READING AND STUDY ASSIGNMENTS

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Dr. Bridget Buxton (History, URI) babuxton@mail.uri.edu

Ph. 874 4085 Office hours: W 2-3 and by appt.

Dr. Kristine Bovy (Anthropology, URI) kbovy@ uri.edu

Ph. 874 4143 Office hours: M W 1.30-2.30 and by appt.

Dr. Mary Hollinshead (Art History, URI) Mary.Hollinshead@uri.edu

Ph. 874 2770 Office hours: Tues 1-2 and by appt.

Dr. William Krieger (Philosophy, URI) krieger@uri.edu

Ph. 874 2812 Office hours: by appointment

Dr. Roderick Mather (History, URI) RodMather@mail.uri.edu

Ph. 874 4093 Office hours: M W F 11-12

Dr. John Jensen (History, URI; Sea Education Association: jensenheritage@verizon.net)

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READING AND STUDY ASSIGNMENTS*

*CHECK BACK REGULARLY FOR UPDATES

WEEK EIGHT

26 Oct. Mon The Peopling of the Americas

Since arriving in the "New World," Euro-Americans have wondered and speculated about how and when Native Americans colonized the continent. For the past 70 years, the predominate model for the "peopling" of the Americas has been known as the "Clovis-First" hypothesis. As the story goes, ancestors of Native Americans were big game hunters who traveled from Asia over the Bering land bridge and through the ice-free corridor. The Clovis-First hypothesis became so entrenched in the minds and hearts of archaeologists that they were often unwilling to consider evidence that contradicted this hypothesis. We will discuss the intellectual barriers/ challenges to overturning the Clovis-First hypothesis and creating a new understanding of the peopling of the Americas.

Reading Assignment:

Dillehay, Thomas H. (2000). Chapter 2: Debating the Archaeology of the First Americans. In The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory, pp. 15-44. Basic Books, New York.

Study Questions:

1. Summarize the traditional hypothesis for how and when people first colonized the Americas.

2. Discuss the intellectual barriers that have prevented scholars from accepting pre-Clovis evidence.

3. List the criteria set forth by C. Vance Haynes for accepting a pre-Clovis site.

4. Describe the evidence that is beginning to challenge the traditional Clovis-First hypothesis.

5. Discuss more recent hypotheses for the peopling of the Americas.

28 Oct. Wed The Fur Trade

Alicia Caporaso

Perhaps more than anything else, the nearly 400 years of the North American fur trade worked to shape the social, economic, and environmental patterns that are present in North America today. From the first contacts of European fishermen with the Indians living along the Atlantic coast in the early 1500s until the civil war, the fur trade influenced the development of European colonies, the outbreak of several wars, and the push westward onto the expanding North American Frontier. Most of the earliest historic era archaeological sites in North America are at least somewhat related to the fur trade. This lecture is going to focus on the Upper Missouri River fur trade of the early 19^th century. We will consider the archaeology of one trading post in particular, Fort William, both as an independent post and as an ancillary structure to the largest fur trading post on the Great Plains, Fort Union. We will then compare the structural organization of Fort Union with other important fur trading posts in the region.

Study Questions:

1. 1. How can the archaeology of fur trade sites be used to understand early North American history?

1. 2. How might the drawings and paintings of Fort Union and its outbuildings help archaeologists to interpret the archaeological record revealed during field excavation? Using these drawings as part of the historical record, what might an archaeologist look for?

1. 3. Do you think that the archaeological evidence proves the presence of Fort William? What else might the evidence indicate? Why?

1. 4. How can fur trading post organization inform us on the motives of the fur traders and their relationship with local Indian communities?

30 Oct. Fri The Archaeology of the Silent

One of the greatest advantages of archaeology is that we are able to give a "voice to the voiceless." In other words, we can learn not only about the lives of the powerful and wealthy, but also those people not often discussed in historical texts. In addition, archaeologists have recently come to realize that we are not the sole owners or stakeholders in the past. Therefore, there has been a trend to involve the public in archaeology, including the descendants of those sites we are excavating. Through the required readings and in-class video segments ("Digging for Slaves: The Excavation of American Slave Sites"), you will learn more about recent efforts to learn about one such under represented group—African American slaves and their descendants.

Reading Assignment:

McKee, Larry (March/April 1995). The Earth is Their Witness. The Sciences 35(2):36-41.

Perry, Warren (1997). "Archaeology as Community Service: The African Burial Ground Project in New York City." North American Dialogue 2(1):1-4.

Study Questions:

1. It is sometimes said that at least slaves were well fed by their owners. How does the archaeological record at the Hermitage call this into dispute?

2. Is the material culture of slaves at the Hermitage universally limited and poor? What does archaeology tell us of the "wealth" of at least some of the slaves?

3. Describe the evidence that slaves maintained some of their African beliefs.

4. How did the existence of the African Burial Ground come to light?

5. What are the goals of the African Burial Ground project?

6. What did we learn through archaeology about slaves at the Middleburg Plantation and Monticello that we did not know before?

7. What evidence was left of the slave quarters at Middleburg Plantation?

8. Describe how archaeologists used experimental archaeology to learn about the slave quarters at Monticello.