Assistant Professor
Dept. of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology,
Utah State University, Old Main 245F, Logan, UT 84341
Phone: 1 - 435 - 797 - 1496 | Email: bpitblado@hass.usu.edu
Office hours: M 1:30-2:30, W 10:00-11:00, Th 1:00-2:00 Fall 2004
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MeAnthropology
5310: Archaeology Lab Techniques
Spring 2004
| Professor:
Dr. Bonnie Pitblado (my last name is pronounced with a long "a"
sound) Laboratory
Assistant: Brent Groth Phone: 435-671-3035 Anthropology 5310 is a unique course in the USU Anthropology program in that it offers students hands-on experience working with real archaeological collections in a lab setting. This experience is not structured like a traditional class with lectures and associated exercises. Rather, you will work independently on topics of interest to you, and in close association with the professor, your lab assistant Brent Groth, and Visiting Scholar Beth Ann Camp. Over the course of the semester, you will have the opportunity to choose lab tasks and projects from a very long master list of options, and we will provide all the training you need to complete them. Your task options will be drawn from two real, on-going archaeological projects: (1) the Chance Gulch excavation, and (2) the Rocky Mountain Paleoindian Research Program. The Chance Gulch collections consist of tens of thousands of fragments of chipped stone and a wide variety of other artifact types (including, among other things, such oddities as a British penny and a fossilized shark's tooth). You may choose to analyze some element of the assemblage or to conduct related archival research. The 2003 Rocky Mountain Paleoindian Research Program yielded a wide array of survey data from the Flaming Gorge, Pineview Reservoir, and Gunnison, Colorado areas. These data require entry, manipulation, and write-up-any or all of which you may choose to do. Top...Program learning goals & assessment The USU Anthropology program has identified learning goals to help guide students through coursework in the discipline. Anthropology 5310 will help you reach two of these goals in particular:
The primary means through which I will assess your success in learning about and applying archaeological laboratory methods will be one-on-one interaction. In our periodic meetings and through informal interaction in the lab, as well as via your written progress reports, I will evaluate your mastery of various archaeological methods. I also encourage you to ask me anytime if the relevance of a particular laboratory procedure escapes you. I want you to have a solid grasp of the "big picture"-how your task(s) relate to broader research goals. Your questions will be a key means through which I can assess how well we are meeting the aforementioned Anthropology program goals. Top...
You may earn between one and three Anth 5310 credits this semester. For each credit for which you register, you must work 45 hours in the lab over the course of the term-the equivalent of three hours per week. Thus, if you register for one credit, your total lab obligation for the semester is 45 hours; for two credits, 90 hours; for three credits, 135 hours. In addition to the time you physically spend in the archaeology lab, you will also be required to do a moderate amount of outside reading and research, bringing your total time commitment per credit up by approximately 10 hours/term per credit. This may sound like a lot of work; however, a regular three-credit USU lecture class (such as North American Archaeology) requires you to invest at least 180 hours/semester. So lab credits are a good deal time-wise, in addition to providing extremely valuable hands-on experience in archaeological analysis. Top...Scheduling Course
grading
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Project
/ Task options
Rocky
Mountain Paleoindian Research Program:
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