Undergraduate Reflections on Archaeological Ceramics through Experimental Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Experimental Pedagogies: Teaching through Experimental Archaeology Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Undergraduate ceramic archaeological instruction is built around the common, and often taken for granted, categories of raw materials, functional forms, and decorative characteristics. As students, we primarily study these categories to classify materials in field and laboratory settings with little time or reflection spent on the construction of the categories themselves. In our Experimental Ceramic Archaeology class at Lyon College, we were challenged to create a different relationship to archaeological ceramics through experiential learning. In this paper, we summarize our experiences in learning how to create archaeological ceramic reproductions using traditional techniques, and compare this with other courses in our academic careers in order to provide insights for the integration of experimental archaeology in anthropology and ceramics classes. We also present a series of observations on our relationship to the material world that was shaped by a more detailed engagement with producing objects.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Experimental Pedagogies: Teaching through Experimental Archaeology Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41677.0