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The camera
Overview - Archaeology and the site report
Archaeologists work on what is left of the past. They do this in teams that bring different research skills and interests to bear upon the material remains left behind by communities of people - artifacts and sites. This makes of archaeology a unique interdisciplinary and collaborative field that ranges from genetics to folklore, from geophysical fieldwork to literary analysis, from excavation management to statistical modeling. It is this range of interest in the material immediacy of the past that helps make archaeology so appealing. And this appeal makes archaeology a great vehicle for exploring transferable skills in research and authoring.
Archaeologists combine their researches into catalogs, handbooks of different types of finds, art histories, historical narratives, anthropological theories, museum exhibitions and academic papers, as well as more popular media like TV programs. One of the legacies of the centuries old antiquarian interest in the past is a focus on landscape and the places people have lived. Archaeologists write about ancient places. Since the crystallization of the discipline of archaeology in the early nineteenth century archaeologists have produced site reports - accounts of particular sites, their location, history, architecture, the things found through archaeological excavation, the daily lives of the inhabitants, their culture and views of themselves. Such site reports have become one of the modern foundations of our understanding of history.
This course will introduce archaeology as such an interdisciplinary and collaborative field through this defining practice and medium of the site report. It will involve an encounter with eight great archaeological sites in Europe and the Old World: Stonehenge, Gavrinis in prehistoric France, Tel El Amarna on the Nile, Namforsen in Sweden, Housesteads at the northern edge of the Roman Empire, Dunstanburgh Castle in the UK, Knossos in the Aegean, and Olympia in Greece. Through selections from publications, plans and photographs, the class will explore each site in turn through its excavation, its features and finds, the arguments over its interpretation, and its place in our understanding of the archaeological history of Europe.
Together these sites introduce the many dimensions of archaeological thought. This is one aim of the course - to be a taster of archaeological research and thinking. The sites also raise some key questions about our anthropological understanding of ancient societies - they were far stranger than we might imagine.
Researching and writing about place is the focus for a second set of aims of the course - to explore the interdisciplinary research and collaborative authoring that lies behind something like the archaeological site report. So the assignments will be driven by the following specific aims:
Assignment, objectives and process
The main assignment of the class is to form teams, critically reflect upon archaeological site reporting, collaboratively produce and present an account of a place, a site report, and to monitor and critically reflect upon the exercise.
The assignment will be broken down into the following stages:
One
Preparatory work on interdisciplinary research and writing about place - lectures, reading, discussion of the first three archaeological sites and site reports.
Identification of points of difference between collaborative and individual research and authoring.
Two
Form two groups of seven with as varied interests as possible and choose a site to be studied in consultation with faculty. (Seven or eight has been found to be an ideal number for making the most of creative interplay of interest.)
Three
Collaborative authoring environment introduced.
The assignment will use a collaborative authoring environment known as a wiki. This is a type of social software that enables teams to work together to build any kind of digital document. Using a standard web browser, team members can create web pages, add content, format, post comments, edit and link. Everything is editable by all team members unless locked by the author. Changes and edits can be tracked. All saved versions are kept by the system, so nothing is ever lost, even if deleted in an edit. Above all, no programming skills are needed to author and format the most complex of documents. Formatting is done though just a few simple markup commands. If desired, documents produced in standard word processors can be cut and pasted into the wiki.
A wiki is an ideal environment for such an assignment as this because it is a fast and easy way of writing, reviewing and editing a collaborative team production. Post content, receive team feedback in the way of comments posted on your page, review and edit your own work, review that of other team members, comment and edit their work, link it to your own, add to your own contribution in the light of theirs, review the whole and provide summaries, signposts and menus ... . The wiki logs all activity so the team can see where they are coming from and going to - displaying the wiki on a screen for the group to view as a whole is an ideal way of discussing progress and making fast decisions about future work and direction.
Michael has three years experience of successfully using such software in project-based learning and in research projects involving over two hundred undergraduates, graduates and colleagues. Several examples of classes and projects are available here - [link] - see, for example, the current IHUM class Human and Machine - [link], running Fall 2005 (password is IHUM). This class will use the wiki in a more formal way to author, review and revise, but the principles of use remain the same as in these less structured applications. There are some guidelines for best use of such social software that have emerged through Michael's experience of running wikis in class and research projects - the most important are summarized here - [link].
