ANT 386 Archaeology of Colonialism
The imposition of European colonialism in the New World during the 15th to 19th centuries profoundly altered cultural lifeways of all groups involved. This course takes a multidisciplinary approach to colonial encounters to reassess the past through the lens of postcolonial theory and the interpretation of material culture. The class will focus on processes of ethnogenesis, culture contacts, and resistance to colonial domination using archaeological and bioarchaeological data from North America, Mesoamerica, and South America. A major portion of the course will involve a field visit to prehistoric and Colonial-era archaeological sites in Spanish La Florida to understand shifting economies and the emergence of new political organizations.