ANTHRO 1190: American Invasions: Archaeological Tales of Encounter, Exploration, and Colonization, 1492-1830

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2022

Professor, Matt Liebmann

Monday, Wednesday 3:00-4:15pm

Course Site

In 1492 Native Americans discovered Europeans, changing the world forever.  The European invasion of the Americas triggered demographic, economic, and ecological changes on an unprecedented scale.  The subsequent movement of people, plants, animals, and goods prompted global shifts in population, exploitation of resources, and the transformation of environments on both sides of the Atlantic.  What can anthropology and archaeology tell us about early encounters between Native Americans and Europeans?  Why did the European conquest of the Americas play out as it did?  This course investigates these questions through the sites where first contacts occurred, the objects exchanged by Indigenous peoples and settler-colonists, and the scars that remain in the ground. Through investigations of first contacts, politics, epidemics, Indigenous resistance, and ecological changes, Anthropology 1190 presents a sweeping continent-wide treatment of the historical archaeology of Native America between 1492-1800.