ANT412H1

Historical Archaeology

What cultural, social, political, and ecological processes contribute to continuity or change in past social forms and material culture? How do we recognize and study the past dynamics of ethnicity, class, gender, colonialism, and racialization in archaeological remains? Historical archaeology, as the study of the recent past, explores material culture's role in making visible those erased in the archival record. Using material, documentary, and oral evidence, this course focuses on core debates that have shaped and continue to influence Historical archaeology’s trajectory. We will also learn about the history of the subdiscipline, from its birth to the present day. Taking a broad approach, the first half of this course examines how power is negotiated through the historical and archaeological records by looking at theoretical and methodological approaches in case studies from North America, the Caribbean, and South America. The second half of this course will take a more localized approach where students visit historical sites around Toronto and finishes with a final project using artifactual remains currently in the possession of the City of Toronto.