Seminar: Historical Archaeology

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY: FALL 2012
MONDAYS: 9:10-12:00, SOCIAL SCIENCE 252

Course Syllabus

Instructor: Kelly J. Dixon
Office: Social Sciences Building, Room 235
Office hours: Check office door or make an appointment
Course Website: http://www.cas.umt.edu/departments/anthropology/courses/anth551/
Mansfield Library Guide: http://libguides.lib.umt.edu/anty551

Historical Archaeology is the study of post-prehistoric human cultures using physical remains, historical records, and a range of multidisciplinary techniques.

Course Objectives:This is an advanced course in historical archaeology; the lower-division companion to this course is ANTH 456 (Historic Sites Archaeology). Whereas ANTH 456 provides students with a general introduction to the topic, ANTH 551 will delve deeper into the discipline's scholarship through intensive readings, reading journals, essays, and discussions. Ultimately, we will consider practical ways to apply [or not to apply] the influences of such scholarship to "real world" (e.g., CRM) circumstances. All the while, we will scrutinize historical archaeology at global and regional levels to consider how our own research might contribute to broad understandings of cultural heritage issues associated with the relatively recent past.

Required Readings: most will be pdfs of publications

 

Recommended Textbooks:

(after we go through the course bibliography, students will choose books pertinent to their research)

If students want a bona fide text, consider buying these:

Dixon, Kelly J.. Schabiltsky, Julie M., and Novak, Shannon, A.

2011 An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Hall, Martin and Silliman, Stephen W., editors

2006       Historical Archaeology, Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.

Novak, Shannon A House of Mourning: A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008.

 

Additional Readings:

See attached course bibliography.  Certain readings from [or in addition to] the attached bibliography may be assigned as appropriate throughout the semester. 

 

 

 

ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOMES (I.E. GRADING)

Attendance:

Mandatory.

Because we will be addressing a range of topics and case studies in historical archaeology, all assigned readings should be done before class so that you can contribute to class discussions linked with the course goals. In addition, you will be graded on a readings journal, which will be collected and used in class discussions (for grades) throughout the semester. Readings journal directions are listed on the last page of this syllabus. Please follow those directions, as your grade depends upon it. Other deliverables will take the form of essays assigned throughout the semester. Your final project for this course will be announced during the latter portion of the semester.

Grades

You will be assessed on the following:

 

1. Reading Journal (checked each class meeting)	100 points
2. Assignments	100 points
3. Final Paper	100 points
4. Participation	100 points
Total	400 points

 

I will assign +/- grades and final grades will be based upon the following average scores for the journals, exam, research paper and in-class, exercises and participation: A (100-95), A- (94-90), B+ (89-88), B (87-83), B- (82-80), C+ (79-78), C (77-73), C- (72-70), D+ (69-68), D (67-63), D- (62-60), F (59 or less).

Students with Disabilities:

The Department of Anthropology is committed to equal opportunity in education for all students, including those with documented physical disabilities or documented learning disabilities. University policy states that it is the responsibility of students with documented disabilities to contact instructors DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF THE SEMESTER to discuss appropriate accommodations to ensure equity in grading, classroom experiences, and outside assignments. The instructor will meet with the student and the staff of the Disability Services for Students (DSS) to formulate a plan for accommodations. Please contact Jim Marks in DSS (243.2373, Lommasson Center 154) for more information.

Course Schedule:

 

Week 1                                                                                                  

Monday, August 27                       Course Introduction; HA, global change, the modern world.

 

Readings: to be assigned on first day of class for Monday, September 12, class (see below)

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Week 2                                                                                                            

Monday, September 3                    NO CLASS – LABOR DAY

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Week  3                                                                                                               

Monday, September 10                What is Historical Archaeology? What is the relevance of this field to the so-called “modern world”?

Readings

Chapter 1 (Introduction), in Hall and Silliman (editors); Hardesty 2007; Moss 2005; Orser 2010; Silliman 2005; Wilcox 2010.

