To veiw the scheduled courses click on the desired semester link below.
Note: student link has the most updated information.

● Courses for Fall 08 ● Courses for Spring 09

500 ● 600 ● 700 ● 800 ● 900

AR501 Graphics and Surveying for Archaeology
Lecture and laboratory course on surveying, drafting, and more advanced graphics techniques. The student will be instructed in the use of these techniques as basic tools for archaeology. (Course fulfills department technical requirement.) (4.0/Lec-Lab)

AR503 Archaeological Field Methods: Survey and Excavation
Prereq: CAS AR 101 or consent of instructor.
Archaeological field school with intensive study of archaeological techniques and procedures. Direct involvement in field excavation, assisting in data recording, and in the description and inventory of artifacts and specimens. Field, lab and/or lecture involvement; requires six to seven hours a day, five days a week. Various locations around the world. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (VAR)

AR506 Regional Archaeology and Geographical Information Systems
Prereq: Two archaeology courses or consent of instructor.
Advanced computer (GIS) techniques are used to address regional archaeological problems. This applied course examines digital encoding and manipulation of archaeological and environmental data, and methods for testing hypotheses, analyzing, and modeling the archaeological record. (Course fulfills department technical requirement.)(4.0/Lecture)

AR507 Maritime Archaeology and Technology
Prereq: CAS AR 101 or consent of instructor.
Survey of the history of maritime archaeology and technology. Ships, harbors, trade routes of Greek, Etruscan and Roman empires. Bronze finds from the sea. Recent deep sea discoveries. Latest innovations in shallow and deep water technologies. Conservation, maritime law. Field Trips. (Course fulfills department topical requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR508 Post-Classical Maritime Archaeology and Technology
Prereq: CAS AR 101 or one other AR course, or consent of instructor.
The evolution of maritime transport and commerce from the Byzantine Empire to modern times, including shipbuilding technologies, navigation, ports and routes, trade incentives and naval engagements, contemporary research methodologies and legislation concerns in the Mediterranean, the Americas and the Far East. (Course fulfills department topical requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR509 Geoarchaeology
Prereq: CAS AR 101 or consent of instructor.
Lecture/laboratory course illustrating the use of geological concepts and methods in the study of archaeological problems. Topics include: stratigraphy and stratigraphic principles, geological environments and earth-surface processes, anthropogenic sediments, archaeological materials and their analysis; the formation of archaeological sites. Field trips in the Boston area. (Course fulfills department technical requirement.) AR512 is the lab component to this course. (4.0/Lecture)

AR510 Studies in Prehistoric Aegean Archaeology
Topics vary. Intensive coverage of particular prehistoric periods or sub-areas in the Aegean region (Paleolithic, Neolithic, Crete, Greece, etc.) as selected by the instructor. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR511 Studies in European Archaeology
Topics vary. Intensive coverage of particular periods, sub-areas, or events in European prehistory (Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, Western Europe or Eastern Europe, population migrations, etc.) as selected by instructor. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR512 Laboratory and Field Methods in Geoarchaeology
Prereq: CAS AR509 or consent of instructor. Introduction to laboratory and field methods used in Geoarchaeology, including description of field profiles and settings; map (topographic, geological, soil survey) and aerial photo interpretation; laboratory analytical techniques, such as soil micromorphology, x-ray diffraction, and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR). This course is the lab component to AR509.

AR513 Studies in African Archaeology
Topics vary. Intensive coverage of particular periods or sub-areas in Africa as selected by the instructor. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR515 Micromorphology of Terrestrial Sediments
Prereq: (CASAR102 & CASAR509) OR (CASES202 OR CASES220 OR CASES222) & (CASES101 OR CASES105) two semesters of geology, or consent of instructor. The micromorphological examination and interpretation of soils, sediments, and archaeological and anthropogenic materials features (e.g., ceramics, bricks, hearths), with focus on the processes of landscape evolution and the mechanisms of archaeological site formation. (Course fulfills department technical requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR528 Studies in Mesoamerican Art and Architecture
Topics vary. Studies of ancient Mesoamerican cultures as known from their archaeological sites and reconstructed history as known from their changing plans, architecture, art and iconography. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture). (Cross listed with AH)

