Geoarchaeology and Paleoenvironment [ LARKO2240 ]

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Instruction: the seminar may consider all the general questions concerned with landscape history and environmental history which can be studied through the relevant scientific disciplines in the service of archaeology.

This joint seminar of the University of Kansas and UCL, to be taught in English , will offer advanced study in the fields of Geoarchaeology and (Paleo)Environmental Archaeology. It will be open to KU (graduate?) students through the Environmental Studies Program, and to UCL students through the Department of Archaeology and the History of Art. ARKE/CRAN will provide infrastructure and logistical support for the archaeological aspects of the program.

Written examination.

Coursework will take place at UCL within an intensive, two-week period, originally envisioned for the latter part of May. Classroom lectures developing the theoretical basis of the research disciplines will be complemented by fieldwork at accessible sites in Belgium.

The course will combine relevant general approaches from such disciplines as the study of soils and geological features, of landscape evolution as a process involving natural development and anthropic change, of the techniques of landscape study, including the problems of reconstructing past landscapes (paleoenvironments). Case studies will be drawn from research projects in both the Americas (e.g. the Puebla Valley in Mexico, Cahokia in the USA, the Maya in Central America, and the Amazonian Basin of Brazil) and in Europe (transition from Ancient to Late Antique and Medieval landscapes in the Mediterranean and in Northwestern Europe).

Required Bibliography. The Instructors will develop a basic bibliography for discussion in lectures and seminar meetings.

Course in english.