Teaching Archaeological Epistemology through Tabletop Gaming

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Leveling Up: Gaming and Game Design in Archaeological Education and Outreach" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

More often than not, the general public learns about archaeology through flashy headlines proclaiming glamorous finds and grand interpretations with little to no explanation of how those conclusions are drawn. As a result, students in their first archaeology class struggle to understand the reasons behind learning archaeological methods and the detailed work of artifact analysis. In an effort to help students come to a better understanding of how archaeologists construct knowledge of the past, I am developing a tabletop board game that models the research process in archaeology. The game can be played in 30–50 minutes by a group of 3–5 students and challenges them to select research questions, draft a team of specialists, survey, excavate, and analyze an archaeological record created by a series of card decks. Initial playtests have received positive feedback from students, and another round of playtesting will be conducted shortly before the Society for American Archaeology meetings. The ultimate goal of this work is to create a publicly accessible resource that helps students both learn how archaeologists think and have fun in the process.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Leveling Up: Gaming and Game Design in Archaeological Education and Outreach   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39064.0