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Exciting new research shows that much of what we think about the Americas before Columbus is wrong. Learn what we now know about the peopling of the Americas and the prehistoric cultures of North America (e.g., Moundbuilders, Ancestral Puebloans, etc.) and a few from South America (e.g., Aztecs, Incas). The course is a blend of anthropological and archaeological approaches to understanding the past and human behavior. It is not a world prehistory course where learning dates and specific events are the emphasis. Instead, our anthropological approach will lead us to consider questions about why/how prehistory and human social evolution proceeded the way it did. We will also focus on how cultures adapt to their environments. We will always question how we know what we know about the past. Previous coursework in archaeology or anthropology is not required for this course. All majors welcome!
This course is approved for the Minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. More information about the cross-disciplinary minor can be found here.
"...the Western Hemisphere before 1492...was, in the current view, a thriving, stunningly diverse place, a tumult of languages, trade, and culture, a region where tens of millions of people loved and hated and worshiped as people do everywhere."
Charles Mann in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2011:31)
This course is approved for the Minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. More information about the cross-disciplinary minor can be found here.
"...the Western Hemisphere before 1492...was, in the current view, a thriving, stunningly diverse place, a tumult of languages, trade, and culture, a region where tens of millions of people loved and hated and worshiped as people do everywhere."
Charles Mann in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2011:31)
textbook: Required
Feel free to buy any edition or format (print/electronic) to save money.
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1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus By Charles C. Mann You can start reading this before the start of the course! We are definitely reading this Fall 2015. Read a review of the book, click here. |
OPTIONAL BOOKs: WAIT TO SELECT one after CLASS HAS STARTED!
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First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America
By David J. Meltzer In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life
By James Deetz Searching for Golden Empires: Epic Cultural Collisions in Sixteenth-Century America
By William K. Hartmann A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca
By Andres Resendez Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache
By Keith H. Basso University of New Mexico Press ISBN: 978-0826317247 |
Students in the Environment and Sustainability Studies minor should meet with me to discuss optional, environmentally-oriented book options.