Michael's Metamedia Lab and Stanford Humanities Lab will provide the IT infrastructure for the class.
The introduction will use the creation of individual class member home pages as illustrative exercise.
Four
Group brainstorming of possible approaches to the chosen site based upon preliminary research reconnaissance. The assignment does not have to be an orthodox archaeological site report. Archaeological site reporting is to be treated as a frame within which to critically consider how we might write about and represent places in general. Reference may therefore be made to any relevant genre such as travel writing, gazetteers, memoirs, biographies, folklore - all of which have influenced and been influenced by archaeological themes.
Five
Plan the collaborative report - considering audience, purpose, message, medium, time-frame (six weeks). The plan to be captured in a document of 2500 words composed in the wiki.
Six
Propose the project and receive feedback from the other team and from faculty. Proposal to take the form of an oral presentation of 25 minutes, backed by the on-line document.
Seven
Delegate research and writing. Assign specific tasks. Report these on the wiki in prepared "process" pages - wikis are ideal environments for monitoring the dynamic process of research and writing because they can easily contain integrated "to do lists" and "announcements" pages, and individual pages can display temporary comments about process, work to do, etc. Wikis also explicitly track and save all edits for review (logged according to user) - this makes the sharing of research and writing to be easily managed.
Eight
Implement and monitor the process of research and writing. This will involve:
Nine
The process of researching and writing the site report will be supported by presentation in lecture and class discussion of the rest of the "eight great archaeological sites". Regular reference will be made to the progress of research in the wiki.
Ten
Oral presentations of the site report in the week before exams. This to last 25 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of discussion and feedback.
Eleven
Presentation, at the end of exam week and after final revisions, of the final report of 25k words. The final presentation to include statements from class members recorded on their home pages about how they have found the experience of collaborative as opposed to individual writing experiences.
Twelve
Celebratory feedback in a follow up meeting the next quarter.
Assignment breakdown (per team)
The assignment focuses upon teamwork in an interdisciplinary milieu with the objective of presenting an engaging experience of a place. The use of a new media form such as a wiki makes explicit all the key issues of such a set of transferable skills:
Assignment - assessment criteria
An overall aim of the site report is a simple one – enrichment and enchantment. The two teams are encouraged to treat their sites as sites of the imagination – the medieval castle as much about notions of the gothic and romantic as a source of information about life in feudal England, a prehistoric monument as much a stimulus to reflect upon the nature of mysticism as a subject of contemporary archaeological fieldwork. A rationale for this approach is that archaeology is as much about relationships with the past as the past itself. This approach also opens up the assignments to experiment across the creative humanities and arts - opportunities for students to explore a wider range of research and authoring skills.
Other criteria used in assessment include - range of research, authority in manipulating information, sensitivity to criticism, intellectual coherence, writing style, fluency of oral presentations, synoptic efficiency of oral presentations, degree of skill of use of rhetorical techniques in oral presentations, effectiveness of audio-visual support (if appropriate) in presentations, effectiveness and coherence of structure of the final report.
Assignment - guidelines for collaborative research and authoring
Researching and writing collaboratively in an environment such as a wiki is not simply scaled-up individual research and writing.
Here are some guidelines for working in wikis that we have found useful in generating effective group research and reporting.
They are from Michael's own wiki(s) here - [link].
How to make collaborative authoring and research work -
Some tips on authoring collaborative hypertext -
These guidelines can be used as the basis for assessment of individual contributions to the collaborative assignment. Specifically this involves looking at how much time and effort individuals spend on
These can be quantitatively explored (if desired) in the wiki activity log.
The most accurate form of assessment of the success of a group effort would be to compare a collaborative project with the same undertaken by an individual. Instead this class will ask individual members to assess the success of the assignment according to the following questions:
These evaluations will be made on individual home pages. They will be taken into account in the final grading.
Here are some general books that cover some of the themes of the course. These are attractive, reasonably readable and authoritative. There is not much here of the latest thinking in Archaeology - Michael will introduce that through the course and as seems fit.
Try an atlas. The classic Past Worlds: Times Atlas of Archaeology is out of print, though there is a copy of this work and all the rest here in Michael's Lab - Metamedia - in Building 500.
Aston, M., and T. Taylor. 1998. Atlas of Archaeology. London: Dorling Kindersley.
