Teaching

My teaching aims to give students hands-on experience and practical knowledge to forge a career in anthropology.  My general philosophy is to teach processes and principles of the social sciences, not the rote memorization of facts and figures.  Very few of my students will go on to study the precise case studies that I use to exemplify processes in the past, so I focus on expanding their intellectual toolboxes to critically examine cause and effect and intervariable correlations in a historical perspective.  My teachings use the scientific method to allow students to formulate, test, and evaluate hypotheses both in their own research and to critique published literature.

Courses Taught at the U of A

• Introduction to Archaeology (ANTH 1033)
• Approaches to Archaeology (ANTH 3023)
• People and Pots (ANTH 4353/5353)
• Culture Change and Social Complexity (ANTH 6823)
• Archaeological Theory and Method (ANTH 5023)
• Ancient Mesoamerica
• Ancient Cities (ANTH 4903)
• Archaeometry (ANTH 5903)
• Myths, Mysteries, and Manipulations of the Past (ANTH 3903)