AN101/AN103-Introduction to Biological Anthropology/Introduction to Archaeology
Block I: Christina Torres-Rouff, AN101, Introduction to Biological Anthropology
Block II: Esteban Gomez, AN103, Introduction to Archaeology
Fulfills one unit of Critical Perspectives: Scientific Investigation
Students completing this First Year Experience course will receive
credit for two required courses in the Anthropology major. We introduce students
to the foundations of Anthropology by exploring humanity from numerous viewpoints.
Taught by a biological anthropologist and an archaeologist, this course will
take multiple perspectives in examining issues about the human past and present.
We will focus on several themes of great importance for humans in both ancient
and modern contexts. Students will explore topics including the origins of
modern humans, social order and conflict, urbanization, and treatment of the
dead from cross-cultural perspectives. All of these will be taught within
a framework emphasizing how anthropologists do what they do. We will engage
students in discussions demonstrating the holistic approach anthropology takes
to the study of humanity. This year’s incarnation of the Anthropology
FYE will take on the role of Collaborative Anthropology as one of its structuring
themes through both blocks by exploring topics such as working with descendent
communities, constructing alternative histories, responsibilities and ethical
research programs.
At the core of biological anthropology are several issues of relevance for humanity as biological organisms shaped by culture. In this class we will consider the nature and sources of variation in human populations from both contemporary and historical perspectives. Class is framed through a series of recurring issues: the scientific method of investigating the natural world, evolution and adaptation, and the interaction of biology and culture. After introducing the discipline we will focus on ideas of origins, the body as a unit of analysis and social order and conflict. Students will learn about the scientific theory of evolution by means of natural selection and how it applies to all living organisms, including humans. We will come to understand our own status as a primate and explore the physical and behavioral similarities among the living primates. There will be analysis of those traits that make us uniquely human and how they have developed throughout time, including in the cultural record of modern Homo sapiens. In each we will study the methodology used by biological anthropologists and the integration of biological anthropology with other subfields of anthropology as well as sister disciplines such as genetics and animal behavior.
Archaeology is concerned with the study of past human societies based primarily on the material culture produced and used by people. This course is an introduction to the methods, theories, goals and some of the “findings” of archaeology, with a primary emphasis on the anthropological archaeology practiced in North America. We will use these basic concepts, methods, and theories to highlight an important goal of contemporary archaeology: the construction of alternative, pluralistic histories using multiple lines of evidence. The course will consider how archaeology can provide a powerful methodology for constructing alternative histories of excluded peoples by examining the material culture of their daily practices. Thus, we will concentrate not so much on the “course of the human past” – what happened when and where – but on the various theories and methods that archaeologists use in order to make their inferences and interpretations, and on how these interpretations can be used to bring into focus many groups and peoples whose pasts have been excluded and/or marginalized.
The course will directly engage students in anthropological practice and teach the methods used by anthropologists in their fieldwork, be it archaeological or biological. We will conduct observations of our primate relatives at local zoos in order to explore the relationship between humans and non-human primates. In class lab work will include analysis of human skeletal remains in order to understand the biocultural nature of the human body. Additional field experiences will occur throughout Colorado, at sites such as Ludlow and Crow Canyon, where students will explore Colorado’s ancient and more recent past. Both archaeological sites are dynamic representations of how anthropologists today are participating in collaborative research teams, and undertaking educational outreach with diverse stakeholders, specifically the Ancestral Pueblo Indians and Euro-American historical societies.
A set of linked courses; one grade will be given for each block.