Courses of Study 2013-2014 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
Courses of Study 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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ANTHR 7262 - [Catalhoyuk and Archaeological Practice]

(crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 7262 )
Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2016-2017. Co-meets with ANTHR 4262 , ARKEO 4262 .

N. Russell.

Çatalhöyük is a famous and extraordinary Neolithic site in Anatolia. It has intrinsic interest as one of the largest sites in the world at this time, for its spectacular wall paintings and other art, and for many claims of myths of origin that have been made about it (first city, first cattle domestication, first drum, first town plan, etc.). In addition to the many fascinating aspects of the site itself, it is also the nexus of many key issues in current archaeology. The current excavations not only employ a wide range of the latest scientific methods, but they aim to forge a new humanistic approach to fieldwork, putting postprocessual archaeology into practice. The site has been adopted as a sacred place by the goddess movement, and plays a role in local, national, and international politics as well as the construction of national identity. Thus it exemplifies the intersection of politics and archaeology. Both the earlier and the current project have made explicit efforts to communicate with non-archaeologists, thus engaging the issues of public archaeology. It is a key site, in the context of other work in the region, for the understanding of animal domestication, Neolithic ritual and religion, gender relations in the prehistoric Near East, and the effects of aggregated settlement. In this course, we will use the site as a focus to examine these and other issues in archaeological practice in general and the Neolithic of the Near East in particular.



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