Module 9: Archaeology of enigmatic lives: Enslaved Africans of the 18th Century

Module 9: Archaeology of enigmatic lives: Enslaved Africans of the 18th Century

Overview

We will use archaeological and historical data to investigate the lives of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, and how slavery ended. We will explore the relevance of these results for understanding the legacy of slavery of contemporary society. 

Objectives

  • Understand how archaeologists use archaeological and historical data to answer questions about past human behaviours and relationships
  • Investigate seriation as a method for putting archaeological sites, assemblages, and artefacts in chronological order
  • Understand the principles of tidy data, and how to reshape between long and wide formats
  • Write a reproducible report that presents archaeological and historical data to test a hypothesis about the end of slavery

Preparation

Go to Perusall to access the readings and video to prepare for class (FAQ on Perusall)

Lectures

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday falling on Thursday 24 Nov, we will not be meeting for class. To replace this class meeting I've included here links to recordings of this lecture from the previous time I taught the class:  1 Links to an external site., 2 Links to an external site., 3 Links to an external site. and here are the slides soo you can see the questions for the lab report: ARCHY_208_AU22_Lecture_17.pptx Download ARCHY_208_AU22_Lecture_17.pptx You will need to look at this recording and slides to find the questions to answer in the lab report.

Lab 7 & 8 Feedback slides here Download here.

Discussions

Discuss this module and ask questions on Discord (contact us for an invite). When asking for help with code, please share a screenshot (FAQ: how to take a screenshot)  

Assignments

Assignments for this module are:

  • Before Thursday's class complete 9.1 and 9.2 on Perusall
  • Before Tuesday's class complete 9.3 and 9.4 on Perusall
  • Poll Everywhere responses during scheduled class time
  • Complete the Module 9 Lab report, you can work on this online in RStudio on JupyterHub. We will demonstrate how to do the lab in class on Tuesday, then you will submit your completed lab before the following Tuesday's class. You have one week to complete the lab after seeing the demonstration in class.