Course Syllabus

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Instructors

Professor Ben Marwick (read about my values, ethics & expectations)
Contact details & office location
Office Hours: After class Fridays or by making an appointment 
Ms Liying Wang (liying15@uw.edu)
Office Hours: Fridays 11:30-12:30 or by appointment 
TA Office location: Denny 4th floor TA loft

This is the home page for ARCHY 482 Geoarchaeology and ARCHY 486 Geoarchaeology Lab

Welcome to Geoachaeology! We use advanced geoscience methods to investigate fascinating archaeological questions. 

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Define common stratigraphic, sediment and soil nomenclature used in geoarchaeology
  • Recognize different geomorphologic contexts of archaeological site location and explain how environmental processes in these contexts are important in archaeological site formation
  • Understand applications of geophysical and geochemical techniques in archaeology
  • Interpret and contextualise data generated by geoarchaeological research

Characteristics of class meeting 

To succeed in this class (pair of classes, really) you should plan to attend three class meetings per week: Mon, Wed, and Fri 9:30-11:20am in DEN 403 (check available places). ARCHY 482 and 486 are each three credit courses, you should expect to spend a total of 12 hours per week on out-of-class work for both course. Online correspondence will be here on Canvas, and on our class Slack workspace. Our code of conduct guides our interactions for this class, please take a look before we meet. If you would like to provide anonymous feedback about anything at all, you can send it to us here.

On Mondays we meet for a lecture class where I will help you (1) get up-to-date information on current research an theories relevant to the topics we’re studying, (2) summarize material scattered over a variety of published sources and (3) adapt the material to a level and style that is easier to understand than how it appears in publication. In the lectures I also hope to stimulate your interest in the topic through by providing structure and expectations (and of course through our sheer enthusiasm for the topic). There will not be any readings assigned for the lectures, but you will be expected to directly engage with the material presented and we will be doing a variety of activities to ensure engagement, including in-class writings (see the schedule of assignments below). We will also have a very brief lecture quiz at the start of each lecture. You are welcome to ask questions during the lecture, and about lecture topics on the class Slack channel. 

On Wednesdays we will meet for the seminar class. We will have a class discussion that reviews the readings you did for the week. Each week the seminar will include a brief informal review of how we are going with assignments. This is a time when we discuss, organize and prepare for the assignments. You can also ask questions about assignments on the class Slack workspace. 

On Fridays we will meet for a practical lab exercise to be done in small groups. This will usually be accompanied by a short written activity to be submitted before the next lab class. Our Friday classes will often involve activities that may be dusty, dirty or dangerous. We will supply lab coats, safety glasses and gloves for your protection. You are expected to use these when directed by an instructor. If you decline, you will not be able to participate in the lab exercises. For the labs you will need access to two pieces of free software: R and RStudio. Ideally you will have these installed on a computer you have good access to. If you are using a lab computer or borrowed computer, I strongly recommend working in rstudio.cloud. There are several computer labs on campus available to you, more details here. You can freely borrow a laptop from UW's STF program. You can ask questions and get help with the lab work during the lab classes and on the class Slack workspace. We are using Google calendars to manage time-sharing on equipment and instruments for your lab work, see this FAQ for more details. 

Schedule

Week 2. Mon 30 Sept Lecture 1. History of geoarchaeology (slides)
Week 2. Wed 2 Oct Lecture 2. Rocks and minerals (slides)
Week 2. Fri 4 Oct Lab 1. Induction to lab safety, rocks and minerals activity (handouts)
Week 3. Mon 7 Oct Lecture 3. Identifying and classifying sediments (slides)
Week 4. Mon 14 Oct Lecture 4. Identifying and classifying soils (slides)
Week 5. Mon 21 Oct Lecture 5. Micromorphology (slides, Prof Lewis' slides)
Week 5. Fri 25 Oct Guest Lecture on ZooMS (Prof. Douka's slides)
Week 6. Wed 30 Oct Lecture 6. Isotopes & lab report feedback (slides)
Week 7. Mon 4 Nov Lecture 7. Geophysics (slides)
Week 8. Mon 11 Nov No lecture. Veterans Day
Week 10. Mon 2 Dec Lecture 8. Stratigraphy (slides)

Course assessment and expectations

You can measure your progress in achieving the learning goals for this course by doing the assignments and reviewing our feedback. We can divide the assignments for this class into two groups: small things and big things. You can see how these contribute to your final grade by looking at the assignments page. A calendar view of the assignments is online here (the UW calendar of term dates and holidays is here).

