Wm. Clay Poe, Ph.D., RPA Professor of Archaeology Department of History

Office: email:

Stevenson 2085, 664-2580 poe@sonoma.edu

	Foundations of World Civilization Tuesday and Thursday, 10:45 – 12:00 Offered every semester Foundations of World Civilization is a study of a number of cultures from the period of the earliest urban centers to the period of European discovery and colonization of the New World. Particular emphases of this section of the course will include the use of primary written sources and archaeological evidence in understanding the past. History 201 meets General Education requirement D2, World History. Completion of General Education requirement A2, Fundamentals of Communication is a prerequisite for enrolling in this course.
	Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project Anthropology 424 Offered every year in the summer The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project will conduct two sessions of an archaeological field school in the 2002 season excavating at the sites of Baking Pot and Caracol. Session 1: Sunday, June 2 to Saturday, June 29, 2002 Session 2: Sunday, July 7 to Saturday, August 3, 2002 The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project (BVAR) is a field school designed to introduce undergraduate students to archaeological fieldwork in the Maya lowlands of Belize. The project has a regional, rather than a site specific, focus with a principal objective of studying the changes in settlement patterns and site relationships over time. The project is driven by research design; while the specific site focus and particular techniques taught may change from season to season, certain curricular components will be constant. As the only archaeological project that operates directly under the auspices of the Department of Archaeology of Belize, BVAR has had an unusual longevity, thirteen years. This relationship has fostered a broad frame for archaeological research that has encouraged students who began their association with BVAR as undergraduates to continue their association as graduate students, using BVAR as the base for their dissertation research and providing the project with a rich resource for teaching.
	Ancient Near Eastern Texts History 303 Offered every year in the fall semester. The next planned offering is Fall 2002. A study of the history, archaeology and literature of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and related cultures of southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean, from the beginnings of agriculture in the Neolithic period (8th millennium BCE) to Alexander and the rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the 4th century BCE.
	Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic and Roman World History 482 Friday, 9:00 – 12:40 Offered every year in the Spring semester. The course focuses on the history of religious ideas in the particularly fertile period in the Middle East and South Asia between the transformation of the Hebrew religion into Judaism and the establishment of Buddhism on the one hand and the birth and spread of Islam on the other. This period includes the phenomena of the mystery religions, the origin and early development of Christianity, the reformation of Hinduism and the spread of Buddhism.
	The Archaeology of Complex Societies, 4 units History 486 This is a new course with a first planned offering in Fall 2002 This course will focus on an archaeological perspective on the development of complex societies, societies in which the population is differentiated by status, occupation, and other criteria and in which most people submit to the authority of a small, elite group with a monopoly over force. The course will use data from the development of these societies in the Near East and in Mesoamerica to test theories pertaining to these societies and to illustrate the archaeological methodologies that are useful in identifying and understanding them. The course will include analysis of settlement patterns, both site specific and regional, exchange of goods and services, architecture, burial practices, specialization of industry and ritual activity.
	Introduction to Hieratic and Hieroglyphic Egyptian History 487 Every other year in the fall semester. The next planned offering is Fall 2002. This course is an introduction to the Egyptian language and both its hieroglyphic and its hieratic writing systems. Students learn to read a story written in Middle Egyptian, the classical language of Ancient Egypt. This is the version of the language that was the administrative language of the Middle Kingdom (2040 - 1674 BCE) and the literary language of the Middle and New Kingdoms (1552 - 1069 BCE). The study of the language and writing system is used to introduce students to related aspects of Egyptian culture.