Course syllabus

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Instructors:	Semester 1: Prof. Thegn Ladefoged (t.ladefoged@auckland.ac.nz)
	Semester 2: Dr. Josh Emmitt (Josh.Emmitt@auckland.ac.nz)
Thegn’s office hours:	By appointment, in HSB 716
Josh's office hours:	By appointment
Meeting time:	Semester 1: Friday 1:00 – 3:00 (Human Sciences - East, Rm 807)
	Semester 2: Friday 10:00-12:00 (Human Sciences - East, Rm 807)

The aims of the course are to teach you how to: (A) critically assess the ways in which people have investigated and interpreted archaeological landscapes, (B) examine the application of GIS and related technologies by archaeologists, and (C) become proficient in the use of GIS software. The course includes a combination of seminar discussions and use of computer software.

The ESRI GIS program ArcGIS will be learnt through a series of lectures, lab practicum, and hours spent in front of a computer. There will be readings that will give you a basic understanding of GIS in general and the ArcGIS program in specific, and you will work through a series of exercises.

 

There are several components to the course:

• In the first semester the course is organized around seminar discussions that focus on substantive GIS applications (such as viewshed analysis or predictive modelling) and the theoretical underpinnings of landscape archaeology. Students will be assigned TWO seminar topics, one substantive and one theoretical, and give presentations on each. For each presentation the student will read 8 to 10 key articles about each topic. ONE WEEK BEFORE the seminar presentation, the student assigned the topic will assign 2 articles for the other students to read (providing PDF files of the articles to Thegn for distribution), and will email Thegn as an attachment an EndNote bibliography file listing the 8 or 10 articles they have read (and PDF files of these additional articles if possible). On the day of the seminar the person who has been assigned that topic will give a presentation (20 minute presentations for the substantive topics and 30 minute presentations for the theoretical topics). The presentation should be PowerPoint based, and a PDF of the PowerPoint should be emailed to Thegn after the presentation. He will distribute these to the other students. After the presentation, we will have a 20-30  minute discussion. This discussion will be led by the presenter, with other students each asking a minimum of two questions. It is obviously very important that both the student giving the presentation and the rest of us are well prepared. Please do all of the assigned readings before the class, prepare some notes, and come to class ready to discuss the fascinating topics of the day. Each seminar presentation is worth 5% of your final grade. Thegn will assess the presentation based on the quality of assigned readings, your understanding and critical analysis of those readings, your oral presentation and ability to lead the discussion, and your PowerPoint presentation.

 

• Students will take short READING QUIZZES at the beginning of lectures during the first semester in weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Each quiz will be a series of questions that will be easily answered if you have done the weekly readings before the lecture. Students will be marked on their top 8 quizzes (worth 1.25% each) for the semester.

 

• During the first semester students will write two 2000-2500 word essays. The first essay is due April 29^th. This paper should be based on all the readings that you have done throughout the first half of the first semester, the additional readings in the distributed bibliographies, and the PowerPoint presentations given by students. The first essay should be a critical evaluation of how spatial technology has changed over the last 25 years, and how this does or does not enable new insights into past human behaviour. The second essay is due June 7^th. It should be based on the readings and presentations, and be a critical review of how the different theoretical paradigms of settlement pattern and landscape archaeology have or have not changed over the last 25 years, their strengths and weaknesses in terms of dynamic and empirical sufficiency, and any likely future developments within the sub-discipline of landscape archaeology. Both essays should not be “laundry lists” of what you have read, rather should be critical reviews of the literature synthesized into insightful discussions. Each essay is worth 15% of your final grade. No late papers will be accepted without prior discussion with Thegn, or a medical certificate.

 

• During the second semester students will complete a series of GIS exercises and labs. These will teach students the basics of GIS data structure, data entry, analysis, and outputs (maps and charts). It is essential that you attend each lecture, as you will not be able to complete your second essay unless you have come to all the lectures and completed all the labs.

 

• In the second half of the year students will conduct an original GIS based analysis. The analysis could be a pilot study for a larger thesis research project, or preferably a discrete, focused, analysis of an archaeological data set.  The first phase of this assignment is worth 10% of your final grade and is due September 20^th, and is a short 750-1000 word ODD (Overview, Design concepts, and Details) of your proposed research. This ODD will include a contextulization of the problem within the framework of past research, and the specification of the necessary data and general methodology that you will use to address the problem. It is very important that you discuss potential topics with Josh. The final essay will be ca. 5000 words, and can incorporate some of the elements of the ODD. The final 5000 word essay should be formatted as a manuscript that could be submitted for publication in a referred journal. It should contextualize the research problem within past research, and specify the data that are analyzed, the GIS analytical methods, results, discussion and conclusions. On October 25^th students will present a 10 minute summary of the results of their research. You should think of this presentation as akin to giving a conference paper, and should prepare appropriate visual material to keep us all amused. This is worth 5% of your final grade. The essay is due November 1^st and is worth 35% of your final grade. No late papers will be accepted without prior discussion with Josh, or a medical certificate.

