INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY Nancy White - Touro Institute

Same as Midterm, above, but covering the second half of the class—world prehistory and more
intensive exploration of archaeology in society.
Module Overview
These are CLASS LECTURE OUTLINES as I delivered them for the course, with suggestions
for QUESTION-ANSWER AND DISCUSSION IN CLASS AND ONLINE, and with
LEARNING or LESSON OBJECTIVES noted. Since MATRIX course designers were asked to
include complete lectures, they are presented here in modular form according to the syllabus
topics. Most new ideas begin with questions to ask the class to answer and discuss as they
proceed through the subject matter. Each lecture is written with the considerations of :
1. Integrating all of the Seven Principles
2. Trying to lecture less
3. Making the story both intriguing and connected with the students' everyday lives
These lectures do NOT repeat what is in the two textbooks (Ashmore and Sharer 2000; Price and
Feinman 2000), which students are supposed to read on their own, but integrate it into basic
archaeological knowledge. They are fairly general, as the course is a broad survey of the field.
Pictures from many archaeology books, my own slides, videos, and other visuals are shown
throughout all the lectures. Especially useful are issues of National Geographic and their largeformat
book The Adventure of Archaeology (Fagan 1985), both of which have stunning photos.
Coffee-table archaeology books that every archaeologist acquires are also good if you have a
document camera (Elmo) that can project pictures onto the screen, or if you make slides of them
or scan for a cd presentation.. This is important because archaeology is a visual discipline.
Using the Modules
The lectures/questions are organized into modules by syllabus topic. Lectures are very
idiosyncratic to each instructor. Though these can certainly be used exactly as given, any
instructor will change things constantly and probably use them as I do, merely as guides for each
class. Modules can be expanded or contracted; they can be grouped by the two halves of the class
and two textbooks:
1. Doing archaeology (first half of lectures, coordinated with Ashmore and Sharer 2000 book)
1. What is Archaeology?
2. Kinds of Archaeology
3. History of Archaeology
4.Different Theoretical Approaches in Archaeology
5. Types of Archaeological Data
6. Archaeological Survey and Excavation
7. Archaeological Classification and Analysis