Best B.A. History Colleges in India :: Shiv Nadar University

The Department of History offers a Minor in Archaeology to undergraduate students majoring in other disciplines at SNU as well as to History Majors. Students who opt to take a Minor in Archaeology will acquire a basic understanding of the discipline and can even apply for further studies in this field. Students must complete six courses totalling to 24 credits to obtain a Minor in Archaeology.

Key Information

Department

History and Archaeology

School

School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS)

Contact

Jaya Menon

jaya.menon@snu.edu.in

No. of Credits

24

The Archaeology Minor enables students to interpret and use material evidence, to learn the field methods that are specific to archaeology, as well as appreciate how archaeological material, after it has been excavated or collected, is dealt with through analyses, curation and display. Students will also be introduced to some of the theories that pertain to archaeology. Through this programme, students will be able to take several courses in archaeology and in turn, be able to pursue a more specialized graduate programme in Archaeology as well as Museum Studies.

Course code

Title

Credit

HIS104

Bronze Age Civilizations

4

What is the meaning of the Bronze Age? What role did the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt play in enabling some of the most significant developments in human societies? This course begins with the discovery of these civilizations, plots their development over time, and discusses how they may be understood both through written as well as archaeological material.

HIS101

Introduction to Archaeology

4

Archaeology today has become a key discipline that helps understand past human activity. This course will introduce students to what archaeologists do and how this discipline evolved as central to the quest of understanding humanity’s and our planet’s past. The course will engage with a broad sweep of theories, methods, technologies and practices employed by archaeologists. Student learning will be interactive, through regular tutorial discussions and occasional field trips, besides peer interactions. Various forms of assessment will be used to evaluate student learning *This course is compulsory towards the completion of a Minor in History/Archaeology

HIS201

Archaeology of South Asia

4

The earliest occupations in the subcontinent, in the absence of writing, can only be reconstructed on the basis of material remains, which is the purview of archaeology. Yet, archaeology also helps us to understand later periods when there are written sources. This course, through a study of the material remains of the past, will take the student from roughly the 8th millennium BCE to the 16th century CE. This will enable us to understand how the histories of ordinary people can be constructed through their everyday objects.

HIS210

Histories of Archaeology in South Asia

4

An understanding of the histories of archaeological scholarship and practices is crucial for developing the skills of historical methodology and archaeological knowledge. The histories provide critical insights into the many traditions of historiography, and demonstrate the reasons for nurturing a trans-regional and trans-national perspective while writing regional histories. Through histories of antiquarian scholarship and archaeological fieldwork, this paper shall map the many ways in which we can historicize the early archaeological scholarship of India. It shall explore the manner in which the British developed and used archaeology in India, and the disciplinary developments that followed in the early decades of Indian independence. The lecture topics shall create a sense of the unequal encounters of the politics of imperialism, relationships between power and knowledge, uses and abuses of histories of origins, and creations of heritage and legacies. The course shall thereby also attend to issues of ethics.

HIS213

Field Methods in Archaeology

4

Archaeological field work is known to be intrusive. It makes it imperative that we keep this in mind while planning, designing, executing and publishing data gathered from archaeological sites. This course is designed for students who are interested in learning the methods used in archaeology, in other words, an initiation to field archaeology methods. The course is hands-on and uses activities both within and outside the classroom in order to give students a basic understanding of archaeological fieldwork. The course does not include archaeological theory and is not designed to be an introduction to archaeology, rather as suggested by the title explores how and what different techniques are used by archaeologists.
Aims of the course
The aim of this course is to give a broad understanding of archaeological field techniques and methods, their aims and limitations, and to provide some practical experience.
Objectives of the course
1. An overview of the methodological issues surrounding archaeological fieldwork.
2. An understanding of survey techniques including desk-top, aerial, geophysical walk-over and collection.
4. An understanding of the process of designing a project from initial survey to final publication.

HIS301

Archaeology of Cities

4

This course focuses on understanding urbanism and urban settlements in the third millennium in Mesopotamia, Egypt and South Asia. The intention is to introduce the students to early urban developments and enable students to analyze urbanization, the physical and social forms of urban centres, as well as the functions of varying urban spaces.

HIS305

Curating Cultures: Collections, Museums and Practices

4

What functions do museums serve in the modern world? Why is it important to examine curatorial practices? How might one do archaeology, and anthropology, in and of museums? How do museums generate and consolidate theories of material culture and cultural differences? And, how have museums within the post-colonial worlds changed or responded to shifting political and economic movements, and accommodated source communities. These are some of the questions, which the course shall address while exploring the histories of museums and their collections of antiquities within India. Through specific examples it shall also review the making of local and national collections, the distinctions between public museums and others, and inform of best practices: of collections management, conservation and curation. Devised as a practical and theoretical approach to museum studies, the course shall illustrate the importance of museums and their curation, and collections, within the archaeological scholarship.