The small things are participation (in class and on the class Slack channel), lecture quizzes, online quizzes, seminars and lab reports. The motivation for these assignments is to show you the best practices for engaging with the topics of the course, and to give you recognition for your engagement. These activities will be focused on the describe, construct, evaluate, and interpret learning goals described above. The seminars require you to closely read one scholarly journal article per week. The seminars also require you to participate in the in-class discussion, and submit a hard copy of your seminar notes at the end of that class. This activity is focused on the learning goals of evaluating and understanding, as noted above. The lecture quizzes are every Mon at the start of each lecture, and are focused on the learning goals of describing and evaluating. The lab reports are short summaries of the lab activities to help you practice description and application of the skills you've learned.  

The big things are a replication report on a previously published geoarchaeological study, and a lab report. These are focused on the learning goals of describing, understanding and applying and evaluating. Both of these big things have several smaller assignments to provide scaffolding for you. These smaller assignments have been carefully designed to give you the skills you need to succeed in the big project, at the time you need them. These smaller assignments will help you get a good grade on the final product. 

From time to time we will request your feedback and responses using an online quiz or similar. The will be infrequent and easy. They are not graded and will not form part of your final grade for the class. The purpose of these is to encourage you to participate and find meaning in your experience of this class in ways that are not focussed on getting a grade. We do this because it will help you to prepare to participate effectively in civil society, where we often do things because we believe in their essential worth, rather than to get a higher salary or improve our status in material ways. 

There are extra credit opportunities to pursue your geoarchaeological interests that can increase your final grade by a maximum of 5%, these are available to everyone, just write to ask. Extra credit will not be possible after week eight. If you have a medical emergency or other exceptional circumstance and want to discuss alternative assessment plans, please send me an email. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown of how the big and small things contribute to your grade:

ARCHY 482 Seminar

Small things' contribution to final grade:

Percent of grade Assignment
20 Lecture quizzes
30 Seminars

Big things' contribution to final grade:

Percent of grade Assignment
50 Replication report

ARCHY 486 Lab

Small things' contribution to final grade:

Percent of grade Assignment
50 Lab reports

Big things' contribution to final grade:

Percent of grade Assignment
50 Lab report

As you can see in the table above, there are several major categories of assignment. Each of the categories must have a non-zero total score in order for you to pass the course. This is a class policy to ensure that you participate in all of the learning activities we've designed for the class. 

There is no mid-term or final exam for this class, although one is automatically scheduled by some central planning service. You can ignore that.

Strategies for success in the course

I am confident that all of you are capable of doing well in this course. I especially recommend attending all class meetings, and actively engaging with the course materials by asking questions and offering comments (for example, by making connections between course content and other topics). In the Discussions section of our Canvas page I have clearly and concisely outlined my expectations on what you need to do to succeed in the lectures, in the seminars and in group work. Please ensure you are familiar with my expectations so know how to do well in the class. I have listed some other resources that are available to help you succeed here. 

Overall course grading system

Please keep an eye on your grades in the Canvas gradebook. We do make mistakes grading and are happy to correct them, but in order to make the process work smoothly we require requests for re-grading to be made in a courteous message from you. So if you feel that your work was incorrectly or unfairly graded, please write a detailed statement with the relevant details (including URLs to the assignment instructions so we know exactly which one you are referring to), and send it to us along with your original work. We'll all take a look, and as a caveat, please note that (1) we also have the option of re-examining your entire work for the course and (2) the outcome might be a lower grade rather than a higher one for the assignment you’re concerned about, or any other that we look at. For more details on how we grade: http://www.washington.edu/students/gencat/front/Grading_Sys.html and http://depts.washington.edu/grading/practices/guidelines.html