 

SEMESTER 1

 Week 1: March 8^th

• Introduction to the course

 

Week 2: March 15^th

• Landscape Archaeology and GIS
• READINGS (a total of ca. 69 pages):
• There are 7 readings for this week, BUT many of them are short and there is only a total of ca. 69 pages of reading. Read the articles in the following order: Darvill (2008); Patterson (2008); Johnson (2012); Fleming (2012); McCoy and Ladefoged (2009); Howey and Burg (2017); and Hacιgüzeller (2012).

Darvill, T. 2008. Pathways to a panoramic past: a brief history of European landscape archaeology. In B. David and J. Thomas (eds.), Handbook of Landscape Archaeology, Pp. 60-76. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.

 

Fleming, A. 2012. Landscape studies: Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science. In S.J. Kluiving and E.B. Guttmann-Bond (eds.), Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science: From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach. Pp. 461-469. Amsterdam University Press.

 

Howey, M.C.L., and Burg, M.B. 2017.  Assessing the state of archaeological GIS research: Unbinding analyses of past landscapes. Journal of Archaeological Science 84: 1–9.

Hacιgüzeller, P. 2012. GIS, critique, representation and beyond. Journal of Social Archaeology, 12(2), 245–263. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605312439139

 

Johnson, M. 2012. Landscape studies: The future of the field. In S.J. Kluiving and E.B. Guttmann-Bond (eds.), Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science: From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach. Pp. 515-525. Amsterdam University Press.

 

McCoy, M., and Ladefoged, T.N. 2009. New Developments in the Use of Spatial Technology in Archaeology’. Journal of Archaeological Research 17:263-295.

 

Patterson, T.C. 2008. A brief history of landscape archaeology in the Americas. In B. David and J. Thomas (eds.), Handbook of Landscape Archaeology, Pp. 77-84. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.

 

Week 3: March 22^nd 

• Detecting archaeological features (Paige)
• Quantitatively assessing spatial patterning (Stacy)

 

Week 4: March 29^th 

• Cost-surface and viewshed analysis (Lauren)
• Audioscapes (Sheri)
• Virtual reality (Caitlin Macnay)

 

Week 5: April 5^th

• Terrestrial productivity models (Jenn)
• Social network analysis (Caitlan Butler)
• Agent-based modelling ((Darcy)

 

Week 6: April 12^h

• NO CLASS MEETING

 

Week 7: May 3^rd

• Sites, distributional, land unit archaeology, and time perspectivism (Caitlan Butler)
• Heritage management, museumology, indigenous archaeology (Jenn)

 

Week 8: May 10^th

• Phenomenological Archaeology (Caitlin Macnay)
• Archaeology of memory (a.k.a. structuralism) (Darcy)

 

Week 9: May 17^th

• Historical and evolutionary ecology (Sheri)
• Ecodynamics (Lauren)

 

Week 10: May 24^th

• Political economy (Paige)
• Praxis and agency archaeology (Stacy)

 

Week 11: May 31^st

• Hawai’i ecodynamics (Thegn)

 

Week 12: June 7^th

• The Dynamics of Māori Socio-political Interaction: Social Network Analyses of Obsidian Circulation in Northland Aotearoa(Thegn)

 

 

 SEMESTER 2

 Week 1: July 26^th

• Intro to ArcGIS: ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcTools, ArcScene
• ArcGIS: Geodatabases, spatial, and attribute data

 

Week 2: August 2^nd

• ArcGIS: Geodatabases, spatial and attribute data
• ArcGIS: Creating and editing data

 

Week 3: August 9^th

•  ArcGIS: Spatial analysis and statistics

 

Week 4: August 16^th

• ArcGIS: Raster analysis

 

Week 5: August 23^rd

• ArcGIS: Map design and GIS outputs

 

Week 6: August 30^th

• ArcGIS: ArcScene and 3D data

 

Week 7: September 20^th

• Student presentations about projects

 

Week 8: September 27^th

• Presentation TBA

 

Week 9: October 4^th

• Individual meetings with students

 

Week 10: October 11^th

• Open GIS Lab

 

Week 11: October 18^th

• Methods for examining past landscape use in the Fayum, Egypt

 

Week 12: October 25^th

• Student presentations of research projects