Anthropology Archaeology - Barnard College

Anthropology Archaeology from Barnard College is a Campus Bachelor Classical Studies degree that prepares you for a Liberal Arts career. Within anthropology, archaeologists specialize on the study of human communities through the material worlds they produce, consume, dwell within, and leave behind. Traditionally, this focus on objects or artifacts has gone hand-in-hand with a study of the past, particularly those millions of years of antiquity prior to widespread literacy when archaeological remains provide our sole means of exploring the vast array of human communities and their diverse evolutionary trajectories. The ancient past continues to be a core concern, but contemporary archaeologists increasingly use their object-based methodologies as a critical tool to analyze and rethink more recent historical contexts as well. Historical texts may be largely written by the wealthy and elite, but archaeological records tend to be radically democratic, documenting the stories of otherwise invisible people through the tangible remains they leave behind. As a result, archaeology has come to offer an important opportunity to challenge textual orthodoxy and write counter-histories. During the past twenty-five years many archaeologists have further extended their methodologies and intellectual frameworks into the present to examine modern material culture and our complicated relationships with "things". Today, archaeologists can be found excavating-- both literally and figuratively-- the material record at the very moment it is produced and contested. Not surprisingly, special attention has come to be paid to how objects from the past are made meaningful in the present, be those objects in museums, embedded within monuments, or displayed on mantles. The resultant research into "cultural heritage" draws attention to the powerful manner in which past and present converge in the archaeological study of the material record. Students with a degree in archaeology may pursue graduate work in archaeology or anthropology, or they may develop careers in a diverse set of fields such as cultural resource management, historic preservation, museum work, repatriation and cultural property law, government, education, journalism, tourism, and the like. View more details on Barnard College . Ask your questions and apply online for this program or find other related Classical Studies courses.