Introduction to Archaeology

3 ECTS credits
75 h study time

Offer 2 with catalog number 1020886AER for all students in the 1st semester at a (A) Bachelor - preliminary level.

Semester

1st semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Possible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

Dutch

Faculty

Faculty of Languages & Humanities

Department

History, Archaeology, Arts, Philosophy and Ethics

Educational team

Barbora Wouters
Ralf Vandam (course titular)

Activities and contact hours

18 contact hours Lecture
40 contact hours Independent or External Form of Study

Course Content

What is archaeology! Few disciplines appeal more to the imagination than archaeology, thinking about Indiana Jones and mummies. But what does an archaeologist do exactly? Behind the imaginative cliché lies a very complex and sound science, with questions, paradigms, methods, techniques and material sources. In this course, I want to take you along this search to what archaeology exactly contains, through a series of intriguing findings and superb sites, in search of the nature and coherence of our science.

In lesson 1, we will go deeper into the question what archaeology is, and why the study of the material culture is the true core of archaeology as a science.

In lesson 2, we will look at the history of our discipline and, we will cover the movements of the paradigms, the questions and insights in archaeology in the 20th century, away from cultural history towards a contextual archaeology focused on the understanding of the artefacts as part of a society and the perception of people of their environment.

In lesson 3, we will cover how the meaning of an artefact can change when it changes in terms of context and society, and how the cultural life trajectories of artefacts can teach us that archaeological objects undergo formation processes.

We will see that these formation processes are essential to exercise archaeology as a science, because it is exactly these formation processes that determine the content, form and capacity of the archaeological object: what we as archaeologists find can be interpreted as a sample of a sample of a sample of the complete material environment of a society of the past.

In lesson 4, we will zoom on what sites, contexts and stratigraphic layers are.

In lesson 5, we will discuss our main field methods, from aerial photography to excavation.

In lesson 6, we will look at the materials we can research and what they can learn as.

In lesson 7, we will cover how nature sciences can help us to research the environmental and ecological aspects of the past.

In lesson 8, we will research how we can determine archaeological time, and how we can move on to dating what we have excavated and analysed on the site.

In lesson 9, we will end with the issue of public heritage of material culture. In the end, as an archeologist, we work for a public and you will notice that also that translation of the archaeological story towards this public is not without consequences for how archaeology functions as a science, and what the tension zone between imagination and science is.

The course consists of 18 hours HOC and is completed with SELF-activities. This SELF-activity consists mainly of reading of two chapters (5-14) from the handbook.

Course material

Handbook (Required) : Archaeology, Theories, Methods and Practice., Colin Renfrew & Paul Bahn, 8de, London: Thames & Hudson, 9780500294246, 2020
Digital course material (Required) : Powerpointpresentaties + section of syllabus for certain lectures

Additional info

Learning Outcomes

General competencies

The student can analyse and explain the objectives, methods and functioning of archaeology.
The student can explain the scientific character of archaeological research.
The student can clarify the importance of archaeological formation processes.
The student can clarify the most important analytical stages within archaeology, which together form the chaine operatoire of archaeology.
The student can analyse and explain the debate on archaeological support, participation and public participation.

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Written Exam determines 100% of the final mark.

Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Written Exam with a relative weight of 100 which comprises 100% of the final mark.

Note: Written Exam determines 100% of the final mark.

Additional info regarding evaluation

It is a written exam.

Part one is aimed at knowledge and understanding of the courses and the agreed chapters in the handbook (80% of the total).

Part 2 deals with the SELF-activities. The student has to know the most important information contained in the chapters. Connections between themes and the classes will be questioned as well (20% of the total).

The second exam session is a new exam and none of the different aspects of the exam is transferrable to the next examperiod if the general result is a fail.

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context