AR530 Studies in Greek Archaeology
Topics vary. Intensive coverage of particular periods, sub-areas, or topics in Greek archaeology (monuments and topography, cities and sanctuaries, Iron Age Greece, archaeology of Roman Greece, etc) as selected by instructor.(Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR531 Studies in Etruscan and Roman Archaeology
Topics Vary. Intensive coverage of particular periods or sub-areas in Etruscan and Roman archaeology (Etruscan settlements and Roman towns, archaeology of the Roman Republic, Archaeology of the Roman provinces, etc.) as selected by instructor. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR532 Studies in Near and Middle Eastern Archaeology
Topics Vary. Recent offerings have included: Trade in the Near East, Near Eastern Cities of the Bronze and Iron Ages, and Near East Prehistory-Palaeolithic through Neolithic. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR535 Europe and the Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity
Interdisciplinary overview of Europe and Mediterranean World in the 3rd-6th centeuries A.D., based on the archaeological record and material culture (including art), and drawing on history and literature. Topics include: rise of Christianity; town and country; public and private life. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR543 Introduction to Akkadian Cuneiform I
An introduction to the Semitic language that served as the lingua franca in the Near East from ca. 2500-500 BC, with emphasis on reading texts in cuneiform script. (Course fulfills department topical requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR544 Introduction to Akkadian Cuneiform II
Completes coverage of the essentials of Akkadian grammar and highlights differences between Assyrian and Babylonian dialects. Readings in cuneiform include sections of the Code of Hammurabi and the Epic of Gilgamesh. (Course fulfills department topical requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR550 Studies in Prehistoric North America
Topics vary. Intensive coverage of particular periods in North American prehistory (Southwest, Eastern U.S., early peoples, agricultural origins, etc.) as selected by instructor. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR551 Studies in Mesoamerican Archaeology
Topics vary. Analysis of major events and processes of the Mesoamerican area. Topics include the arrival of man; development of regional patterns; origin of food production; rise of towns, temples, and urbanism; the origin of state; and the development of empires. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR552 Studies in South American Archaeology
Topics vary. Intensive coverage of particular periods or sub-areas in South American archaeology (Inca Empire, Formative period of civilization, archaeology of the tropical lowlands, etc.) as selected by instructor. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR555 Ancient American Writing Systems
Study of the various writing systems and interdependent Mesoamerican calendar, as found in many media among the pre-Columbian Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Mixtec, Aztec, and Maya cultures, from the last centuries BC to the sixteenth century. (Course fulfills department topical requirement.) (Cross listed with AH)

AR556 Archaeological Field Research Experience
Supervised original research in excavation, survey, or field laboratory situation, as art of field study program. (Course fulfills department technical requirement)

AR560 Civilizations of Central and South Asia
Prereq: Any AR or AN 100, 200, or 300 level course. Emergence, development, and decline of two Bronze Age Civilizations called “Oasis” in Central Asia and Indus/Harappan in South Asia. Focus on comparative study of cultural processes of urbanization, complex social, economic and religious institutions, specialized crafts, and long distance trade. (Course fulfills department area requirement.) (4.0/Lecture)

AR570 Studies in Historical Archaeology
Topics Vary. Intensive coverage of particular aspects of historical archaeology as selected by instructor. (Course fulfills department area or technical requirement.)

AR572 Studies in Industrial Archaeology
Topics vary. The study of the remains of our industrial heritage including above-ground excavations. Topics include mills, dams, canals, bridges, and all other material remains of America's industrial development. Field trips to New England industrial sites. (Course fulfills department area or topical requirement.)

AR576 Collections: Ancient and Historical in Modern Context
Considers ancient and historical objects in collections from historical, functional, material, aesthetic perspectives to understand original cultural context. Case studies demonstrate the changing theory, practice, legal and ethical implications of museum acquisition and display. (Course fulfills department topical requirement.)

AR580 Studies in Archaeological Heritage Management Archaeological Collections Management:
Curation and Public Interpretation
Examination of public uses of archaeological collections and technical issues of archaeological curation. Understanding elements of a collection, environmental and other threats to long-term stability. Involves hands-on collections labs and exercises in peer review, evaluation, and revision of public products. (Course fulfills department topical requirements.)

AR585 Archaeological Spatial Analysis
Examines human activity at the landscape, settlement, and locus levels, with implications for human-environmental relationship and urban genesis. Included are material and spatial consequences of human behavior; processes preserving and modifying spatial patterns; quantitative and qualitative spatial techniques using archaeological data. (Course fulfills deparment technical or technical requirement.)

GRS AR699 Teaching College for teaching assistants.
B1 Beaudry, B2 Bard, B3 Borojevic, E1 Elia, G1 Goldberg, H1 Hammond, M1 McAnany, M2 Murowchick, M5 Mughal, R1 Runnels, R2 Roosevelt, W1 Wiseman (2.0/IND)

500 ● 600 ● 700 ● 800 ● 900

GRS AR701 Intellectual History of Archaeology
Prereq: graduate standing and at least two prior courses in sociocultural anthropology. The historical development of archaeological methods and theory from the Renaissance to the present day, including consideration of major developments in Western Europe and the Americas, with comparative developments in other regions. Basic concepts in archaeological record and society.

