Introducing Student Spotlights
Student Spotlights: Introduction to Archaeology, Anthropology 2, Fall 2024, University of California, Berkeley
The Mock Dig excavation used in the fall of 2024 to introduce introduction to archaeology students to the process of manufacturing restaurant porcelains. The FS Louie projects were part of a larger emphasis on objects traveling from creation to use.
In the fall of 2024, as a way to teach students how to conduct original research, critically evaluate source materials, integrate multiple lines of evidence and work with a piece of material culture (whew, that’s a lot), each student was assigned a ceramic vessel from the Material Culture Lab’s FS Louie and Company Collection. As part of their midterm, they were responsible for analyzing and researching that artifact. They measured, weighed, identified the marks and patterns according to our established typology, and had to research the restaurant associated with the ceramic to come up with a date range for the object. They inputted all the data they created into a large database file shared with the whole class.
After overcoming initial angst, most of them did great–though a few also quickly learned that A-I doesn’t really work for doing this kind of research. A personal favorite for me (as an example of A-I fail) was the student who put their restaurant name (but not the address) into an A-I platform and handed in a paper that had a mashup of information on restaurants of the same name that were located in different parts of the country. Since the restaurant they were supposed to be researching had closed some years back, it wasn’t actually one of the restaurants discussed.
For the final project, using the master database file, and having the option to come into the Material Culture Lab for further research, students worked in groups to formulate a research question that they could address from the archaeological evidence. We asked them to present their findings in two forms: a formal research report, following archaeological norms, and a less formal blog format for a general audience. The students produced some really great projects, asking interesting questions. Some may have also had fun doing it. Others probably torpedoed my teaching evaluations and every “rate your..” site out there. Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. 🙂
We’re posting, under the title STUDENT SPOTLIGHTS some of the most compelling projects. The students all signed a consent form if they were willing to have their papers appear on the blog. We encourage you to look at them and remember, these are students in their FIRST archaeology class ever writing these projects. I think they’re pretty awesome.
