Form C Basic
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 School of Archaeology & Ancient History AR2032 Foragers to Farmers Academic Year: 2009-2010 Semester: 1 Time and location: Monday 13.00-14.00 BEN LT10 Tuesday 15.00-16.00 PHY LTD Hands-on sessions: Ceramics Lab Seminars 1-3 Library Seminar Room First meeting: 5th October 2009 Module coordinator: Huw Barton e-mail: [email protected] Room: 104 Office hours: To be posted (see office door) Your individual appointments (e.g. tutorials, seminars): …………………………………………………… …………………………………………………… …………………………………………………… …………………………………………………… document prepared by: Huw Barton, 21st September 2007 2 Foragers to Farmers AR2032 Weighting: 20 credits Coordinator: Huw Barton Other tutors: Lynden Cooper, Nick Cooper, Terry Hopkinson. Module This module addresses key issues in the study of prehistory, including the outline: Palaeolithic, and the transition from foraging to farming. The course explores the themes of settlement and mobility providing a global coverage, and outlining the key debates in each region. The course covers a long period of archaeological time during which ways of life changed radically, but it unifies the study of prehistory through an emphasis on the ways that people solved the problems of resource acquisition, and consideration of adaptation to different climates and environments. Issues covered will include the evolution of hominids and human cognition, concepts of hunter-gatherer mobility, the impact of sedentism and with it the development of different systems of agriculture. In addition, the course will introduce students to the critical evaluation of the archaeological evidence for evaluating different life-ways in prehistory, and of the approaches and methods archaeologists have used to do this. Aims: To build on the chronological/thematic awareness gained in AR1004, by providing students with a developed understanding of the character and development of prehistoric societies. To introduce students to the key issues and theoretical debates informing the archaeological analysis of social, economic and technological change in human prehistory over time as foragers and/or farmers. To examine the range of archaeological sources for prehistoric studies and critically consider their strengths/weaknesses. To enable students to develop independent learning skills. Intended Demonstrate a broad knowledge of the archaeology and cultural learning development of the period (field trip and exam). outcomes: Demonstrate an improved understanding of the interpretative models for the period (field trip, seminar contributions, essay, exam). Show an understanding of the interplay between archaeological evidence, method and theory (essay, exam). Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the archaeological sources for the period (essay, exam). Method(s) of Two lectures per week; small-group teaching with three large group teaching: Seminars; two ‘hands-on’ sessions to familiarise students with the material culture of the period; a one-day field trip to Cresswell Craggs to visit some Pleistocene sites of the East Midlands. Method of One essay of 2500 words (50%) November 2009 assessment: One two-hour examination (50%) June-July 2010 3 Teaching schedule Teaching wk Week 2 Mon 5 Oct Course Introduction/Landscape mosaics (HB/TH). Tues 6 Oct Oldowan: technology and space (TH). Week 3 Mon 12 Oct Acheulean and the handaxe (TH). Tues 13 Oct Middle Palaeolithic subsistence and mobility (TH). Week 4 Mon 19 Oct Lower-middle Palaeolithic transition: technology and settlement (TH). Tues 20 Oct The emergence of Homo sapiens and modernity (TH). Week 5 Mon 26 Oct Seminar 1 (HB/TH) Tues 27 Oct Big game hunting in North America (HB). Week 6 Mon 2 Nov Laboratory Class: Ceramics. (NC/HB) Tues 3 Nov Defining and identifying mobility in the archaeological record (HB). Week 7 9-13 Nov [Reading week] Week 8 Mon 16 Nov Seminar 2 (HB/TH) Tues 17 Nov Ethno-archaeology (HB). Week 9 Mon 23 Nov The origins of agriculture (HB). Tues 24 Nov The spread of agriculture into Europe (MVL). Week 10 Mon 30 Dec Seminar 3 (HB/TH) Tues 1 Dec Laboratory Class: Lithics. (LC/HB) Week 11 Mon 7 Dec The roots of tropical agriculture (HB). Tues 8 Dec Revision Lecture (TH). 4 Seminars Seminar 1 (TH & HB) Why do Stone Tools Vary? A: Binford, L.R. 1973. Interassemblage variability: the Mousterian and the ‚functional‛ argument. In C. Renfrew (Ed) The Explanation of Culture Change pp227-254. London, Duckworth. (Function, Middle Palaeolithic) B: Bordes, F. & de Sonneville-Bordes, D. 1970. The significance of variability in Paleolithic assemblages. World Archaeology 2: 61-73. (Culture, whole Palaeolithic) C: Rolland, N.C. and Dibble, H.L. 1990. A new synthesis of Middle Paleolithic variability. American Antiquity 55: 480-499. (Raw material economy, Middle Palaeolithic) In this tutorial you will consider some ways in which archaeologists have understood stone artefact variability. The reading refers mainly to the Middle Palaeolithic but the arguments put forward can be applied equally to such variability in any other period of the Palaeolithic and even to later periods including the present. Seminar 