The following grading scale will be used:

Percent = Grade
95 = 4.0 88 = 3.3 81 = 2.6 74 = 1.9 67 = 1.2
94 = 3.9 87 = 3.2 80 = 2.5 73 = 1.8 66 = 1.1
93 = 3.8 86 = 3.1 79 = 2.4 72 = 1.7 65 = 1.0
92 = 3.7 85 = 3.0 78 = 2.3 71 = 1.6 64 = 0.9
91 = 3.6 84 = 2.9 77 = 2.2 70 = 1.5 63 = 0.8
90 = 3.5 83 = 2.8 76 = 2.1 69 = 1.4 60-62 = 0.7
89 = 3.4 82 = 2.7 75 = 2.0 68 = 1.3 <60 = 0.0

Each student receives three free "late days", each of which allows you to submit an assignment up to 24 hours late without penalty. You will need to notify me by stating on your submitted work (not by email or Slack) that you are using a late day. Once you have used up all late days, assignments will have 10% deducted from the grade per day (including weekends). Assignments will not be accepted more than seven days after the due date (which means you’ll get a zero score for that assignment). If you have circumstances that you suspect will influence your assignment scheduling (e.g. such as observance of regularly scheduled religious obligations, military duty or university-sponsored activities such as debating contests or athletic competition) then let us know in writing in advance. I review late requests and circumstances on a case by case basis and make decisions accordingly.

I generally am not sympathetic to technology problems (servers go down, transfers time out, files become corrupt, things get lost or stolen, the list goes on and on). These are not considered emergencies. They are part of the normal production process. An issue you may have with technology will not excuse late work. We expect you to protect yourself by managing your time sensibly and robustly backing up your work. Plan ahead, save your work frequently and use reliable services (eg. Google Drive and GitHub are ones I rely on) for backing up your work. The final decision about late penalties rests with the instructor, though you may appeal to the Chair of the Anthropology Department if you feel the instructor’s decision is unjust.

Course policies

Academic misconduct

This short statement by the Committee on Academic Conduct in the College of Arts and Sciences will help you avoid unintentional misconduct and clarify the consequences of cheating. The university’s policy on plagiarism and academic misconduct is a part of the Student Conduct Code, which cites the definition of academic misconduct in the WAC 478-121. (WAC is an abbreviation for the Washington Administrative Code, the set of state regulations for the university. The entire chapter of the WAC on the student conduct code is here) According to this section of the WAC, academic misconduct includes:

“Cheating”—such as “unauthorized assistance in taking quizzes”, “Falsification” “which is the intentional use or submission of falsified data, records, or other information including, but not limited to, records of internship or practicum experiences or attendance at any required event(s), or scholarly research”; and “Plagiarism” which includes “[t]he use, by paraphrase or direct quotation, of the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgment.”

The UW Libraries have a useful guide for students at http://www.lib.washington.edu/teaching/plagiarism

Accommodations

Your experience in this class is important to me. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course. The website for the DRO provides other resources for students and faculty for making accommodations.

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).

Inclusivity

Among the core values of the university are inclusivity and diversity, regardless of race, gender, income, ability, beliefs, and other ways that people distinguish themselves and others. If any assignments and activities are not accessible to you, please contact me so we can make arrangements to include you by making an alternative assignment available.

Learning often involves the exchange of ideas. To include everyone in the learning process, we expect you will demonstrate respect, politeness, reasonableness, and willingness to listen to others at all times – even when passions run high. Behaviors must support learning, understanding, and scholarship.

Preventing violence is a shared responsibility in which everyone at the UW plays apart. If you experience harassment during your studies, please report it to the SafeCampus. website (anonymous reports are possible). SafeCampus provides information on counseling and safety resources, University policies, and violence reporting requirements help us maintain a safe personal, work and learning environment. I strongly discourage you from being on campus after dark, but if you are, please use the Husky NightWalk service to ensure you move around safely. 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due