. Clarke, D. 1972 Review of explanation in archaeology: an explicitly scientific approach by P. Watson, S. Leblanc and C. Redman. Antiquity 46:237-239 Reserve
  4. Clarke, D. 1973 Archaeology: the loss of innocence. Antiquity 47:6-18.  This specific article is available at  http://antiquity.ac.uk/Listing/lossclarke.html
  5. Read also some of the responses, 25 years later, to this article in Antiquity. They include:
    1. Malone, C. and S. Stoddart. 1998. Introduction to David Clarke’s Innocence Lost 25 years after. Antiquity 72:676-677. Mullins Link
    2. Tilley, C. 1998. Archaeology: a loss of isolation.   Antiquity 72:691-693. Mullins Link
    3. Trigger, B. 1998 The loss of innocence in historic perspective. Antiquity 72:694-698 Mullins Link
    4. Pearson, P. 1998. The beginning of wisdom. Antiquity 72:680-687. Mullins Link
  6. Flannery. K. 1982. Golden Marshalltown. American Anthropologist. 82:265-278. Mullins Link

5

Sept 23
Sept 25

Initial post-processuralism

  1. Trigger 444-484
  2. O’Brien 219-252
  3. Leach, E. 1973 Concluding address in Explanation of cultural change: models in prehistory. C. Renfrew (ed) University of Pittsburg Pres. Pg 761-771 Reserve
  4.  Hodder, I. 1979. Economic and social stress and material cultural patterning. American Antiquity 44:446-454 Mullins link

6

Sept 30
Oct 2

Continued growth of post-processuralism,  alternatives and reactions

  1. Leone, N. 1982. Some opinions about recovering mind. American Antiquity 47(4):742-760. Mullins link
  2. Hodder, I. 1985 Post-processural archaeology. Advances in archaeological method and theory 8:1-26. Reserve
  3. Earle, T. and R. Preucel 1987 Processural archaeology and the radical critique Current Anthropology 28:501-538. Mullins Link
  4. Patterson, T. 1990. Some theoretical tensions within and between the processural and post-processural archaeological. Journal of anthropological archaeology 9:189-200 Reserve
  5. Shanks, 2006 (nd) Post processural archaeology and after, to appear in Handbook of archaeological theory H. Maschner and C. Chipendale eds Almitira  on-line source

Note: If you do not have any background in current archaeological studies (or perhaps if you do) you may wish to read Hegemon, M. Setting theoretical egos aside: Issues and theory in NA archaeology. American Antiquity 68(2) 213-243. Mullins Link. It is actually required as one of the section of the course on synthesis (below)  but it  provides a viewpoint on the current state of the archeological world and may serve as a useful integrating device for the next series of readings. We won’t discuss it  in class at this time.

7

Oct 7
Oct 9

Landscape and place

  1. Anschuetz, K, R Wilshusen and C. Scheick. 2001. An archeology of landscapes: perspectives and directions. Journal of Archaeological Research 9(2):157-211. Mullins Link
  2. Robin, C. and N. Rothschild 2002. Archaeological ethnographies.: Social dynamics of outdoor space. Journal of social archaeology. 2(2):159-171 Reserve
  3. Ashmore, W. 2002 Decisions and dispositions: socializing spatial archaeology. American Anthropologist 104(4):1172-1183 Mullins Link
  4. Thomas in Hodder pg. 165-186

8

Oct 14
Oct 16

Style and Identity

  1. Dunnell, R. 1978. Style and function a fundamental dichotomy. American Antiquity 43:192-202 Mullins link
  2. Hegman, M. 1992. Archaeological research on style. Annual Review of Anthropology 21:517-536. Mullins Link
  3. Robb, J. The archaeology of symbols. Annual review of anthropology 27:329-346 Mullins Link
  4. Meskell 2002 The intersection of identity and politics in archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 31:279-301. Mullins Link
  5. Joyce, R A. 2005. Archaeology of the body. Annual reviews of anthropology 34:139-158. Mullins Link