2 (TH & HB) Megafaunal Extinctions: were humans to blame? Readings to be posted on Blackboard. Seminar 3 (TH & HB) Was agriculture inevitable? Readings to be posted on Blackboard. Creswell Craggs field trip (hotlink to the Creswell website). There will be a one day field trip to Creswell Craggs and the surrounding landscape to directly engage with the Pleistocene archaeology of the East Midlands. Saturday 7th November 2009. Depart University at 9am. 5 Assignments and deadlines All students on this course must submit one essay of up to 2500 words, which counts for 40% of the overall mark for the module. Essays should be word- processed. The essay deadline is 4.30pm on Monday 23rd November 2009. The remainder of the course will be assessed by exam worth 60% in June-July. *You must use Tunitin* You are also required to submit an electronic copy of your essay via the Turnitin facility of the (insert Module code and/or title here) Blackboard site – please make sure that you have read the Turnitin – Personal Data and Intellectual Property section of your Undergraduate Handbook. The electronic copy is to be submitted by the same deadline as the paper copy. Please note that this electronic submission is COMPULSORY. Late submission of either copy will result in the appropriate lateness penalties being applied to the final mark. Students failing to submit both paper and electronic copies by the designated deadline will be deemed to have FAILED the assessment (i.e. a mark of zero will be recorded) Essay titles 1. Oldowan archaeological sites have been interpreted as evidence for hunting and food sharing in the period before 1.5 mya. What are the problems with this viewpoint and what alternatives have been proposed? General Overviews Klein, R.G. 1999. The Human Career (2nd Edition) Chapter 4, ‘The Australopithecines and Homo habilis’. London, University of Chicago Press. Schick, K. and Toth, N. 1993. Making Silent Stones Speak, chapter 6, ‘The Nature and Significance ofEarly Stone Age Sites’. London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Toth, N. and Schick, K. 2005. African Origins, especially pp74-83. In Scarre, C. (ed) The Human Past. London, Thames and Hudson. Key Readings Binford, L.R. 1981. Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. New York, Academic Press. Bunn, H.T. and Kroll, E.M. 1986. Systematic butchery by Plio/Pleistocene hominids at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Current Anthropology 27, 431-452. Isaac, G.Ll. 1978. Food Sharing and Human Evolution: Archaeological Evidence from the Plio-Pleistocene of East Africa. Journal of Anthropological Research 34, 311-325. Potts, R.B. 1991. Why the Oldowan? Plio-Pleistocene toolmaking and the transport of resources. Journal of Anthropological Research 47, 153-176. Stern, N. 1993. The Structure of the Lower Pleistocene Archaeological Record: a Case Study from the Koobi Fora Formation. Current Anthropology 34, 201-22. 6 Further Reading Blumenschine, R.J. 1995. Percussion marks, tooth marks and experimental determinations of the timing of hominid and carnivore access to long bones at FLK Zinjanthropus, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution 29, 21-51. *Domínguez-Rodrigo, M. and Pickering, T.R. 2003. Early Hominid Hunting and Scavenging: a Zooarcheological Review. Evolutionary Anthropology 12, 275-82. O’Connell, F. 1997. On Plio-Pleistocene Archaeological Sites and Central Places. Current Anthropology 38, 86-88. Rose, L. and Marshall, F. 1996. Meat Eating, Hominid Sociality, and Home Bases Revisited. Current Anthropology 37, 307-338. Selvaggio, M.M. 1998. The Archaeological Implications of Water-Cached Hyena Kills. Current Anthropology 39, 381-385. 2. Why do some European Lower Palaeolithic stone tool assemblages lack handaxes? Ashton, N.M. et al 1994. Contemporaneity of Clactonian and Acheulian flint industries at Barnham, Suffolk. Antiquity 68, 585-9. Bordes, F. & de Sonneville-Bordes, D. 1970. The significance of variability in Paleolithic assemblages. World Archaeology 2: 61-73. Davidson, I. and Noble, W. 1993. Tools and language in human evolution. In K. R. Gibson and T. Ingold (Eds) Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp63-88. Dibble, H.L. 1989. The Implications of Stone Tool Types for the Presence of Language during the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. In P. Mellars and C. Stringer (Eds) The Human Revolution. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, pp415-32. Gamble, C.S. 1998. Handaxes and Palaeolithic Individuals. In N.M. Ashton, F. Healy and P. B. Pettitt (Eds) Stone Age Archaeology: Essays in Honour of John Wymer. Oxford, Lithic Studies Society Occasional Paper No. 6. Oxbow Monograph 102, pp105-109. Klein, R. 1999. The Human Career Chapter 5 ‘The Evolution of the Genus Homo’, especially pages 328-41. Chicago, Chicago University Press. McNabb, J. 1996. More from the cutting edge: further discoveries of Clactonian bifaces. Antiquity 70, 428-36. Mithen, S. 1994: Technology and society during the Middle Pleistocene: hominid group size, social learning and industrial variability. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4, 3-32. Ohel, M.Y.