| This course is designed to guide students’ exploration of archaeology as the scientific study of ancient human cultures. How and why is scientific archaeology different from history and social sciences? How can scientific approaches solve problems such as where to find sites, how to determine their age, how stone tools were made, what rat bones can tell us about ice age environments? | 
 
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Labs give students the opportunity to observe and analyze artifacts, bones, and dirt (sediments) from sites as they answer some of these questions for themselves. Lectures provide examples of archaeology being applied to cases ranging from the first tool makers in Africa to Paleolithic cave painters in France to the First Americans. |