Anthropology (ANTH)

Spring; Woodard. This course treats the Native people of eastern North America as they have been viewed ethnographically, theoretically and historically. Students will apply anthropological theory to historical and contemporary issues regarding Native people of the eastern United States, and develop critical skills through reading, research and writing about these people. Cross-listed with ANTH 427.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Areas of current research interest presented by resident and visiting faculty. Course may be repeated for credit when topics vary.

Fall; Staff. An introduction to the theory and practice of archaeological conservation, including systems of deterioration, treatment, and storage. The first semester emphasizes the material science and technological underpinnings of archaeological artifacts.

Spring; Staff. An introduction to the identification and interpretation of animal bones recovered from archaeological sites.

Fall; Gallivan. Introduction to the design and implementation of quantitative research in anthropology. Statistical methods covered include those used in describing and interpreting archaeological, biological, ethnographic and linguistic data. The course focuses on exploratory data analysis, probability, sampling, hypothesis testing, correlation and regression.

Fall or Spring; Blakey, Jones. This course covers technical aspects of human identification involving skeletal remains. These techniques include bone and tooth identification, age and sex estimation, and methods for the assessment of nutrition and disease in archaeological populations.

Spring; Staff. This course examines the sites located in and around Williamsburg, the capital of the colony of Virginia from 1699-1781. The course explores the contributions that archaeological research has made to understanding the development of Jamestown and Williamsburg, in relation to a regional, plantation-based economy and society. Consideration is also given to larger issues surrounding the relative position of Williamsburg and its hinterland within the Atlantic World. Specific comparisons will be made with the development of other English colonies such as Bermuda and Barbados.

Fall; Staff. This course explores the archaeology of western Atlantic islands for the period 1492-1900 AD. The pre-Columbian background, contact between indigenous and European groups, European settlement and island development will be examined through recent archaeological work on urban settlements, military forts, commercial structures, sugar mills and others.

Spring; Gallivan. This class explores the “deep history” of Native Chesapeake societies by tracing a 15,000- year sequence resulting in the Algonquian social landscape of “Tsenacomoco.” The class considers Pleistocene-era settlement, hunter-forager cultural ecology, Woodland-period migration, agricultural adoption, chiefdom emergence, Native responses to colonialism, and contemporary uses of the Native past.

Fall and Spring; Graded Pass/Fail. No credits earned in this course may be applied to the number of credits required to satisfy graduate degree requirements. This course may be repeated for credit.

Fall or Spring; Moretti-Langholtz, Norman. This course explores the process of assembling material artifacts across cultural boundaries. The course will examine the history of field collecting in different parts of the world, questions of cultural ownership, theories of acquisition and preservation used by museums and private collectors, and issues in the exhibiting of both objects and people. Readings will draw mainly on material from Canada, the U.S., Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.

Spring; Blakey, Jones. Recent advances in the study of interactions between human biology and culture are examined. Biocultural anthropology extends beyond the limitations of evolutionary theory, employing political and economic perspectives on variation in the physiology and health of human populations.

Fall; Glasser. This course is about theories of society and culture in and around anthropology. We will explore what theory means in anthropology, both in the past and in the present. We will also trace the broad lines in the development of theory in anthropology since the rise of the discipline.

Fall; Kahn. Throughout this course, students will go through the steps of crafting a research design, engaging in: how to develop problem-oriented research, how to frame research questions, how to select appropriate sampling strategies, how to create and manage data, and how to operationalize a research design in the field. Following this, students will prepare a grant proposal written according to the standards of a major Anthropological funding agency, like the National Science Foundation.

Spring; Horning, Kahn, Norman. This seminar provides an introduction to classic works and contemporary issues in archaeological theory. Emphasis is placed on significant developments and debates over the last 100 years that have shaped the field of anthropological archaeology as we know it today.

Spring; Staff. This course will examine the history and theories of linguistic anthropology. Our focus will be on the ways in which linguistics has influenced the development of anthropological theories concerning cognition and practice.

