Weekly Schedule

CLASS SESSIONS – Topics, Readings and Assignments:

Week 1 September 7 Shades of Religion in Archaeology: The sacred in the social world

Readings: Layard, A. H. (1852). Nineveh and its Remains. New York, Putnam. (Read Part II Ch. 7 “Religion of the Assyrians” 333-364)

Binford, L. (1962). "Archaeology as Anthropology." American Antiquity 28: 217-225. Addison-Wesley.

Whitehouse, R. (1996). Ritual Objects: Archaeological Joke or Neglected Evidence? Approaches to the study of ritual : Italy and the ancient Mediterranean. J. Wilkins. London, Accordia Research Centre: 9-30.

Van Dyke, R. (2003). Memory and the Construction of Chacoan Society. Archaeologies of Memory. R. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 180-200.

Kolb, M. J. (1994). "Monumentality and the Rise of Religious Authority in Precontact Hawai'i." Current Anthropology 32(5): 521-47.

Week 2 September 14 Can Archaeologists Study Religion? – Belief, Ritual and the Ancient Mind

Readings: Binford, L. (1967). "Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking: the use of Analogy in Archaeological Reasoning." American Antiquity 32: 1-12.

Demarest, A. (1987). Archaeology and Religion. The Encyclopedia of Religion. M. Eliade. London, Macmillan: 372-8.

Insoll, T. (2004). Archaeology, ritual, religion. London ; New York, Routledge. (Chapters 1-3)

Renfrew, C. (1994). The Archaeology of Religion. The Ancient mind: elements of cognitive archaeology. C. Renfrew and E. B. W. Zubrow. New York, Cambridge University Press: 47-54.

Oates, J. (1978). "Religion and Ritual in Sixth-Millennium BC Mesopotamia." World Archaeology 10(2): 117-124.

Bertemes, F. and P. F. Biehl (2001). The archaeology of cult and religion: An Introduction. The archaeology of cult and religion. P. F. Biehl, F. Bertemes and H. Meller. Budapest, Archaeolingua: 11-24.

Week 3 September 21 Conceptualizing Religion as an Object of Study

Readings: Asad, T. (1993). Genealogies of religion : discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press. (Read Ch. 1 “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category,” pp. 27-54)

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures : selected essays. New York, Basic Books. (Read “Religion as a Cultural System,” 87-125)

Smith, J. Z. (1998). Religion, Religions, Religious. Critical Terms for Religious Studies. M. Taylor. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press: 269-84.

Kelley, J. and M. Kaplan (1990). "History, Structure and Ritual." Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 119-150.

Week 4 September 28 Ritual without the Sacred? – Social Practice, Power and Politics

Readings: Rappaport, R. (1971). "Ritual, Sanctity and Cybernetics." American Anthropologist 73: 59-71.

Kertzer, D. (1988). Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven, Yale University Press. (Chapters 1,3, 6 and 8)

Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford, Oxford University Press. (Read Part I pp. 1-89)

Prent, M. (2003). Glories of the past in the Past: Ritual activities at palatial ruins in early Iron Age Crete. Archaeologies of memory. R. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 81-103.

Bradley, R. (1991). "Ritual, Time and History." World Archaeology 23(2): 209-19.

Swenson, E. (2003). "Cities of Violence: Sacrifice, Power and Urbanization in the Andes." Journal of Social Archaeology 3(2): 256-96.

Schachner, G. (2001). "Ritual Control and Transformation in Middle Range Society: An Example from the American Southwest." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20: 168-194.

Week 5 October 5 Ideology and Social Change: Religion and State Formation in Archaeological Interpretation

Readings: Brumfiel, E. (2001). Aztec Hearts and Minds: Religion and the State in the Aztec Empire. Empires : perspectives from archaeology and history. S. E. Alcock, T. D'Altroy, K. Morrison and C. Sinopoloi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 283-310

Ashmore, W. (1989). Construction and Cosmology: Politics and Ideology in Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns. Word and image in Maya culture : explorations in language, writing, and representation. W. F. Hanks and D. S. Rice. Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press: 272-86.

Bard, K. A. (1992). "Toward an Interpretation of the Role of Ideology in the Evolution of Complex Society in Egypt." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 11(1): 1-24.

Miller, D. and C. Y. Tilley (1984). Ideology, Power and Prehistory: An Introduction. Ideology Power and Prehistory. D. Miller and C. Y. Tilley. Cambridge, University of Cambridge: 1-15.

Dietler, M. (1995). Early 'Celtic" Sociopolitical Relations: Ideological representations and Social Complexity in Dynamic Comparative Perspective. Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State: The evolution of Complex Social Systems in Prehistoric Europe. B. Arnold and D. B. Gibson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 64-71.

Morrison, K. and M. Lycett (1994). "Centralized Power, Centralized Authority? Ideological Claims and Archaeological Patterns." Asian Perspectives 33(2): 327-350.

Isbell, W. and A. Cook (1987). "Ideological Origins of an Andean Conquest State." Archaeology 40(4): 27-33.

Research Paper proposal due in class.