9

Oct 21
Oct 23

Engendered archaeologies

  1. Bender, B. Gather-hunter to farmer: a social perspective World Archaeology 10:204-222. Mullins Link
  2. Whelan, M. 1991. Gender and historical archaeology:eastern Dakota patterns in the 19th century. Historical Archaeology 25:17-32 Reserve
  3. Wylie, A. 1992. The interplay of evidential constraints and political interests: recent archaeological research on gender. American Antiquity 57:15-35 Mullins Link
  4. Conkey, M and J. Gero 1997 Programme to practice: gender and feminism in archaeology Annual review of anthropology 26:411-437 Mullins Link
  5. Meskell in Hodder pg 187-213

10

Oct 28
Oct 30

Agency

  1. Barrett in Hodder pg 141-164
  2. Dornan, J. 2002 Agency and archaeology :past present and future. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 9(4):303-329 Mullins Link
  3. Dobres, M. and J. Robb 2005 Doing agency: introductory remarks. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. 12(3):159-161 Mullins Link
  4. Hegmon, M and S. Kulow 2005. Paintint as agency, style as structure: innovations in Mimbres pottery designs from southwestern New Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Method and theory. 12(4)313-334  Mullins Link

11

Nov 4
Nov 6

Evolutionary archaeologies

  1. Neiman, F. 1995 Stylistic Variation in Evolutionary Perspective: Inferences from Decorative Diversity and Interassemblage Distance in Illinois Woodland Ceramic Assemblages, American Antiquity 60(1) 7-36  Mullins Link
  2. Fitzhugh, B. 2001. Risk and invention in human technological evolution. Journal of anthropological archaeology 20:125-167 Mullins Link
  3. Leonard in Hodder 65-97
  4. Boone, J. 2002 Subsistence strategies and human population history: an evolutionary ecological perspective. World Archaeology 34(1)6-25. Mullins Link
  5. Obrien, M. and L. Lyman 2002 Evolutionary archaeology: current status and future prospects. Evolutionary anthropology 11(1)26-36. Mullins Link

12

Nov 11 
Nov 13

Marxian, historical materialists, neo-Marxian and social conflict theory

  1. Yoffee, N. 1979 the decline and rise of Mesopotamian civilization. American Antiquity 44:5-35. Mullins Link
  2. Leone, M., P. Potter and P. Shackel 1987. Toward a critical archaeology. Current Anthropology 28(3):283-302. Mullins Link
  3. McGuire, R. and D. Saitta 1996. Although they have pretty captains they obey them badly. American Antiquity 61(2)197-216. Mullins Link
  4. Yentsch and Beaudry in Hodder 214-240

13

Nov 18
Nov 20

    Optimization models

  1. Reidhead, V. 1979 Linear programming models in archaeology. Annual review of anthropology 8:543-578. Mullins Link
  2. Bird, D and J. O’Connell 2006 Behavioral ecology and archaeology. Journal of archaeological research. 14(2):143-188. Mullins Link
  3. Kohler, T and S. Van der Leeuw Historical socionatural systems and models. Chapter 1 in  Model based archaeology of socionatural systems 
  4. Kohler et al Settlement  ecodynamics int he prehispanic centralmesa Verde region. Chapter 4 in Model based archaeology of socionatural systems

14

Nov 25
Nov 27 (No class - Break)

Archeometry, laboratory methods and theory

  1. Jones, A. (all)

15

Dec 2
Dec 4

Synthesis

  1. Trigger 484-528
  2. Hegemon, M. Setting theoretical egos aside: Issues and theory in NA archaeology. American Antiquity 68(2) 213-243. Mullins Link
  3. Hodder et al. 2007 Revolution Fulfilled? Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, a Generation On. Review of Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Ian Hodder interpretation Annual Cambridge Journal of Archaeology,17(2):199-228. Mullins Link

16

Dec 9

   
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