GRS AR702 Contemporary Theory in Archaeology
Prereq: GRS AR701. Explore aspects of contemporary theory in archaeology, including post-modern critiques of contemporary practice, new approaches to archaeology of ritual, personhood, identity, and the body; indigenous and public archaeology; politics and archaeology.

GRS AR703 Materials in Ancient Society
Seminar. Topic to be announced. Offered through the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology. (VAR/Lecture)

GRS AR704 Materials in Ancient Society
Seminar. Topic to be announced. Offered through the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology. (VAR/Lecture)

GRS AR705 Pre-Urban Development
Cultural development from the origins of humankind through the establishment of food production, with emphasis on models for reconstructing successive changes in adaptation among early populations. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR706 Archaeology of Complex Societies
Core concepts of archaeological research on the formation, cultural development, and decay of complex societies as well as their introduction into other cultures. Coverage emphasizes research design rather than simply survey. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR707 Natural Sciences in Archaeology
Introduces some of the pressing issues archaeology recognizes and deals with as an anthropological science. Stresses the natural science and engineering methods archaeologists use in tackling such problems and how those methods have become part of the archaeological tool kit. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR708 Processes in the Formation of Archaeological Sites
Considers in detail geological, biological and anthropogenic depositional and post-depositional processes that result in formation of archaeological sites. Initial focus on basic principles/processes, then their application to site-evaluation in New and Old World. Field trips in area. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR709 Research Methods in Geoarchaeology
This seminar deals with a variety of topics concerned with the earth and archaeological sciences. Such themes are related to quaternary environments; methods of studying archaeological sediments and materials; scientific methods in the study of archaeological sites. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR712 Seminar in Old World Prehistory
Selected problems or topics in prehistoric archaeology of the Old World. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR720 Seminar: Maritime Archaeology
Course topics will include: ancient ship and harbor design and construction, navigation techniques, personnel, maritime trade and routes. Shallow and Deep Water excavations will be studied along with other archaeological, historical, and pictorial evidence, and modern ethnographic parallels.

GRS AR727 Archaeology and Colonialism
Theoretical and methodological approaches to the comparative archaeology of colonialism in ancient and early modern worlds; considers case studies from ancient Greece, Roman Empire, & European colonial projects in South Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

GRS AR730 Seminar: Old World Historical Archaeology
Selected problems or topics in historical archaeology of the Old World. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR731 Seminar: Greek Archaeology
Topics vary. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR734 Seminar: Archaeology of the Roman Provinces
Topics vary. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR741 Archaeology of Mesopotamia
Seminar. Studies this core area of the ancient Near East, from the introduction of agriculture to the Hellenistic era. Examines the genesis of the first urban society and its transformation under the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR742 Syro-Palestinian Archaeology
A survey of the archaeology of ancient Israel, Lebanon, and Syria from the Stone Age to the late Roman Empire, with emphasis on the material remains of the second and first millennia BC. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR743 Anatolian Archaeology
A historically oriented survey of the material remains of the ancient cultures of Turkey and northwest Iran from the Neolithic to the Hellenistic period. Emphasis is on the Hittite Empire and civilizations that succeeded it in the first millennium. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR746 Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
Seminar. Survey and analysis of sites from Egypt's prehistory and the major periods of Pharaonic civilizations. Problems such as changing social and political organization, demography, and the economic system will be studied, as interpreted from the archaeological evidence. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR750 Archaeology of Prehistoric North America
Major events and processes in the prehistoric cultural development in North America. Post-Pleistocene big-game hunting; emergence of regional patterns in hunting and gathering. Role of food production and trade development of protostates in the Mississippi River Valley, the Gulf Coastal Plain, and the Desert Mountain Southwest, and developments on the East Coast. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR751 New World Prehistoric Archaeology
Selected problems or topics in the prehistoric archaeology of the New World. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR770 New World Historical Archaeology: Colonial America
Seminar. Material culture of the people who colonized North America. Architecture, artifacts, and a variety of sites - domestic, military, commercial, sepulchral - are studied. Uses of archival evidence as factual and ethnographic documentation for archaeological interpretation are discussed. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR771 New World Historical Archaeology: Post-Colonial America
Seminar. The archaeological study of America since the Revolution. Focus is on the archaeological and artifactual evidence for the development of plantation systems and slavery, industrial and urban centers, ethnicity, and modern popular culture. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR772 Archaeology of Boston
Boston's buried history revealed through excavated artifacts and features. Tours of archaeological laboratories, Boston's neighborhoods, burying grounds, waterfront, and Harbor Islands. "Big Dig" finds in Charlestown, Mill Pond, North End; Fanueil Hall, Blackstone Block, Boston Common, and Paul Revere House.

