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Course Introduction
Tuesday, September 3: An Introduction to the Problems, Issues, and Study of American Indian History
No Readings for the First Day of Class
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Native North America
September 5: Native North America: Origins and Evolution
Pre-Columbian America was a complex world of diverse peoples with a dynamic history. For this class, we will consider how the peopling of the Americas has been studied and debated. The readings include texts by nineteenth-century writers trying to make sense of mounds and other material remains. In addition, texts from the 1990s and 2000s demonstrate how early peoples of the Americas are still a contested topic. The answers to the loaded question of who occupied the Americas first continues to have political implications.
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Audio file: Context for today's class:http://youtu.be/F_dARCz1Lnc
Readings
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John Noble Wilford, Human Presence in Americas Is Pushed Back a Millennium, New York Times (February 11, 1997) (University login required).
- Jack Hitt, Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America's Oldest Skulls and Bones, Harper's (July 2005) (Opens in the web browser but the PDF is clearer if saved and opened in a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat).
- Native North America (PDF)
- Charles Joseph Latrobe, The Rambler in North America (1835). Read pp. 21-28.
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John Denison Baldwin, Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology (1871). Read pp. 33-34.
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H.M. Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana: containing geographical, statistical and historical notices of that vast and important portion of America (1817). Read pp. 166-183.
Study Questions
- How do we understand the peopling of the Americas?
- Who is Kennewick Man? Why is his identity so important? What are the debates surrounding Kennewick Man?
- Do the debates about Kennewick Man have anything in common with nineteenth-century discussions of the mound builders? Do the nineteenth-century essays affect the way you think about the discussions surrounding the Kennewick man and the peopling of the Americas? If so, how?
- Was there an "urban America" before Europeans arrived?
- What does the timeline in the PDF "Native North America" suggest about pre-contact North America?
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