ARCH 2410
ARCHAEOLOGIES OF PLACE
Graduate Seminar
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Brown University ~ Spring 2009
Syllabus
Meets Mondays 3:00-5:20 pm at the Joukowsky Institute Seminar Room (70 Waterman
Street, Room 203)
Instructor: Ömür Harmansah, Assistant Professor of Archaeology and Egyptology and Ancient
Western Asian Studies
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1-3 pm at the Institute and Wednesdays 11-12 am at Blue State Café
Office: Joukowsky Institute (70 Waterman St.) Room 202
E-mail: Omur_Harmansah@brown.edu Tel: 401-863-6411
Wiki: http://proteus.brown.edu/archaeologiesofplace/Home
Course Description
Can we write a place-oriented history of our past? Our lives, the way we define ourselves, our
memories and experiences are tightly intertwoven with the nature of places we live in, the
history of towns and countrysides that we belong to, and the landscapes in which we grow up.
The concept of place, as a site of human practice in and with the material world, has recently
become a prevailing concept in the humanities and social sciences, a hot topic. In this course
we will explore how archaeology and ethnographic research addresses material complexities
and cultural meanings of places in the broader context of landscapes. We will investigate
critical theories of place, space and landscape, while working with case studies from the
ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean as well as the contemporary world. We will
seek the question, how through particular fieldwork practices of archaeologists,
anthropologists, contemporary artists, geographers and mapmakers, one can access and
document the rich meanings, stories, and memories of places, their layered material corpus.
Particular attention will be given to Anatolian landscapes through its long-term history with a
special focus on springs, caves, sinkholes, river valleys and river sources distributed in the
landscape, and various ways such geological features and "natural" places are inscribed with
human practices. Using a multi-sited approach to archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork,
we will investigate in detail various practices of place-making. We will also be concerned about
cultural biographies of sites, diachronic change in the landscapes and explore how they were
used and re-inscribed by various societies in a long-term perspective.
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Book available at Brown Bookstore
You are not required to buy any of these books. We will read portions of most of them, and all
are recommended readings. A copy of each of these books is placed on Reserve at the Rock.
Auge, Marc; 1995. Non-places : introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London,
New York: Verso.
Tuan, Yi-Fu, 1977. Space and place : the perspective of experience. Minneapolis : University
of Minnesota Press.
Bradley, Richard; 2000. An archaeology of natural places. London, New York: Routledge.
Massey, Doreen; 2005. For space. London: Sage.
Forbes, Hamish Alexander ; 2007. Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An
Archaeological Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Casey, Edward S.; 1993. Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the
Place-World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Course Requirements
A wiki is created for the course to be used for discussions, posting of readings,
announcements, assignments, and the like. Every student will have access to editing the wiki.
Please familiarize yourself with the wiki, and make sure to check the site regularly, at least
before each class meeting. You will be asked to post some of your written work on the wiki.
All are expected to do weekly readings regularly and comprehensively, and contribute to
seminar discussions. Participation, active involvement in the discussions, developing good
note-taking habits as well as the contribution to the wiki are the most vital aspects of this
course.
Everyone will be occasionally asked to volunteer for short presentations in class on selected
case studies of place, to be referred here as "place reports"- this may involve presenting to
class specific articles, topics or a specific body of archaeological/textual material. In the first
half of the semester, the written tasks will involve a series of brief commentaries and
discussion pieces in relation to our theoretical discussions during the seminars. In the second
half, students will focus on their research project. There will be no exams.
Place reports: are designed as exercises on the variety of ways we go about understanding
and deciphering everyday spatial practices. How does one go about documenting and
representing what a place is all about? These documentary and representational tools may
range from archaeological methods of cutting, ethnographic interviews, Geographical
Informations Systsems (the infamous GIS- always with capital letters to respect the dignity of
"scientific" methods), mapping, sketching, photographing, sound-recording but perhaps most
importantly verbalizing, describing, visualizing. It will also allow us to think through theoretical
problems with real places in mind.
Grading: Class participation (30%), Commentaries and short assignments (20%) "Place
reports" (20%), Final research project (30%).
