Olivia DrakeThe Middletown Materials: Archaeological Analysis class (ANTH 227) presented their final projects May 5-7 in the new Cross Street Archaeology Lab. The class was taught by Sarah Croucher, assistant professor of anthropology, assistant professor of archaeology, assistant professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies. "The class has been doing fantastic work on beginning to reexamine archaeological contexts explored in the late 1970s by Professor Stephen Dyson and students," she says. "They’ve had a tough job as the first class to begin working with this material, but have been making great progress with the artifacts and with working on associated archival…
As an archaeologist investigating 19th century sites in Zanzibar and Tanzania, it was impossible for Sarah Croucher to ignore the thousands of shreds of locally-produced and imported ceramics unearthed every day of excavations. For archaeologists, these materials are vital to interpreting the social history of 19th century Islamic colonialism in East Africa. "Many key questions remain uninvestigated, particularly in regard to how newly shared Zanzibar identities emerged during the 19th Century, which intersected with gender, religion, class and sexuality," Croucher explains. Croucher, assistant professor of anthropology, assistant professor of archaeology, assistant professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, has been…
(more…)
In Introduction to Archaeology, all students were trash-talking their first assignment. Titled "Understanding Garbage - Research and Analysis," the laboratory project helped students understand ways archeologists collect and analyze data by rummaging through rubbish and taking note of their findings. (more…)