3 ECTS credits
75 h study time
Offer 2 with catalog number 1020886AER for all students in the 1st semester at a (A) Bachelor - preliminary level.
What is archaeology?! Few disciplines appeal more to the imagination than archaeology, thinking about Indiana Jones and mummies. But what does an archaeologist do exactly? Behind the imaginative cliché lies a very complex and sound science, with questions, paradigms, methods, techniques and material sources. In this course, I want to take you along this search to what archaeology exactly contains, through a series of intriguing findings and superb sites, in search of the nature and coherence of our science.
First, we will go deeper into the question what archaeology is, and why the study of the material culture is the true core of archaeology as a science. Then we will look at the history of our discipline and, we will cover the movements of the paradigms, the questions and insights in archaeology in the 20th century, away from cultural history towards a contextual archaeology focused on the understanding of the artefacts as part of a society and the perception of people of their environment.
Thereafter, we will see that formation processes are essential to exercise archaeology as a science, because it is exactly these formation processes that determine the content, form and capacity of the archaeological object: what we as archaeologists find can be interpreted as a sample of a sample of a sample of the complete material environment of a society of the past.
In next classes we will zoom on what sites, contexts and stratigraphic layers are. Also what can we learn from a profile? We will discuss our main field methods, from aerial photography to excavation. Furthermore, we will look at the materials we can research and what they can learn as. Finally, we will research how we can determine archaeological time, and how we can move on to dating what we have excavated and analysed on the site.
The course will end with a class on the issue of public heritage of material culture. In the end, as an archeologist, we work for a public and you will notice that also that translation of the archaeological story towards this public is not without consequences for how archaeology functions as a science, and what the tension zone between imagination and science is.
The course consists of 26 hours HOC. In addition to the professor, guest lectures will teach on several topics
.
The student:
O1: Has knowledge of what archeology is and its aims, works and methods.
O2: Has a critical understanding of the development of the major movements within archeology and the challenge facing the discipline today
O3: Understands the importance of archaeological formation processes and can apply them through a case study
O4: Understands the methods and the interdisciplinary nature of archeology
O5: Has knowledge of what information archaeological materials contain and can apply this through a case study
O6: Has insight into the different dating techniques and can apply various relative dating techniques
O7: Can correctly use, explain and illustrate the main archaeological terms by using concrete examples
O8: Can interpret the debate on archeology as a social actor
The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Written Exam determines 100% of the final mark.
Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:
The second exam session is a new exam
This offer is part of the following study plans:
Bachelor of Adult Education: Profile Social Studies (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Adult Education: Profile Cultural Studies (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Adult Education: Initial track (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Philosophy and Moral Sciences: default (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of History: Minor Minor Human Sciences (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: German-French (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: French-Italian (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: French-Spanish (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Dutch-English (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Dutch-French (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Dutch-Italian (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Dutch-Spanish (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Dutch-German (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Spanish-Italian (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: Italian-German (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: German-Spanish (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: English-German (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: English-French (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: English-Italian (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Linguistics and Literary Studies: English-Spanish (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Nederlands-Frans (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Nederlands-Engels (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Nederlands-Duits (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Nederlands-Spaans (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Frans-Engels (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Frans-Duits (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Frans-Spaans (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Engels-Duits (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Engels-Spaans (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Applied Language Studies: Duits-Spaans (only offered in Dutch)