Research project: Every student will choose a place-related research topic in collaboration
with Ömür and turn it into a final project. Collaborations with others in the seminar are always
encouraged. The project should involve the theoretical concepts/issues relating to place,
space, landscape and its application to an archaeological or ethnographic case study, relevant
to our seminar discussions. The research project’s presentations will include a 15-20 min class
presentation of the project, a 8-10 page draft (to be submitted on the day of the presentation)
and a 20-25 page final paper (for graduate students- maybe shorter for undergraduates).
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WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Hidden Text (Place Bible)
Heidegger, Martin; 1971. “Building dwelling thinking,” in Poetry language throught. A.
Hofstadter (trans.). New York: Perennial Classics, 141-160.
Week 1. (January 26) An Introduction in favour of Places, and the making of a placeworld.
Leff, David K.; 2004. "Surveying" in The last undiscovered place. Charlottesville and
London: University of Virginia Press, 1-40.
Week 2. (February 2) Places of modernity, places in supermodernity
Place reports: Starbucks, Airport terminals, Industrial ruins
Appadurai, Arjun; 1996. "The production of locality," Modernity at large: cultural
dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 178-199.
Auge, Marc; 1995. Non-places : introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity.
London, New York: Verso.
González-Ruibal, Alfredo; 2008. "Time to destroy: an archaeology of supermodernity,"
Current Anthropology 49/2: 247-262.
Week 3. (February 9) Landscape: entering the place-world
Sauer, Carl; 1925. "Morphology of landscape," University of California Publications in
Geography 2/2: 19-54.
Ingold, Tim; 1993. "Temporality of landscape" World Archaeology 25/2: 152-174.
Knapp, A. Bernard and Wendy Ashmore; 1999. "Archaeological landscapes: constructed,
conceptualized, ideational," in Archaeologies of landscape: contemporary perspectives.
Wendy and A. Bernard Knapp (eds.). Blackwell: Malden MA, 1-30.
Rodman, Margaret C.; 2003. "Empowering place: multilocality and multivocality," in The
anthropology of space and place. Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zúniga (eds.).
Malden MA: Blackwell, 204-223.
Hirsch, Eric; 1995. “Landscape: between place and space,” in The anthropology of
landscape: perspectives on place and space. Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon (eds.);
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1-30.
Casey, Edward S.; 1996. "How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time:
phenomenological prolegomena," in Senses of place. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso
(eds.). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 13-52.
February 16. Long weekend: No class.
Week 4. (February 23) Dreamed, imagined, storied landscapes: ethnographic
accounts of the place-world
Myers, Fred R.; 1986. "The Dreaming: time and space" Pintupi country, Pintupi self:
sentiment, place and politics among Western Desert Aborigines. The University of
California Press, 47-70.
McBryde, Isabel; 2000. "Travellers in storied landscapes: a case study in exchanges and
heritage," Aboriginal History 24: 152-174.
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Basso, Keith H.; 1996. "Wisdom sits in places: Notes on a Western Apache landscape" in
Senses of place. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso (eds.). Santa Fe: School of American
Research Press, 53-90.
Whitridge, Peter; 2004. "Landscapes, houses, bodies, things: 'place' and the archaeology
of Inuit imaginaries" Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 11/2: 213-250.
Week 5. (March 2) Archaeology of "natural" places and geological wonders:
technologies of place and place-making
Place Reports: Hierapolis/Pamukkale, Maya caves
Bradley, Richard; 2000. An archaeology of natural places. London and New York:
Routledge.
Boivin, Nicole and Mary Ann Owoc (eds.); 2004. Soils, stones and symbols: cultural
perceptions of the mineral world. London: UCL Press.
Bender, Barbara; Sue Hamilton and Chris Tilley; 2007. Stone worlds: narrative and
reflexivity in landscape archaeology. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.
Dean, Carolyn; 2007. "The Inka Married the Earth: Integrated Outcrops and the Making of
Place," Art Bulletin 89.3: 502–518.
Brady, James E. and Keith M. Prufer (eds.); 2005. In the maw of the earth monster:
mesoamerican ritual cave use. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Week 6. (March 9) Anatolian landscapes: environment, archaeology, and the longterm history
Place reports: Project Paphlagonia, Madra River Delta survey, Sagalassos survey
Yakar, Jak; 2000. "The Anatolian landscape" in Ethnoarchaeology of Anatolia: Rural SocioEconomy in the Bronze and Iron Age. Tel Aviv University/Institute of Archaeology, 2000
Mitchell, Steven; 1993. "Rural Anatolia" in Anatolia: land, men and gods in Asia Minor.
