The University of Montana, Department of Anthropology Fall 2011
Anthropology 551

Seminar: Historical Archaeology

Course Schedule:

Week 1

Monday, August 29
Course Introduction; HA in the American West and beyond.

Reading

Start reading Deetz 1996 (In Small Things Forgotten) since the whole book is due during Week 2.

Week 2

Monday, September 5
NO CLASS-LABORDAY

Week 3

Monday, September 12
What is Historical Archaeology?

Reading

• Deetz 1996 (whole book); chapter 1 (Introduction), in Hall and Silliman (editors); if you want, skim Orser 2004 (1-22).
• ALSO, for next week, start reading Hardesty 1997 (Archaeology of the Donner Party), as the whole book is due next week.

Week 4

Monday, September 19
Archaeologies of Desperation: A Springboard for Colonization and Cultures in Contact

Reading

• Hardesty 1997 (whole book); Rautman and Fenton 2005 (SKIM); Dixon et al. 2010; Ellis et al. 2011; excerpt from Dixon et al. (forthcoming) 2011.
• ALSO, for next week, start reading Lightfoot 2005 (Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants), as the whole book is due next week.

Week 5

Monday, September 26
Colonialism in Western North America; Cultures in Contact in California; Tobacco and Cultural Contact in Eastern North America

Reading

• Lightfoot (chapter 14 in Hall and Silliman, editors); Nassaney 2004; Lightfoot 2006 (whole book).

Week 6

Monday, October 3
"Frontiers" and the Landscapes of Homesteads, the Mining West, etc

Reading

• Church 2002; Lightfoot 1995 (SKIM); Lightfoot and Martinez 1995; Hardesty 1988 excerpt (SKIM); Hardesty 1991a, 1991b; Hardesty 2003; West 1994.
• Historical Research in Montana: K. Ross Toole Archives visit, 11 am to noon.(p. 209-229).

Week 7 

Monday, October 10
FRONTIERS AND LANDSCAPES

Library Visit 9-10 am: Conducting Literature Searches at the UM Mansfield Library - Julie Biando Edwards

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

Reading

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

EGYPTOLOGY WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, October 15-16 (priceless opportunity!)

Week  8

Monday, October 17
Africa's Gold Coast; Trans-Atlantic Diasporas; "Race" & the Archaeology of Identity.

Reading

• 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. Start reading Novak 2008 (House of Mourning), as whole book is due next week.

Week 9

Monday, October 24
Archival Records, Oral Histories, Skeletal Remains, and a Massacre

Reading

• LNovak 2008 whole book; McGuire 1995 (The Mythic West); Wylie 1993

Week 10 

Monday, October 31
Asian American Archaeology

Reading

• 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.

Week 11

Monday, November 7
Socioeconomic Status/Class; Landscapes

Reading

• 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.

Week 12

Monday, November 14
Gender…but don't forget "Class," "Ethnicity," and the like!

Reading

• 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.

Week 13 

Monday, November 21
Saloon Archaeology and related topics

Reading

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

Week 14

                                                                                         

Monday, November 28
Environmental and Biological Approaches

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

Part II: Historical Archaeology Adrift?: Interpretation of Historical Archaeological Topics

Reading

• Leone 1988; Cleland 2001, responses; Little and Shackel 1989; Orser 2001; others to be annc'd.

DISCISS FINAL PROJECT PROGRESS.

Week 15 

Monday, December 5
COMPLETE Readings Journals Due!!

Research Paper Due (No final exam)

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

Week 16

Monday, December 12
Final paper (literature review) due

Final Exam Time Slot: 8:00-10:00 am
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.

 

Web Resources:

http://www.uidaho.edu/LS/AACC/
http://www.sha.org/research_resources/documents/AAOC.pdf.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/histarch/gallery_types/bibliography.asp
http://www.sha.org/research_resources/bibliographies/bhana_intro.cfm
http://www.jefpat.org/diagnostic/historic_ceramic_web_page/historic_bibliography.htm
http://www.cneha.org/17century.html