SBS 324S: Archaeology/Map to Museum
MLO 3: Secondary Culture
Course Description:
Introduces methods, principles, and practices of lab and field archaeology, stressing strategy, interpretation, description, information management, archaeological technologies, and scientific inquiry. Lab and service learning options include museum exhibitions, multimedia development, on-site field excavations, analysis of artifacts from area missions, historic ceramics and lithics analysis, or "garbology".
Course Reflective Narrative:
SBS 324S: Archaeology/Map to Museum taught students the methods, principles, and practices of lab and field archaeology. it also taught how to efficiently study and analyze a culture, even if you are limited in resources to analyze. Among other projects, we conducted on-site archaeological lab and field work at the San Juan Bautista Mission.
The conventional courses taken as a Japanese major student to fulfill the third major learning outcome often teach about the history and/or culture of Spain or Mexico. Through this course, however, I not only learned about a secondary culture, the missionaries of San Juan Bautista and the Native Americans of the area, but I learned the valuable methods of how best to study that culture and analyze the findings. One project that provided a very hands-on approach to developing an understanding of the Native Americans of the area was the lithics lab, in which we learned about the various styles of flint knapping, or creating stone tools, and then creating our own pieces out of obsidian. Through creating my own piece, I began to develop an understanding as well as an appreciation for the lifestyle of Native Americans before Westerners came to the Americas, having experienced a small part of what they went through every day.
Possibly even more valuable, however, was the garbology project. At the beginning of the semester we were separated into groups of 4-5 people, and the professor would bring each group a bag of garbage to analyze and we would record our findings. The garbage would be from the same household each week, but the group would know nothing about the household. With complete lack of knowledge, we were required to create an image of who lived in the household, what kind of lifestyle they lead, and any other interesting points we could glean from nothing but their trash. This project gave me a skillset that I hold as very important, in that I learned how to analyze a group of people, whether it be a household, a dead society, or a modern culture, with minimal data to draw from.
Evidence:
Course Description:
Introduces methods, principles, and practices of lab and field archaeology, stressing strategy, interpretation, description, information management, archaeological technologies, and scientific inquiry. Lab and service learning options include museum exhibitions, multimedia development, on-site field excavations, analysis of artifacts from area missions, historic ceramics and lithics analysis, or "garbology".
Course Reflective Narrative:
SBS 324S: Archaeology/Map to Museum taught students the methods, principles, and practices of lab and field archaeology. it also taught how to efficiently study and analyze a culture, even if you are limited in resources to analyze. Among other projects, we conducted on-site archaeological lab and field work at the San Juan Bautista Mission.
The conventional courses taken as a Japanese major student to fulfill the third major learning outcome often teach about the history and/or culture of Spain or Mexico. Through this course, however, I not only learned about a secondary culture, the missionaries of San Juan Bautista and the Native Americans of the area, but I learned the valuable methods of how best to study that culture and analyze the findings. One project that provided a very hands-on approach to developing an understanding of the Native Americans of the area was the lithics lab, in which we learned about the various styles of flint knapping, or creating stone tools, and then creating our own pieces out of obsidian. Through creating my own piece, I began to develop an understanding as well as an appreciation for the lifestyle of Native Americans before Westerners came to the Americas, having experienced a small part of what they went through every day.
Possibly even more valuable, however, was the garbology project. At the beginning of the semester we were separated into groups of 4-5 people, and the professor would bring each group a bag of garbage to analyze and we would record our findings. The garbage would be from the same household each week, but the group would know nothing about the household. With complete lack of knowledge, we were required to create an image of who lived in the household, what kind of lifestyle they lead, and any other interesting points we could glean from nothing but their trash. This project gave me a skillset that I hold as very important, in that I learned how to analyze a group of people, whether it be a household, a dead society, or a modern culture, with minimal data to draw from.
Evidence:
sbs_324l_flint_knapping_journal_1.pdf | |
File Size: | 12 kb |
File Type: |
sbs_324l_garbology_report.pdf | |
File Size: | 54 kb |
File Type: |