Muwekma: Landscape, Archaeology, and the Narratives of California Natives

Catalog description

This is a service based, field oriented, Integrative Learning course. California supported the greatest population density of Native people in all of North America, and was one of the world's most diverse linguistic regions. This class will review the history of California Indian scholarship, the ways in which anthropological and archaeological theory impacted native communities in California, the early exploration and history of the San Francisco Bay Area, and the struggle for sovereignty by Bay Area and other California native communities. The course will involve examination of primary historical documents located in archives in the San Francisco Bay Area, visits to local museums, working with descendent communities, and involvement with local archaeological sites and materials. Depending upon the size the class this course will have a heavy component of field trips, and field work. One of the primary goals of the class is to expose students to the methods materials and techniques that anthropologists, historians and archaeologists use to understand contemporary Indian communities. We will be working with Muwekma leaders to accomplish collaborative and service-oriented projects. Lab and field trip days: This course is intended to be a hands-on, experiential learning experience. We will complete the requirements for the course in a short two- week period. The most important attendance will be on weekends- Saturday and Sunday at a site in the foothills above Stanford, on Midpeninsula open space lands. This means that you will need to have transportation to the field site and engage in archaeological survey and excavation. These are outside- outdoors fieldwork days. It will require some degree of physical activity but we have opportunities for otherly-able bodied people.