ANTHR 4020 - Smoking Guns or Smoke and Mirrors? Science and Archaeology

(crosslisted) ARKEO 4025
(HA-AS, HST-AS, SSC-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ANTHR 7020/ARKEO 7025.

J. Damm.

This course examines the discursive relationship between science and archaeology, including the painful legacy of racialized pseudo-sciences—something that has recently been reinvigorated by new methodologies like aDNA. We will focus on research design, exploring how new scientific methods have offered both the “smoking gun” necessary to resolve thorny, decades-old archaeological questions as well as the “smoke and mirrors” wherein myopia and poorly-suited analytical techniques have provided a veneer of respectability to dubious studies. Consequently, major themes of the course will include reproducibility, error, the importance of publishing inconclusive data, and methods selection for testing archaeological hypotheses. Upon completing the course, students will have developed a strong theoretical and methodological literacy for science applications in archaeology.