Fall; Woodard. This course provides an introduction to methods and theories of textual analysis for archaeological and anthropological research. Structural, symbolic and cognitive models of culture are presented. Emphasis is on the integration of these models, the use and evaluation of documents by historical archaeologists, and research with primary historical data.

Fall or Spring; Blakey. This course is a graduate seminar on the use of paleopathological and paleodemographic data derived from human skeletons uncovered at archaeological sites. The historic archaeological sites of the African Diaspora in the Americas provide the comparative examples of the course.

Spring; Horning. An historical review of the method and theory of American historical archaeology, with emphasis upon specific research strategies and accomplishments in relation to the broader study of American material culture. The role of historical archaeology within historic preservation, cultural resource management, and historic museums will also be considered.

Spring; Staff. The course tests the notion of Southern uniqueness and Southern identity against an array of archaeological evidence dating from the earliest colonial settlements through to the archaeology of the Depression era.

Spring; Gallivan. A seminar on the prehistory of North America north of Mexico. Topics covered are: the peopling of North America, the cultural development of Indigenous peoples, the archaeology of Native Americans, and the cultural processes that attempt to explain North American culture history.

Fall and Spring; Horning. The course is designed as a critical overview and analysis of the ways in which archaeologists have interrogated the concept of identity. We will explore particular categories of identity such as ethnicity, race, class, gender, age, religion, community and household, work and occupation, genetics, nationalism and politics, indigeneity and post-coloniality.

Spring; Gallivan, Glasser, Horning, Kahn, Lelievre, Norman. This seminar prepares students for the Presentation and Paper requirement through a program that includes reading examples of anthropological scholarship, developing and revising an article-length paper, and publicly presenting a scholarly argument. All students in the M.A./Ph.D. and Ph.D. tracks will complete the Presentation and Paper process during their fourth semester by writing a paper that engages questions of anthropological significance and by presenting the paper to the department by the end of the academic year.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Areas of current research interest presented by resident and visiting faculty. Course may be repeated for credit when topics vary.

Fall and Spring; Staff. A program of extensive reading, writing and discussion in a special area of Anthropology for students entering the M.A./Ph.D. program without a previous graduate degree. Students accepted for this course will arrange their program of study with an appropriate faculty advisor.

This course introduces students to graduate research. Students design and conduct research with a faculty advisor. This course may be repeated once, only for 3 semester credit hours, and only if no more than 3 semester credit hours have been earned already for 693.

Fall and Spring; Sfaff. Graded Pass/Fail. Note: Students who are not submitting a master’s thesis may not use this course to satisfy degree requirements. Students design and conduct research in support of their master’s thesis under the direction of a faculty advisor. This course may be repeated, but no more than 9 semester credit hours may be used to satisfy degree requirements for submitting a master’s thesis.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Graded: Grade of U or either G or U converts to P upon successful completion of a defense and submission and acceptance of the thesis. Students finish the research for and the writing of their master’s thesis under the direction of a faculty advisor. Students who are not submitting a master’s thesis may not use this course to satisfy degree requirements. This course may be repeated, but no more than 6 semester credit hours may be used to satisfy degree requirements for a thesis master’s (only)

Fall and Spring; Staff. Graded Pass/Fail. No credits earned in this course may be applied to the number of credits required to satisfy graduate degree requirements. This course may be repeated.

Fall and Spring; Staff. A program of extensive reading, writing and discussion in a special area of historical anthropology or historical archaeology for the Ph.D. student. Students accepted for this course will arrange their program of study with an appropriate faculty advisor. This course may be repeated for credit if there is no duplication of material.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Graded Pass/Fail. Students design and conduct research in support of their dissertation under the direction of a faculty advisor. This course may be repeated, but no more than 12 semester credit hours may be used to satisfy degree requirements for a student submitting a dissertation. Students who are not submitting a dissertation may not use this course to satisfy degree requirements.

Fall and Spring. Staff. Note: Grade of either G or U converts to P upon successful completion of a defense and submission and acceptance of the dissertation. Students finish the research for and the writing of their dissertation under the direction of a faculty advisor. This course may be repeated, but no more than 24 semester credit hours may be used to satisfy degree requirements for a doctorate (only).