On European prehistory try the following:
Cunliffe, B. Editor. 1994. The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darvill, T. 1987. Prehistoric Britain. London: Batsford.
Scarre, C. 1999. Exploring Prehistoric Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ‘top sites’ type approach.
Champion, T., C. Gamble, S. Shennan, and A. Whittle. 1984. Prehistoric Europe. London: Academic Press. A standard text book, somewhat dull, but an authority.
Whittle, A. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An attempt to be different in thinking and writing about early farmers.
For some attractive photography:
Daniel, G., and P. Bahn. 1987. Ancient Places: The Prehistoric and Celtic Sites of Britain. With Photographs by Anthony Gasgoigne. London: Constable.
Fowler, P., and M. Sharp. 1990. Images of Prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
On Knossos and the bronze age Aegean:
Preziosi, D., and L. Hitchcock. 2000. Aegean Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Excellent new approach, though it doesn’t really deliver the goods.
These next two are very readable as a background to the excavations at Olympia:
Stoneman, P. 1998. A Luminous Land: Artists Discover Greece. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. Superb paintings and illustrations particularly from the nineteenth century.
Stoneman, R. 1987. Land of Lost Gods: the Search for Classical Greece. London: Hutchinson. The story of our interest in ancient Greece.
There are lots of books on Egypt. Barry Kemp's Ancient Egypt (1989) does not have the best pictures, but it does get into the heart and soul of the culture.
Further resources
Much valuable material about these sites is available on line. The wiki will contain a section of links to such resources.
After two lectures about the history of archaeology and a sketch of European prehistory and ancient history, the course will run through the eight sites, with appropriate time given over to the management of the assignment.
Week 1
Introduction 1 – Archaeology in Europe - a short history
Introduction 2 - A short archaeology of Europe To set the scene with a basic framework of dates, periods, ideas etc.
Week 2
Stonehenge – stones in a prehistoric landscape.
Mystery, mysticism and an archaeological answer to the meaning of Stonehenge. Mother goddesses and druids. Romantic landscapes and a sense of the English countryside. An anthropological perspective on prehistoric architecture.
Chippindale, C. 1994. Stonehenge Complete, Second edition. London: Thames and Hudson.
Chippindale, C., P. Devereux, P. Fowler, R. Jones, and T. Sebastian. 1990. Who Own's Stonehenge? London: Batsford.
Bender, B. 1998. Stonehenge: Making Space. Oxford: Berg.
Week 3
Gavrinis – megaliths, dark rituals and ceremony in prehistoric Brittany
The megalithic phenomenon in northern and Atlantic Europe. Landscape sculpture among the first farmers of western Europe – sites of feasting and dark dealings with the bones of the dead.
Generally on megaliths:
Bradley, R. 1998. The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. London: Routledge.
El Amarna - city of heretical Pharaoh Akhnaten
OK so this is on the Nile in Egypt. But I couldn't resist bringing it into the course - I did some work on it last summer and the place just blew my mind!
Kemp, B. 1989. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a civilization. New York: Routledge. Barry Kemp is the latest to excavate the site.
Week 4
Assignment Phase One to Five
Week 5
Knossos – labyrinthine ‘palace’ of the Aegean bronze age
Sir Arthur Evans and his art deco vision of a lost civilization. The workings of his golden culture. A tour round the ‘palace’. New light on the enigmas of the Aegean bronze age.
MacGillivray, J. A. 2000. Minotaur: Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth. New York: Hill and Wang. A new biography.
Farnoux, A. 1996. Knossos. New York: Harry Abrams. A beautifully illustrated and short read.
Week 6
Housesteads Roman fort – bleak outpost on Hadrian’s Wall, at the northern margins of empire.
Spectacular traces of a monumental undertaking at the height of Roman power combined with archaeological insight into daily life in Roman Britain.
Week 7
Dunstanburgh Castle – feudal lords and the archaeology of medieval England.
Ruins in a picturesque landscape and the medieval castle in northern England revealed through modern excavation. The feudal lord and the life of the hunt.
Team feedback.
Week 8
Team feedback and discussion.
Week 9
Olympia – sanctuary of Zeus and wonder of the ancient world.
The remains of a monumental temple in an Arcadia dreamed by academics in a new German republic at the end of the nineteenth century.
Week 10
Final oral presentations of projects.
Week 11
Delivery of site report
Egypt in Microcosm.pdf