Overview
This course is an encounter with eight great archaeological sites in Europe. The web site will gather key resources about each, with plans, photographs, and selections from publications. It will be the basis for exploration of each site in turn through its excavation, its features and finds, the arguments over its interpretation, and its place in our understanding of the archaeological history of Europe.

Together these sites introduce the many dimensions of the latest of archaeological, and indeed anthropological thought. This is a primary aim - the course is a taster of archaeological research. The sites also raise some key questions about our understanding of ancient societies. And they were far stranger than we might imagine. The archaeological perspective foregrounds interdisciplinary study - geophysics articulated with art history, source criticism with analytic modeling, statistics with more open forms of interpretation.

Another overall aim is a simple one – enrichment and enchantment. I will be treating these as sites of the imagination – the medieval castle as much about notions of the gothic and romantic as a source of information about life in feudal England, a prehistoric monument as much a stimulus to reflect upon the nature of mysticism as a subject of contemporary archaeological fieldwork. A rationale for this approach is that I am particularly interested in our relationships with the past as well as the past itself. For me, this is what makes much archaeology so fascinating.

Course materials
This web site is the main resource for the course. Photocopied readings and supporting materials will also occasionally be made available – so you can build up a folder of materials.

Assignments and assessment
There is a choice. And the second choice will take you to the forefront of archaeological authoring!

First - you may create a site report of your own. Either of one of the course sites – adding to, annotating, commenting upon course materials. Or a report on a site of your own choice. The format is up to you – portfolio, essay, web site, whatever.

Or, and this is the one I would like you to consider carefully! To join with me in creating a site report using some new web-based software (called Traumwerk) that is designed to enable collaborative work. I will provide all necessary equipment and software.

>> go to Traumwerk

Or, to join with me in finishing a web-based site report on Knossos. Again all the equipment and software is available.

>> go to Knossos

The difference between three and five units is simply to size of the report or contribution to the website. Three units – 4500 words or equivalent. Five units – 7500 words or equivalent.

I will work with you over the quarter to make sure you manage your project well.

Contact and advice
Please feel free to e-mail, phone or write to me.

>> contact Michael

Bibliography – a start
Here are some general books that cover some of the themes of the course. I have chosen ones that are attractive, reasonably readable and authoritative. I have not included much latest thinking - I will introduce that through the course and as seems fit.

You might try an atlas. The classic Past Worlds: Times Atlas of Archaeology is out of print, though you might find a second hand copy.
This is new:
Aston, M., and T. Taylor. 1998. Atlas of Archaeology. London: Dorling Kindersley.

On European prehistory try the following:
Cunliffe, B. Editor. 1994. The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darvill, T. 1987. Prehistoric Britain. London: Batsford.
Scarre, C. 1999. Exploring Prehistoric Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ‘top sites’ type approach.
Champion, T., C. Gamble, S. Shennan, and A. Whittle. 1984. Prehistoric Europe. London: Academic Press. A standard text book, somewhat dull, but an authority.
Whittle, A. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An attempt to be different in thinking and writing about early farmers.

For some attractive photography:
Daniel, G., and P. Bahn. 1987. Ancient Places: The Prehistoric and Celtic Sites of Britain. With Photographs by Anthony Gasgoigne. London: Constable.
Fowler, P., and M. Sharp. 1990. Images of Prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

On Knossos and the bronze age Aegean:
Preziosi, D., and L. Hitchcock. 2000. Aegean Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Excellent new approach, though it doesn’t really deliver the goods.

These next two are very readable as a background to the excavations at Olympia:
Stoneman, P. 1998. A Luminous Land: Artisits Discover Greece. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. Superb paintings and illustrations particularly from the nineteenth century.
Stoneman, R. 1987. Land of Lost Gods: the Search for Classical Greece. London: Hutchinson. The story of our interest in ancient Greece.

There are lots of books on Egypt. Barry Kemp's Ancient Egypt (1989) does not have the best pictures, but it does get into the heart and soul of the culture.