 

Library Visit, 11 am: Gov Docs (Susanne Caro)

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Week  4                                                                                                               

Monday, September 17                  Colonialism in Western North America; Cultures in Contact in California; Tobacco and Cultural Contact in Eastern North America

Readings

Lightfoot (chapter 14 in Hall and Silliman, editors); Nassaney 2004; Lightfoot 2005 (MAYBE whole book); possibly go over Dixon ms. on HA in the American West.

 

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Week 5                                                                                                                  

Monday, September 24    “Frontiers” and the Landscapes of Homesteads, the Mining West, etc.

 

Readings

Church 2002; Lightfoot 1995 (SKIM); Lightfoot and Martinez 1995; Hardesty 2003; Hardesty 2010 (excerpt).

Library Visit, 9 am: Conducting literature searches with Julie Biando Edwards

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Week 6  

Monday, October 1         Archaeologies of Desperation: A Springboard for Colonization and

Cultures in Contact

Readings

Rautman and Fenton 2005 (SKIM); Dixon et al. 2010; Ellis et al. 2011; excerpt from Dixon et al. 2011.

 

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Week 7                

Monday, October 8

 

An Anthropological Archaeology in Egypt; text-aided versus Age of Exploration/Capitalism

Readings

Meskell 2005 (whole book); Kardulias 1994; Galloway 2006 (chapter 3 in Hall and Silliman, editors)

 

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Week  8                                                                                              

Monday, October 15                    

Africa’s Gold Coast; Trans-Atlantic Diasporas; “Race” & the Archaeology of Identity.

Readings

Palus et al 2006 and Pikirayi 2006 (chapters 5 and 12 in Hall and Silliman, editors); Orser 2001 (excerpt from Race and the Archaeology of Identity); if you want, skim Ferguson 1992.

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Week 9  

Monday, October 22      

 

Archival Records, Oral Histories, Skeletal Remains, and a Massacre                 

 

Readings

Consider Novak 2008 (whole book);

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Week 10                                                                                                              

Monday, October 29

Asian American Archaeology

Readings

Merritt 2010 (Find Christopher Merritt’s Dissertation on Mansfield Library Website and peruse)

 

Selected papers from special issue of Historical Archaeology: The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities (2008); each will be assigned to certain students: Baxter 2008; Fosha and Leatherman 2008; Mullins 2008 + Williams 2008; Voss 2008; Voss and Allen 2008; all read Williams and Voss 2008 and Yu 2008.

 

SKIM: Greenwood 1978; Wegars 1993 (xxiii-xxvi; Fee’s chapter 65-96); browse this website: http://www.uidaho.edu/LS/AACC/ and this online bibliography:

http://www.sha.org/research_resources/documents/AAOC.pdf.

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Week 11                                                                                                              

Monday, November 5                   Socioeconomic Status/Class; Landscapes

Readings

Rotman and Nassaney 1997; Delle 1999; McGuire and Reckner 2002; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2001; Saitta 2007 (excerpt); Silliman 2006 and Wurst 2006 (chapter 8 and 10 in Hall and Silliman, editors).

 

SKIM:  McGuire 2002 (xxvii-xx); Miller 1991; Schmitt and Zeier 1993; Paynter 1999; Wurst and Fitts 1999.

 

FINAL PROJECT DISCUSSION: STUDENTS PRESENT STATUS UPDATES.

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Week 12                                                                                                              

Monday, November 12                  Gender…but don’t forget “Class,” “Ethnicity,” and the like!

Hardesty 1994b; 1998; Siefert 1991; Crist 2005; Spude 2005; Voss 2006 (chapter 6 in Hall and Silliman, editors).

 

SPECIAL TOPIC: Coloma Mining Ghost Town: A Tangle of Engendered Interpretations

 

Start reading Dixon 2005 (Boomtown Saloons) as the whole book is due next week.

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Week 13                          

Monday, November 19                  Saloon Archaeology and related topics

 

Readings

Dixon 2005 whole book; Pauls 2006 (chapter 4 in Hall and Silliman, editors)

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Week 14                                                                                                              

Monday, November 26                  Environmental and Biological Approaches

Allen 2010; Bain 2010; Mrozowski 2006 (chapter 2 in Hall and Silliman, editors); Hattori and Thompson 1987.

 

DISCISS FINAL PROJECT PROGRESS.

