The Archaeology of North America

1. Introduction: The Main Controversies in North American Archaeological Studies, the Regional Groups, History of Scholarship and Approaches to Research.

2. The Asiatic Origins of the Native Americans: An Overview of the Research from Siberia.

3. The 'Pre-Clovis' Controversy: Sites in the Americas from Before 12,500 BP.

4. The Colonisation of North America: The Traditional 'Clovis' Model.

5. Paleo-Indian Adaptations.

6. The Archaic.

7. Diffusion of Agricultural Northward.

8. The Woodland, Hopewell and Mississippian.

9. Emergence of Chiefdoms.

10. The Native Americans at the First Encounters with the Europeans.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Describe the main phases of North American prehistoric occupation;

• Identify the principal artefacts, sites and theoretical issues pertaining to the different periods in which North American archaeological heritage is arranged;

• Understand the climatic changes occurring across different regions in the main prehistoric episodes;

• Explain the regional and temporal diversity in the archaeological record.

Essential:

• Dillehay, Tom D. 2008. The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. New York: Basic Books.

• Fagan, Brian M. 1995. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. London: Thames and Hudson.

• Meltzer, David. 2011. First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Recommended:

• Kehoe, Alice Beck. 1998. The Land of Prehistory: Critical History of American Archaeology. London: Routledge.

• Mann, Charles C. 2005. Ancient Americans: Rewriting the History of the New World. London: Granata Books.

• Pauketat, Timothy R. & Diana DiPaolo Loren. 2004. North American Archaeology. (Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology). London: Blackwell-Wiley.

• Thomas, David H. & Julie Hathorn. 2001. Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity. New York: Basic Books.