Archaeology is the study of the human past, from the origin of our species through to the development of modern, industrial states by means of the physical remains of past human behavior. In studying the past, archaeology seeks to explain how we, modern humans, came to be. This course investigates how archaeologists study the past, explains how human society has changed over time, and presents an overview of world prehistory. Specific topics include the evolution of modern humans, the peopling of the world, the development of agriculture, the rise of state-level societies, and associated social and material technologies such as writing and urbanism. Case studies will be used throughout to demonstrate how archaeological research is conducted and how archaeologists use their research to formulate explanations of the past that have relevance for the present.

People have been interested in their ancestors and the lives of past people likely for as long as we have been human. But this interest has rarely been disinterested. People have exploited, destroyed, or ignored the remains of previous societies. And how the past is understood has profound effects that ripple through all of society, at different times influencing group identity, political philosophy, art, architecture, literature, and film. The emergence of scientific archaeology in the last 150 years has created its own cultural references, including Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Each semester this course is offered, a specific topic will examine the cultural context in which archaeologists do their work, what is made of their efforts, and how these are related to larger issues in society.

One of the most fascinating dimensions of archaeology is the discovery that people have done essentially the same things in different places and different times, independently of developments elsewhere. Agriculture, writing, urbanism, complex economies, and so on, all have been independently invented multiple times in different parts of the world. This fact raises some intriguing questions about what it means to be human. By comparing how these developments occurred in different places and times, archaeologists can, in a sense, perform experiments on the past. Each semester this course is offered we will focus on a separate theme in archaeological research, such as the transition to agriculture; production, trade, and exchange; the origin of writing; imperialism, colonialism, and warfare; pseudoscience/pseudoarchaeology; or human evolution. We will study competing theoretical perspectives and different world regions to gain a broad understanding of the theme and how both theory and data are used to create a comprehensive understanding of the human past.

Humans and their societies have always been shaped by their environment, but as human societies became more complex, their relationship with their environment changed from one of simple adaptation to one in which they had the power to change their environment. Often, the changes they have wrought have had unintended consequences, forcing societies to adapt to the changes that they themselves have brought about. Although we tend to think that this is a relatively recent phenomenon, humans have been altering their environment since the first human societies made the transition to agriculture over ten thousand years ago, if not longer. In this class, we will use the tools of environmental archaeology to explore the history of human interactions with their environments and to draw lessons on how we could manage that interaction today.

This is the first course of a two-semester Scholar's Thesis sequence in anthropology, in which students will conduct an original research project. In this first course, working with a thesis advisor, students will formulate a research question, conduct a literature review, prepare the research design, write a research proposal, and begin data collection, following the conventions of cultural anthropology or archaeology.

This is the second course of a two-semester Scholar's Thesis sequence in anthropology or urban studies in which students will conduct an original research project. In this second course, working with a thesis adviser, students will finalize data collection, analyze the data, write and defend a thesis paper, following the conventions of the discipline.