The University of Montana, Department of Anthropology Fall 2007
Anthropology 551

Seminar: Historical Archaeology

Course Schedule:

Week 1

Wednesday, August 27           Course Introduction.
Start reading Deetz 1996 (In Small Things Forgotten) since the whole book is due during Week 2.

Week 2

Wednesday, September 3                  What is Historical Archaeology?

Readings

Deetz 1996 (whole book); skim Orser 2004 (1-22). 
ALSO, for next week, start reading Lightfoot 2006 (Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants), as the whole book is due next week.

Week 3

Wednesday, September 10
Sept. 7-11, 2008: National Summit of Mining Communities, Mining, Butte, Montana 

Cultures in Contact in California; Tobacco and Culture Contact

Readings

Nassaney 2004; Lightfoot 2006 (whole book).

Week 4

Wednesday, September 17
Historical Archaeology: “Frontiers” and the Landscapes of the Mining West

Readings

Lightfoot 1995 (SKIM); Lightfoot and Martinez 1995; Hardesty 1988 excerpt; Hardesty 1991a, Hardesty 1991b; Hardesty 1998; Hardesty 2003; start reading Novak 2008 (House of Mourning), as whole book is due next week.

Week 5

Wednesday, September 24
Archival Records, Oral Histories, Skeletal Remains, and a Massacre

Readings

Novak 2008 whole book; supplementary readings to be announced.

Week 6

Wednesday, October 1          
Historical Archaeology Adrift?: Interpretation of Historical Archaeological Topics

Readings

Leone 1988; Cleland 2001 & responses; Little and Shackel 1989; Orser 2001 (American Anthropologist article); Crist 2005; start reading DeCorse 2001 (Archaeology of Elmina) as the whole book is due next week.

Week 7            

Wednesday, October 8
African Diaspora Archaeology: A Case Study from Elmina on Africa’s Gold Coast; also a discussion on “Race” & the Archaeology of Identity.

Readings

DeCorse 2001 whole book; Orser 2001 (excerpt from Race and the Archaeology of Identity)

Week  8

Wednesday, October 15                   Asian American Archaeology

Readings

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 9

Wednesday, October 22          Trans-Atlantic Diasporas and Ethnogenesis

Readings

Fennell 2007 (whole book); supplementary readings to be announced.

Week 10 

Wednesday, October 29                   Gender and Socioeconomic Status/Class; Landscapes

Readings

Rotman and Nassaney 1997; Delle 1999; McGuire 2002 (xxvii-xx; 1-89); Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2001; Spude 2005.

SKIM: Miller 1991; Seifert 1991; Schmitt and Zeier 1993; Paynter 1999; Wurst and Fitts 1999; Hardesty 1994b; start reading Lawrence 2000 (Dolly’s Creek) as the whole book is due next week.

Week 11

Wednesday, November 5
Gender, “Class,” “Ethnicity,” and Mining = Community:
Follow up from last week and case study from Australia

Readings

Lawrence 2000 whole book; start reading Hardesty 1997 (Archaeology of the Donner Party), as the whole book is due next week. 

Week 12

Wednesday, November 12       Archaeologies of Desperation

Readings

Hardesty 1997 (whole book); Rautman and Fenton 2005; start reading Dixon 2005 (Boomtown Saloons) as the whole book is due next week.

Week 13                      

Wednesday, November 19       Saloon archaeology and related topics      

Readingss

Dixon 2005 whole book; supplementary readings to be announced.               

Week 14                                                                                              

Wednesday, November 26       THANKSGIVING

Week 15 

Wednesday, December 3         COMPLETE Readings Journals Due!!
Discuss final papers; final papers will be accepted in this date if students are finished.

Readings

Week 16:            Final Exam Time Slot

Wednesday, December 10 
8:00-10:00 am

Final paper (review essay) due (e.g., follow format in Orser 2000; Anschuetz, et al. 2001; see also Annual Review of Anthropology and refer back to Lightfoot and Martinez 1995 above).)

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.

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 randomly collect your journals for grading throughout the semester.  If you do not have the journal when I call your name for random collection, 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
This will be discussed and assigned later in the semester

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.