GRS AR775 Oral History and Written Records in Archaeology
Comprehensive survey of use of oral and written documentary history by archaeologists. Specific topics, sources, techniques of recording and analysis. Special attention to archaeological applications of African and American oral history projects; case studies involving documentation in New World historical archaeology. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR780 Archaeological Ethics and the Law
In this course students examine archaeology and professional ethics; archaeology as a public interest; legal organization of archaeology; international approaches to heritage management; looting, collecting, and the antiquities market; maritime law and underwater archaeology; cultural resource management in the United States. (4.0/Lecture)

500 ● 600 ● 700 ● 800 ● 900

GRS AR800 Food-Gathering Societies
Seminar on prehistoric hunting-and-gathering societies from the Lower Paleolithic through the Mesolithic. Technology, subsistence patterns, demography, and human organization. Use of ethnographic analogy and environmental studies. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR802 Paleoethnobotany
Seminar. Introduces the method and theory of study of the uses of plants by humans derived from evidence present in the archaeological record, the relationship between humans and their environment, and the relationship between the environment and the archaeological record. Laboratory sessions concentrate on identification methods and project on archaeological material. (4.0/Lec-Lab)

GRS AR803 Quantitative Studies
Seminar. Prereq: CAS AR400 or consent of instructor. The application of quantitative methods to archaeological data covering techniques of exploratory data analysis, probability sampling, and techniques of spatial analysis with lectures on statistical methods. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR804 Archaeological Study of Symbolic Systems
Examination of assumptions necessary to study symbolic content in material objects; detailed examination of specific cases drawn for example from Paleolithic and African rock art, Great Zimbabwe and its extensions, Mesoamerica, Eastern Mediterranean. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR805 Archaeological Heritage Management
Introduction to the practice of public archaeology in the U.S. Historical and legal background; state and federal programs; conducting archaeological investigations; archaeology as a business; the public interest; controversies, problems, and prospects in archaeological heritage management. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR810 International Heritage Management
Investigations of issues in archaeological heritage management at the international level. Approaches, challenges, and solutions to problems in the identification, evaluation, conservation, management, and interpretation of archaeological resources. Focus on specific topics (e.g. legislation) and/or geographical regions. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR815 Plunder and Preservation: Cultural Heritage in Wartime
Topics include safeguarding of cultural sites, monuments, and objects during armed conflict; history of cultural seizures as spoils of war; destruction of cultural heritage in war; development of legal protections; contemporary approaches to preservation of heritage at risk from war.

GRS AR850 Problems in Comparative Archaeology
A comparative analysis of cultural developments and systems of organization through archaeological data from more than one geographical area. A specific topic, which varies annually, is explored in depth under two professors with differing but compatible research interests. (4.0/Lecture)

GRS AR882 Methods and Theory of Archaeological Reconnaissance and Excavation
Methods and procedures of an archaeological excavation. Practical experience in observation, excavation, recording, and description. (VAR)

GRS AR883 Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials: Analysis and Preservation
Primary field recovery techniques, laboratory analysis, and laboratory experience in conservation methods for archaeological materials including pottery, wood, bone, metals, stone, leather, fabrics, basketry, paper, and floral remains. (4.0/Lec-Lab)

500 ● 600 ● 700 ● 800 ● 900

GRS AR901/902 Directed Research in Classical Archaeology

GRS AR903/904 Directed Research in New World Historical Archaeology

GRS AR905/906 Directed Research in Old World Prehistoric Archaeology

GRS AR907/908 Directed Research in New World Prehistoric Archaeology

GRS AR910/911 Practicum in Archaeological Heritage Management
A full-time internship in an appropriate public or private firm, agency, or other organization involved in the practice of public archaeology.

GRS AR912 Dissertation Research in Archaeology

GRS AR913/914 Directed Research in Archaeological Heritage Management

GRS AR918/919 Directed Research in Geoarchaeology

GRS AR981/982 Certified Full Time Study

GRS AR983/984 Cont Study Part Time

GRS AR985 Cont Study Certified Full Time

GRS AR986/7 Cont Study Full Time