Mark Lycett

21205. Intensive Study of a Culture: Colonial New Mexico. In an area with a rich documentary and ethnographic record, indigenous communities have often been viewed as coherent, bounded, and persistent units of social, political, and economic organization whose ethnographic present can be unproblematically transposed onto an archaeological past. Using primary ethnographic, documentary, and archaeological source material, this course examines substantive and methodological issues raised by this claim. Beginning with the premise that the ethnographic/ethnohistoric present is a contingent outcome of historical process, we examine the development of novel and integral economic, political, and social networks that have defined colonial society in the region over the last 500 years. 

21303.  Making the Natural World: Foundations of Human Ecology (=ENST 21300). This course considers the conceptual underpinning of contemporary Western notions of ecology, environment, and balance, but also examines several specific historical trajectories of anthropogenic landscape change.  We approach these issues from the vantage of several different disciplinary traditions, including environmental history, philosophy, ecological anthropology, and paleoecology.

21401. Practice of Anthropology: Logic and Practice of Archaeology. This course offers an overview of the concepts and practice of anthropological archaeology. We discuss the varied goals of archaeological research and consider the range of ways in which archaeologists build inferences about the past from the material record. Throughout the quarter, the more general discussion of research logic and practice is situated in the context of detailed consideration of current archaeological projects from different parts of the world.

26900/46900. Archaeological Data Sets. This course focuses on the methodological basis of archaeological data analysis. Its goals are twofold, first to provide students with an opportunity to examine research questions through the study of archaeological data, and second to allow students to evaluate evidential claims in light of analytical results. We will consider data collection, sampling and statistical populations, exploratory data analysis, and statistical inference. The course is built around computer applications and, thus, will also provide an introduction to computer analysis, data encoding, and data base structure. Offered bi-annually.

28000/36600. Health and Demography in Archaeological Perspective. This course is a critical examination of the theoretical and methodological basis of demographic and biocultural inferences in archaeology. In the first half of the quarter we will consider the sources of evidence and the analytical strategies employed by archaeologists and biological anthropologists to inform on human health status and population dynamics in the past. During the second half of the course we will explore the conjunction of these varied lines of evidence in relation to specific research problems, including the long term consequences of domestication, urbanization, and expanding exchange networks, and the widespread transformations that accompanied European colonial expansion in the sixteenth century.

28200/38700. Archaeology of the Spanish Borderlands. Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical data, this course examines colonial and indigenous societies and their articulations on the northern periphery of New Spain between the 15th and 18th centuries AD. Although the scope of this course is geographically broad, including northern Mesoamerica and Spanish North America, its focus is topical and selective rather than chronological and exhaustive. The course will consider spatial and temporal variation within the so-called 'borderlands' as well as the experience of colonial peripheries in relation to both their proximate (central Mexican) and distant (Spanish) centers. We will explore the ways in which European contact and colonization created new and locally variable social and ecological relationships that shaped both indigenous and colonial societies in these regions. Finally, we will consider the implications of historical stability and transformation in relation to the development of borderlands historiography, archaeological and ethnographic systematics, and the direct historical approach in Americanist archaeology.

ANTH 28210/48210. Colonial Ecologies. (=ENST 22100) This seminar explores the historical ecology of European colonial expansion in a comparative framework, concentrating on the production of periphery and the transformation of incorporated societies and environments. In the first half of the quarter we will consider the theoretical frameworks, sources of evidence, and analytical strategies employed by researchers to address the conjunction of environmental and human history in colonial contexts. During the second half of the course we will explore the uses of these varied approaches and lines of evidence in relation to specific cases and trajectories of transformation since the sixteenth century.

29200/39200. The Archaeology of Place. Archaeological practice centers on the study of sites, locations subject to human modification in the past. In this course we will critically discuss the conceptual and methodological underpinning of the notion ‘site’, and examine the methods by which archaeologists make inferences about ancient places from contemporary material records. In particular, we will consider site structural approaches to architectural form, the analysis of built environments, and the articulation between the occupational history of place and the culturally organized structure of landscapes.

29300. History, Ethnohistory and Archaeology. During the Quarter, we will critically examine both the intellectual history of and the recent renewal of claims to historical perspectives in archaeology. The goals of this course are twofold: first, to examine the many uses and understandings of history as evidentiary source, subject matter, and conceptual framework in the archaeological literature; and second, to assess the logic and methods used by researchers to incorporate documentary, ethnohistorical, and archaeological evidence. Students will be expected to complete a project using some combination of archival, oral narrative, and/or archaeological data to examine a substantive problem.

39205. Landscape History and Place Making. This course is a critical examination of the uses of landscape and place in anthropological archaeology and allied disciplines. Landscapes have been treated as a basis for theoretical projects, as analytical frameworks, and as historical phenomena. Beginning from a consideration of situated histories (depositional, occupational, and embodied), we will discuss approaches to place-making, the formation of social geographies, the production of social memory, historical ecologies, and monumentality and commemoration. In every case, we will pay close attention to the sources of historical knowledge and the methods by which these sources are used to construct knowledge claims about the past.

36400. Archaeological Field Studies: Southwestern Archaeology.PQ: Must be taken together with Anth 365. Consent of instructor required; enrollment limited to 16. Archaeological Field Studies offers students an opportunity to participate directly in an ongoing scientific research project while pursuing studies in archaeological theory, method, and data collection. These courses are set in the context of a long term research project investigating the organization and transformation of indigenous and colonial societies in the late prehistoric and early historic Middle Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Current archaeological, historical, and paleo-environmental research in the North American Southwest and beyond will be introduced both through direct field experience and through evening seminars and lectures. Students will also be introduced to the importance of cultural resource management, historic preservation, and active engagement with archaeology’s interested publics. Advanced students will have the opportunity to pursue directed research projects in close consultation with the instructor. Summer

36500. Achaeological Field Studies: Design and Method.PQ: Must be taken together with Anthro 364. Consent of instructor required; enrollment limited to 16. This course provides practical experience in the design and implementation of archaeological field work and basic laboratory procedures and an introduction to the analysis of chipped stone, ceramic, floral, and faunal materials recovered from archaeological contexts. Through field and laboratory work, students will receive closely supervised instruction in the basic skills needed to conduct archaeological research, including surface documentation, transit mapping, excavation, artifact processing, and preliminary artifact analysis. In addition to acquiring basic analysis skills, advanced students will have the opportunity to pursue a directed research project under the guidance of the instructor. Summer

36600.Archaeological Field Studies: Advanced Analytical Methods Note: offered in conjunction with 364 and 365. Consent of Instructor required. Enrollment limited to 16. This course is offered in conjunction with the Archaeological Field School in New Mexico. It provides students with an opportunity to participate in the intensive laboratory analysis of materials recovered from archaeological contexts. Students will receive closely supervised instruction in advanced techniques of analysis while working with expert consultants and staff members of the field school. The subject matter will vary, however, students may expect to develop advanced skills in the analysis of one or more data sets commonly recovered in archaeological field work. Topics may include study of faunal, botanical, ceramic, metallurgical, and chipped stone material. During the Summer 2002 quarter, the course will focus on faunal analysis. Students will be expected to develop a supervised research project as part of their course work. Summer