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Week 15                                                                                                              

Monday, December 3      COMPLETE Readings Journals Due!!

Presentations of literature reviews; final papers will be accepted in this date if students are finished.

 

Week 16:                                                                                                      Final Exam Time Slot

Monday, December 10                                                                                       8:00-10:00 am     

Final paper (literature review) due        

               

NOTE: Additional readings may be assigned throughout the semester

READINGS JOURNAL EXPECTATIONS

You will be required to keep a readings journal in which you review and respond analytically to each assigned reading. You must maintain the checklist (attached) as a sort of "table of contents" for your journal; please keep it attached to your journal and update journal page numbers accordingly.

You may want to use a loose-leaf binder for your journal, so that even while I have your journal, you can continue to take notes and insert them later. I prefer that you type your journal but will accept legible, handwritten journal entries. And please, before each new entry, provide the author(s) names and the title of the book, article, or chapter. That will help me with grading, but more importantly, you will find it handy as you go back and reference your journal, which I know you will want/need to do throughout the semester.

In order to receive a top grade, your journal MUST do more than merely summarize and must therefore demonstrate the following attributes:

1) Demonstrate that you have done the reading. The easiest way to do this is to take reading notes in your journal, with passages or quotations (and their associated page numbers) written out that intrigue you -- or that you may wish to dispute and/or discuss further). You must include enough written discussion to show that you are familiar with the content.

2) Illustrate your thought processes and how you are interacting with the readings. Please take your thoughts deeper than, "I don't like this," or "this is a load of rubbish." Rather, make sure your notes clearly establish that you have at least tried to understand what the author is writing about. Every author usually has a reason for writing something and they usually have some sort of a point to make; your journal entries therefore should include explanations of what you think the authors are getting at or what they believe is truly important about their work. I want to know what you think about the authors' points and why. You may have to read things over a second or third time or just sit back and really think about a section to assess the point(s) various authors try to make, but this is part of the learning exercise. Welcome to higher education.

3) Draw connections between the various materials you have already read. As the semester progresses, I expect you to make comparisons with earlier readings. In doing so, I want you to draw upon the ideas of one author versus other authors, between the themes of various readings, and between the themes we touch upon in this course. Ideally, you will start to construct a literature review as your journal progresses, and that, fortunately, just so happens to be the final project for this class (see below).

READINGS JOURNAL "DUE DATES"

Your journal entries should be completed before each class meeting (for which there are assigned readings) to assist you in preparing for discussions. I will check your journals to give you points for each class meeting. If you do not have the journal (or if you do not have any journal entries for the day's readings), you will lose journal points (actually, you will receive a "0" in my journal grade book for the week or weeks that you do not turn in your journal). So, PRETTY PLEASE, BRING JOURNALS TO CLASS WITH YOU EACH TIME WE MEET so that you can get full points and be prepared for lively discussion.

ASSIGNMENTS

These will be announced and given throughout the semester and may include leading discussions.

FINAL PAPER/REVIEW ESSAY

You will be required to compile literature reviews on various historical archaeological investigations taking place in the American West. Each student will tackle a particular topic of their choice [e.g., historic forts, the fur trade, missions, mining, homesteading, logging, ranching, trails and overland migration, railroad construction camps, battlefields, brothels, saloons, environmental archaeology, urban archaeology, engendered approaches, "ethnicity" and cultural identity (the latter will branch off into the archaeology of African Americans, Asian Americans, Basque Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and so on), etc.] and summarize the literature dedicated to their chosen topic in an essay that is approximately 20 double-spaced pages long (excluding the bibliography). In addition, each student will give a brief (~10-minute presentation) summarizing their discoveries about the literature on a particular topic. Ideally students will choose a topic that dovetails with their thesis/dissertation research.

STYLE GUIDELINES FOR YOUR WRITING PROJECTS

Everything you write for this course, from your journal to any other writing assignments MUST FOLLOW STYLE GUIDELINES. Since this is a course in historical archaeology, your papers will not get full points of they do not follow the Society for Historical Archaeology's (SHA's) Style Guide: http://www.sha.org/publications/style_guide.htm.