Oxford; Clarendon Press, 165-197.
Gorny, Ronald L.; 1989. “Environment, archaeology and history in Hittite Anatolia,” Biblical
Archaeologist 52: 78-96.
Gorny, Ronald L.; 1995. “Hittite imperialism and anti-imperial resistance as viewed from
Alişar höyük,” BASOR 299/300: 65-89.
Glatz, Claudia; forthcoming. " Networks of interaction in Late Bronze Age Anatolia exploring Hittite imperial relationships," Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
Waelkens, Marc; 1999. " Man and environment in the territory of Sagalassos, a classical
city in SW Turkey." Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 697-709
Week 7 (March 16) Rock reliefs, caves, springs and quarries: sacred places in the
Hittite and Assyrian landscapes
Place reports: Ivriz, Fasıllar
Bonatz, Dominik; 2007. “The Divine Image of the King : Religious Representation of
Political Power in the Hittite Empire” in Representations of Political Power: Case
Histories from Times of Change and Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East. Marian
H. Feldman (ed.). Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns: 111-136.
Barnett, R. D.; 1953. "Phrygian rock facades and the Hittite monuments," Bibliotheca
Orientalis 10/3-4: 78-82.
Stokkel, Peter J.; 2005. "A New Perspective on Hittite Rock Reliefs" Anatolica 31: 171-188.
Gordon, Edmund I; 1967. "The Meaning of the Ideogram d KASKAL.KUR = Underground
Water-Course" and Its Significance for Bronze Age Historical Geography" Journal of
Cuneiform Studies 21: 70-88.
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Harmanşah, Ömür; 2007. “Source of the Tigris: event, place and performance in the
Assyrian landscapes of the Early Iron Age,” Archaeological Dialogues 14.2: 179-204.
Volk, Lucia; 2008. "When memory repeats itself: the politics of heritage in Post Civil War
Lebanon," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 40/02: 291-314
March 21-29 Spring Break
Week 8 (March 30) Fieldwork in locating places: Mediterranean style landscape
surveys and methodologies of place
Cherry, John F. ; 2003. "Archaeology beyond the site: regional survey and its future," in
Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World
Perspectives. R. Leventhal and J. Papadopoulos (eds.). Los Angeles, 137-60.
Alcock, Susan E. and Jane E. Rempel; 2006. “The More Unusual Dots on the Map:
"Special-Purpose" Sites and the Texture of Landscape” in Surveying the Greek Chora.
The Black Sea Region in a Comparative Perspective. Pia Guldager Bilde & Vladimir F.
Stolba (eds.). Aarhus University Press, 27-46.
Reger, Gary; 2007. "Region revisited: Identifying regions in a Greco-Roman Mediterranean
context," Facta 1: 65-74.
Alcock, Susan E and John F. Cherry (ed.); 2004. Side-by-Side Survey: Comparative
Regional Studies in the Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2004.
Davis, Jack L. and Susan E. Alcock (eds.) Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from
Nestor to Navarino. University of Texas Press.
Week 9 (April 6) Ethnography and ethnohistory in landscape archaeology: Workshop
with Hamish Forbes
Forbes, Hamish Alexander ; 2007. Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An
Archaeological Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week 10 (April 13) Site-specific/site-generated art: memory, technology and place
Case studies: Ann Hamilton, Gordon Matta-Clark.
Kaye, Nick; 2000. Site-specific art: performance, place and documentation. Routledge:
London and New York.
Kwon, Miwon; 2004. One place after another: site-specific art and locational identity.
Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Lippard, Lucy R.; 1997. The lure of the local: senses of place in a multi-centered society.
New York: The New Press.
Week 11 (April 20) Event of place: towards of complex understanding of
archaeologies of place: fieldwork as site-specific performance
Massey, Doreen; 2005. For space. London: Sage.
Beck, Robin A.; Douglas J. Bolender; James A. Brown and Timothy K. Earle; 2007.
"Eventful Archaeology : The Place of Space in Structural Transformation," Current
Anthropology 48/6: 833-860.
Week 12 (April 27) Presentation of Projects (Drafts due)
Final papers due: May 8.
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