Archaeology

This course analyzes the history of archaeological discoveries, from antiquity to the present day, relating these discoveries to the different historical stages in which they occurred, taking into account the social, political, philosophical, and ideological contexts of each of the stages, and how this has been reflected in the collecting of antiquities, in the history of museums, and in the formation of current museum heritage.

The course reviews the inception of present-day complex societies of West Africa, how they evolved, and their vicissitudes in the period 500 B.C. to A.D. 1950. Themes include general characteristics of West African societies in the Iron Age, origins of copper and iron technology and their effects on local societies, megalith and tumuli sites of the Western Sudan, urbanism, and trade networks and contacts in West Africa.

The course focuses on human skeletal morphology, and the study of physical evidence as a means to resolving issues involving criminal investigations, environment analyses, and assessment. How to identify skeletal remains, both whole and fragmentary, and how to estimate the age, sex, ancestry, and stature of an individual using laboratory and imaging techniques are learned.

Domesticated animals have been identified in many societies across the world, but rarely have archaeologists considered how livestock management has shaped (and continues to shape) human societies.  In the past, archaeologists have tended to assume that once established livestock can be disregarded as a dynamic factor.  Such studies focus on the narrow confines of the economic significance of livestock produce, often associated with the animal's death.  This course considers the agency of livestock and its importance in transforming human relationships.  Examples and case studies are drawn from archaeology, but also from anthropology, history, and geography

Dublin is one of Europe's oldest and greatest historic cities, and one of the fastest-growing. This course explores that long history, from the late first millennium AD when Vikings began a formal process of settlement to the early 21st century when global migration patterns enlarged its population and enriched its culture. The course focuses on the city's history as represented in its layout and physical fabric, two concerns of interest to archaeologists. It is intended to inform students about Dublin's history, but it also to equip them to read the evidence for that history in the physical character of the city. The course has three main components: the medieval city (to 1600), the early modern city (1600-1800), the modern and contemporary city (1800 to the present).

The course covers the archaeology and prehistory of Scotland from the very earliest human settlement in the 10th millennium BC until the end of the Iron Age and the Roman Occupation in the first millennium AD. Practical aspects of the course introduce students to the study and interpretation of archaeological artefacts, sites, and remains using Scottish material relevant to the course.

This course introduces students to the history, archaeology, art, and texts of Ancient Egypt, from the Paleolithic age to the end of the New Kingdom. It covers the development of low-level food producing communities living in the eastern Sahara, to the emergence and growth of the complex society responsible for the construction of some of the world’s most spectacular and (now) famous monuments such as the pyramids of Giza, and the temples of Karnak and Abu Simbel. The course includes studies of many diverse sources for the history and culture of Egypt, including art and sculpture, administrative, monumental, personal, and religious texts, settlements, temples, and tombs, and material culture such as ceramics, stone tools, wooden artefacts, plants, and animal remains. Additionally, the course introduces students to the history of Egyptology, and archaeology in Egypt. 
 

This course reviews the variety of methodologies and approaches that comprise the discipline of archaeology today. It introduces students to the history of archaeological research, from the antiquarians of the 18th century to contemporary debates on the interpretation of the past. A range of essential archaeological concepts are introduced alongside key field and laboratory methods, including survey techniques, relative and absolute dating, DNA analysis and environmental archaeology. The ways in which archaeologists have employed the evidence from objects, bodies, buildings, and landscapes to reconstruct past human societies are considered, with case studies exploring how particular archaeological cultures (for example the ancient Greeks) or issues (for example the origins of agriculture) can be addressed.

This course explores the historical and contemporary complexities of Irish culture, place, and landscape through select case-studies, thematic and/or locational, and through a range of theoretical concerns from both archaeology and geography. It engages the key challenge of carefully contextualizing and historicizing understandings of landscape, heritage, and environment, and exploring urgent contemporary questions of landscape/environment sustainability, governmentality, and management. The course provides an introduction to the various ways in which human societies interact(ed) with their environment, and will provides both chronological depth and thematically-specific case-study knowledge of key sites and spaces across the island of Ireland. Particular attention is given to the range of competing discourses on issues of environment, landscape, and development in both rural and urban Ireland and their implications for communities in the present and the future. 

This interdisciplinary course offers an introduction to archaeology, providing a grounding in the main concepts, methodologies, and techniques of investigating the past through material evidence and physical environments. Topics include the identification and ways of investigating archaeological sites and materials, as well as how archaeologists and cultural heritage practitioners disseminate, preserve, and curate the past for professional and public audiences. A key component of this course is introducing the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject; lectures and seminars cover topics that demonstrate the application of modern scientific and digital technologies to ancient landscapes and materials; included is uses of Geophysical Information Systems, Environmental Analyses, Ancient DNA, and the creation and management of databases. Tutorials and workshops focus on methods and approaches, and the presentation of data and its interpretation.