Anthro 310

ANTHROPOLOGY 310 - Archaeology of Oceania and Southeast Asia

This class examines the archaeology and the rise of complex societies in Oceania and Southeast Asia. We will discuss several key issues:

Archaeological method and theory

How and when people spread through the Pacific

The rise of social and political complexity

How unique cultures developed in different areas of the Pacific

Foreign (European) contact and its affects on cultural development.

The course will predominantly stress archaeological information, but emphasis will also be placed on oral histories and the nature of living cultures. The class begins with a brief overview of archaeological practice followed by looking at models for the peopling of Southeast Asia and the colonization of Oceania. Then the major cultures of mainland Southeast Asia, Island Southeast Asia, and Oceania are examined in a comparative context.

The structure of the course will be problem-oriented, and comparative. The substantive record, special research topics, and problems will be interwoven in our lectures and class discussions. This is a reading and writing intensive class, in which each student must critically evaluate the inferences made for prehistory from archaeological data. The class is intended for both undergraduate and graduate students, majoring in Anthropology, Southeast Asian Studies, or non-majors.