Courses

Archaeology has focused traditionally on excavations of settlement sites. However, no settlement existed as an island; ancient peoples moved within a larger environment which constrained their actions while it was simultaneously transformed by them. This course investigates...

This seminar delves into the world’s earliest cities: their origins, their operations, and their collapses. It considers how we define this term, and why every settlement doesn’t grow into a city. The course will investigate the earliest experiments with settlement...

What happened in the past, and if and how we should remember it, is hotly contested. Even though today we take great pains to document every major event that occurs, more than 99% of human history is not written down. How then can we determine with any certainty what people...

This course provides a basic understanding of how remote sensing data (satellite imagery and aerial photographs), excavation data (photos, plans and measurements) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to visualize and analyze archaeological data. Students will...

A survey of current issues in the archaeology and history of ancient Mesopotamia (today within the states of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran). The course focus will be on urban origins, the nature of urban societies in the Bronze Age, and the expansion and impact of empires in...

Ancient Mesopotamia was the world’s first literate urban civilization. This class will examine the origins and evolution of cities, temples, and government from two complimentary perspectives: the archaeological record and cuneiform inscriptions in translation. Activities...

This seminar reviews complex societies in northern Mesopotamia (northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey) from the Late Chalcolithic to the Iron Age (ca. 4200-600 BC). The focus will be on recent archaeological research on issues of broad interest to...

Basic archaeological research increasingly includes approaches to spatial patterning in human societies, including the structure of settlements, the regional distribution of populations, and their relationships to their landscapes. This seminar will consider how variation in...

The world’s first cities emerged in Mesopotamia and were the defining characteristic of ancient civilizations in what is today Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They were inhabited by large populations, powerful kings, and the gods themselves. The course will consider the origins...

A comprehensive introduction to the practice of archaeology and major themes from our human past: How do archaeologists know where to dig? How do we analyze and understand what we find? What do we know about the origins of the human species, agriculture, cities, and...