ARH305H1 Syllabus
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
ARH305F - ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION
Professor Gary Coupland, AP540, 978-2442 coupland@chass.utoronto.ca ______________________________________________________________________________
This course looks at how archaeologists interpret the archaeological record in terms of the cultural and natural processes that formed it. We will deal less with general theories of human behaviour, and more with how archaeologists approach sites and make sense of them. In other words, the focus will be on middle range theory. We will consider some of the interpretive tools that archaeologists use, including analogy, ethnoarchaeology, and experimental archaeology, as well as some of the kinds of interpretations archaeologists make about time, artefacts, settlement patterns, and so on.
This is something of a “hands-on" course. In addition to lectures, we will work through a set of interpretive problems, the kinds of problems that archaeologists face during the course of their research. TEXTBOOK:
Weekly readings and assignments, available on Blackboard in Content
SUGGESTED READINGS:
Binford, Lewis R.
1983 In Pursuit of the Past. Thames and Hudson, London.
Binford’s most accessible collection of essays on archaeological inference, site structure, middle range theory, etc.
Gibbon, Guy
1984 Anthropological Archaeology. Columbia University Press, New York.
A science-based approach to the archaeological research process. Challenging but rewarding.
Schiffer, Michael B.
1987 Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake
City.
Schiffer’s major statement on site formation processes, both cultural and natural, with some intriguing case studies from the American Southwest.
Hodder, Ian
1999 The Archaeological Process: An Introduction. Blackwell, Oxford.
An alternative, “postprocessual” view of interpretation, emphasizing a reflexive methodology.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
ARH305F - ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION
Professor Gary Coupland, AP540, 978-2442 coupland@chass.utoronto.ca ______________________________________________________________________________
This course looks at how archaeologists interpret the archaeological record in terms of the cultural and natural processes that formed it. We will deal less with general theories of human behaviour, and more with how archaeologists approach sites and make sense of them. In other words, the focus will be on middle range theory. We will consider some of the interpretive tools that archaeologists use, including analogy, ethnoarchaeology, and experimental archaeology, as well as some of the kinds of interpretations archaeologists make about time, artefacts, settlement patterns, and so on.
This is something of a “hands-on" course. In addition to lectures, we will work through a set of interpretive problems, the kinds of problems that archaeologists face during the course of their research. TEXTBOOK:
Weekly readings and assignments, available on Blackboard in Content
SUGGESTED READINGS:
Binford, Lewis R.
1983 In Pursuit of the Past. Thames and Hudson, London.
Binford’s most accessible collection of essays on archaeological inference, site structure, middle range theory, etc.
Gibbon, Guy
1984 Anthropological Archaeology. Columbia University Press, New York.
A science-based approach to the archaeological research process. Challenging but rewarding.
Schiffer, Michael B.
1987 Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake
City.
Schiffer’s major statement on site formation processes, both cultural and natural, with some intriguing case studies from the American Southwest.
Hodder, Ian
1999 The Archaeological Process: An Introduction. Blackwell, Oxford.
An alternative, “postprocessual” view of interpretation, emphasizing a reflexive methodology.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO