Day 1--SUNY-Orange Archaeological Field School 2013

Today, the 2013 season of the SUNY-Orange Field school begins.

Expanding Possibilities

The following quote from Hornborg's article struck me as I was reflecting on discussion in 101 yesterday.

We are trained as anthropologists and tend to maintain a healthy distance to social engineering, but as stewards of a vast collective memory of global cultural experimentation, it could be argued that we have an obligation to share these alternative ideas and ideologies with nonanthropologists seeking visions of a sustainable world. Like so many other populations over the past few centuries, the Tiv have discovered how their incorporation into a world economy orchestrated by general-purpose money implied loss of local control, inequitable trade relations, and environmental degradation [2007:65].

Very often, policy makers and other social scientists assume the experience of Western peoples defines the boundaries of possibility (see this link for an interesting, but long, study in which the study populations used by the discipline of psychology are scrutinized...how representative of a general human species are those results?). However, as Hornborg argues above, there are other ways and other possibilities and should not be discounted out of hand as "backward" survivals from a more primitive stage of human cultural evolution.

Anthropological Approaches...Interrupted by Fire and Finished Friday

Adding to the previous post, the remainder of influential ideas and approaches in anthropology.  This and the last post are not at all an exhaustive list, but I believe it does provide a general sense of the direction of the discipline.  On Friday, we'll recap a bit more and I'll emphasize those elements that remain common practice.

Approaches in Anthropology...so far

Just a quick overview of the theoretical approaches in anthropology that we've covered so far.  I'm going to try my best and distill the major points as well as those elements that remain with the discipline.

Diagnostics, Stratification and Zeppelin

Just a bit of a restatement or expansion of Mike's question and my response from class today.

The survey project I described used diagnostic pottery and projectile points to place the sites in the region into a basic temporal sequence.  What inferences was this based on?  Well, bear with my analogy again...

Points of View

This post is to hopefully recap a bit of the discussion from today's class. While anthropology has traditionally focused primarily on culture, I tried to emphasize other aspects of the human experience and how they articulate with culture. However, it might be best to think of the four divisions I used as different angles from which to look at the same thing...humans.

Talking Up the Field School

Last night, I had the opportunity to present about the 2012 summer field school--both the class and its initial findings--at the Wisner Library in Warwick.  One of the great results of such public presentations is getting to talk to folks with expertise and knowledge you didn't previously have.  I believe some of the leads will prove productive in future field seasons.