University of California Santa Barbara

Preface Assignment 1 Assignment 2 Assignment 3 Assignment 4 Assignment 5 Assignment 6 Assignment 7 Assignment 8 Assignment 9 Assignment 10 Appendix Cover Coversheet

Exercise 1-1 Exercise 1-2 Exercise 2-1 Exercise 3 - Nothing Due Exercise 4-1 Exercise 4-2 Exercise 4-3 Exercise 4-4 Exercise 4-5 Exercise 5-1 Exercise 5-2 Exercise 5-3 Exercise 5-4 Exercise 6-1 Exercise 6-2 Exercise 7-1 Exercise 8-1 Exercise 9 - Nothing Due

Midterm Essay Final Essay Final Exam

Midterm Essay

Due by 5 pm, Monday, April 28, HSSB 1003.

DIRECTIONS:

For this essay, you will pick ONE of the two hypothetical excavation projects below:

Based on the map that you have been given, design an excavation strategy for understanding this particular site or area. You will need to indicate what technique(s) you will use to establish the time period the site(s) was used and assemble an archaeological team of regular crew and the specialists necessary to address the questions posed for the specific project as outlined below. Your excavation strategies should include what type of data you seek, where on the site you wish to excavate (refer to the Anthology reading on sampling), what methods you will use, and how you will analyze the archaeological artifacts that you recover. You should not make up discoveries, this is an exercise in planning like the proposals archaeologists must write in order to obtain funding from organizations like the National Science Foundation or the National Geographic Society. The best answers will draw upon the textbook, web exercises, study guide anthology readings, lecture, and films.

The required paper length should run pproximately 4-6 pages,covering the first three weeks of the course. Be sure to indicate your name, section and TA on the cover page that you can download from the web site. Full information on the specification for the essay and our evaluation procedures, which include grammar and style, are given in the Study Guide introduction and Writing Guide. Remember that this paper is worth 25% of your grade.

Project 1. Chaco Culture Collapse

The impressive settlements of Chaco Canyon were abandoned around AD 1300. Why did this sophisticated culture disappear? Archaeologists have studied the nearby northern San Juan region, especially southwestern Colorado, for centuries, but you have identified an archaeological site that could help us understand the dynamics of population and social interactions in this area. You have decided to test two possible causes for this collapse, warfare and ecological stress produced by a prolonged drought. In order to address this question,

you will need to reconstruct the ancient diet and environment. You will also want to investigate what ties your site had with the Chaco culture, and uncover any evidence of warfare at the site. Finally, dating the site will critical to your research. You can see remains of buildings from the surface, including a possible housing unit and a subterranean round structure that might be a ceremonial structure (Kiva). There is also a large midden (trash heap). Note that organic materials like wood and bone preserve very well in the arid climate of the Southwest.

Project 2. Uruk and the Origins of Urbanism

Looting of important archaeological sites in southern Iraq has run rampant since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. The Iraqi State Board of Antiquties and Heritage (SBAH) is particularly concerned about the ancient site of Uruk (modern Warka), and has put out a call for archaeological projects to both help document and protect the site. But unfortunately, salvage concerns alone are not enough to obtain funding from organizations like the National Science Foundation or the National Geographic Society, so you have to come up with a good research design. The earliest urban settlements arose in Mesopotamia during the Ubaid period (5300-4100 BC), but the first true cities and states emerged during the succeeding Uruk period (c. 4100-3100 BC). Uruk was one of the largest of these first cites, covering an area of over 1000 acres and with a population estimated at over 50,000. The sacred center of the city with it’s famous Anu Ziggerat (pyramid-like temple platform) is well known. Less is known about how the urban space was organized. Did the rich and poor live together in the same areas, or were the wealthy segregated into an elite quarter of the city? Was craft production (ceramics, metallurgy, weaving, etc.) organized at the household level, or was it controlled by the emerging city-state into a separate craft quarter? Did this change at all between the earlier Ubaid period and the later Uruk phase? In order to address this question, you will need to think carefully about sampling, because of Uruk’s large size, and dating, in order to establish that you have the right phases at the site, which was occupied over a long period of time.