This seminar course discusses current approaches to historical ecology, the study of human-environmental relationships over time. The course draws on and combines perspectives from the four subdisciplines of anthropology (archaeological anthropology, bioarchaeological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology), and similar disciplines, to understand the varying ways that scholars have analyzed and defined ecologies and environmental problems. It places particular emphasis on theories that define human relationships to the environment as recursive and interdependent. These theories stand in contrast to common Western theological suppositions that see the environment as a framework to which human societies adapt or a set of resources for human communities to exploit. Rather, historical ecologists argue that the environment is a true ecology with humans in it. They contend that human communities are fundamentally and inextricably intertwined with the life cycles and needs of other species, and consequently they study how human-environmental interactions emerge through distinct historical processes and cultural circumstances.

How did complex urban societies first develop? This course addresses this question in ten regions of the world including Maya Mesoamerica, Inca South America, Sumerian Near East, Shang Civilization in East Asia, and early Greece and Rome.

How archaeologists analyze/interpret artifacts to develop knowledge about formation of European society, from earliest evidence of human occupation to Roman period.

In this course, we will explore the theories and methods of historical archaeology ? such as material culture studies, landscape perspectives, archival, and oral historical interpretation - as a means of intervening in contemporary discussions of diversity in the United States. Historical archaeology can be a very effective means to challenge some of the standard American narratives about our diverse past. Our aim is to move beyond either a simplistic ethnic pluralism or the superficial ?melting pot? progressive history and instead grapple with the materiality of settler colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. In learning about this field, we will consider what has distinguished historical archaeology from American archaeology more broadly, and how those differences are parlayed into specific research strengths. This includes several themes: colonialism; the modern world and globalizing economies; intersectional identities (race and ethnicity, class, sex and gender, religion, age, ability/disability) and social movements; public memory and commemoration; landscapes and social space; citizenship and subjectivity. Although historical archaeology until recently has been restrictively defined as addressing the European-colonized New World, the discipline in the past twenty years has significantly broadened its scope and impact on the practice of archaeology as a whole. Throughout the course we will discuss these developments, and what directions archaeology may take in the future as a result. Course work includes both reading/discussion and learning methods through practical exercises, and handling of archaeological material.

This seminar course discusses current approaches to historical ecology, the study of human-environmental relationships over time. The course draws on and combines perspectives from the four subdisciplines of anthropology (archaeological anthropology, bioarchaeological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology), and similar disciplines, to understand the varying ways that scholars have analyzed and defined ecologies and environmental problems. It places particular emphasis on theories that define human relationships to the environment as recursive and interdependent. These theories stand in contrast to common Western theological suppositions that see the environment as a framework to which human societies adapt or a set of resources for human communities to exploit. Rather, historical ecologists argue that the environment is a true ecology with humans in it. They contend that human communities are fundamentally and inextricably intertwined with the life cycles and needs of other species, and consequently they study how human-environmental interactions emerge through distinct historical processes and cultural circumstances.

How archaeologists/historians analyze/interpret artifacts to develop knowledge about formation of European society, from earliest evidence of human occupation to Roman Period. Interpreting archaeological evidence from specific sites to understand broad trends in human past.