Week 6 October 12 Understanding the Sacred in the Landscape

Readings: (these are provisional readings – to be determined given class interests)

Tilley, C. Y. and W. Bennett (2004). The materiality of stone : explorations in landscape phenomenology. Oxford ; New York, Berg. Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion. New York, Harcourt Brace.

Smith, J. Z. (1987). To take place: toward theory in ritual. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Bradley, R. (2000). An archaeology of natural places. London ; New York, Routledge.

Barret, J. C. (1994). Fragments from Antiquity: An archaeology of social life in Britain, 2900-1200 B.C. Oxford, Blackwell.

Antonaccio, C. (1994). Placing the Past: the Bronze Age in the Cultic Topography of Early Greece. Placing the gods : sanctuaries and sacred space in ancient Greece. S. E. Alcock and R. Osborne. New York, Clarendon Press: 79-104.

Mid-term essay topic posted on the course web page on the Tuesday before class. Please look it over and bring any questions to class.

Week 7 October 19 Mind and Belief into Art - Cave Paintings and Cognative Archaeology

Readings: Dickson, D. B. (1990). The Dawn of Belief: Religion in the Upper Paleolithic of Southwest Europe. Tucson, University of Arizona Press.

Renfrew, C. (1994). Towards a cognitive archaeology. The Ancient mind : elements of cognitive archaeology. C. Renfrew and E. B. W. Zubrow. New York, Cambridge University Press: 3-12.

Flannery, K. and J. Marcus (1993). "Cognitive Archaeology." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3(2): 260-267.

Layton, R. H. (2001). Intersubjectivity and Understanding Rock Art. The archaeology of cult and religion. P. F. Biehl, F. Bertemes and H. Meller. Budapest, Archaeolingua: 27-36.

Lewis-Williams, J. D. (2002). A cosmos in stone : interpreting religion and society through rock art. Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press. (Read Chapter 11 “The social production and consumption of rock art”)

Mid-term essay due in class.

Week 8 October 26 Sacred Iconography: Leaving it open to Interpretation

Readings: Gimbutas, M. (1982). The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. London, Thames and Hudson.

Balter, M. (2005). The goddess and the bull. New York, Free Press. (Select chapters)

Meskell, L. (1995). "Goddesses, Gimbutas and "New Age" Archaeology." Antiquity 69: 74-86.

Hodder, I. (1999). The Archaeological Process: An Introduction. Oxford, Blackwell. (Read Chapter 1)

Preliminary annotated bibliography due in class

Week 9 November 3 What to do with Scripture?

Readings:

Dever, W. G. (2002). What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids, Mich., W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

Lewis, T. (2002). How far can texts take us? Evaluating textual sources for reconstructing ancient Israelite beliefs about the dead. Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the religion of Israel. B. M. Gittlen. Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns: 169-217.

Merling, D. (2004). The Relationship between Archaeology and the Bible: Expectations and Reality. The future of biblical archaeology : reassessing methodologies and assumptions : the proceedings of a symposium, August 12-14, 2001 at Trinity International University. J. K. Hoffmeier and A. R. Millard. Grand Rapids, Mich., W.B. Eerdmans Pub.: 29-42.

Week 10 November 10 Religion, Identity and Resistance

Readings: Derks, T. (1998). Gods, temples, and ritual practices : the transformation of religious ideas and values in Roman Gaul. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press. (sections)

Whitehouse, R. (1992). Underground Religion: Cult and Culture in Prehistoric Italy. London, Accordia Research Centre, University of London. (sections)

Herring, E. (1996). Using your Religion: Native ritual and belief in South Italy in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Approaches to the study of ritual : Italy and the ancient Mediterranean. J. Wilkins. London, Accordia Research Centre: 143-82.

Week 11 November 17 Religion, Society and Burial Practice

CLASS TO BE RESCHUDULED (I will be out of town at a conference)

Note: Please make sure to attend the panels of the Jerusalem conference. during from November 12-14.

Readings: Morris, I. (1992). Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. (selected chapters)

Cohen, Andrew. (2005). Death Rituals, Ideology and the development of Early Mesopotamian Kingship: Toward a New understanding of Iraq’s Royal Cemetery of Ur. Leiden: Brill

(Depending on class interest we may include some work on Egyptology here)

Week 12 November 24 Ritual Bird Sacrifice – Happy Thanksgiving (no class)

Optional rough draft due on Tuesday before the break

Week 13 December 1 The Archaeology of World Religions (Islam)

Readings:

Insoll, T. (2001). Archaeology and world religion. London ; New York, Routledge. (Chapters 1 and 5)

Silberman, N. A. (1989). Egypt: An Uneasy Inheritance (Ch 9). Between past and present: archaeology, ideology, and nationalism in the modern Middle East. New York, H. Holt: 153-168.

Schick, R. (1995). The Christian communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic rule: an historical and archaeological study. Princeton, N.J., Darwin Press.

Week 14 December 8

Open week for presentation of student research projects. We may also use this class to pursue additional topics of interest to the class.

Week 15 December 15

No class Final Papers Due Thursday in my office by 5pm