Product Overview
Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology offers a new and exciting way for students to learn about the methods that archaeologists use to reveal the human past. Featuring an innovative hyperlink format of interconnected ideas, anecdotes, and lessons, the text and its accompanying CD provide an engaging introduction to archaeology. Employing an accessible and conversational writing style, Kenneth L. Feder describes the archaeological excavation and analysis of a three-thousand-year-old village site located in Connecticut. Woven into this narrative is an overview of the methods archaeologists use to find, recover, study, and interpret the material culture left behind by past people. The narrative serves as a framework that leads students into general questions about how archaeologists work, such as: How do archaeologists find sites? How do they know how old a site is? and How can they trace the sources of raw materials? These questions are addressed throughout the book.
Linking to the Past explains how recovered objects such as bones, seeds, stone flakes, and ceramic fragments can lend insight into the occupations, dwellings, diets, social relationships, religious practices, and physical characteristics of people who lived in the past. It also addresses many practical aspects of archaeological research, including methods for identification and excavation of sites, absolute and relative dating of objects, and recording and reporting of archaeological findings.
Features: * Innovative hyperlink format: The unique hyperlink organization gives the printed text the feel of a website, as the material is presented in a manner that mirrors the way students might explore archaeology on their own. Students can interact with the text, easily moving back and forth between related topics.
* Engaging first-person narrative: Feder describes one of his own archaeological investigations in order to walk students through the ideas and processes involved in archaeological fieldwork. He also addresses general questions about archaeological methodology that are inspired by the narrative.
* CD packaged with every text: The in-text CD-ROM includes the entire printed text with the exception of the study questions, which are found only in the book. The CD also provides hyperlinks from the questions to their detailed answers and contains glossary terms with pronunciations and an image bank of color photos.
* Extensive glossary: The glossary includes more than two hundred terms and concepts central to understanding archaeology.
* Instructor's Manual and Test Bank CD-ROM: Includes a list of glossary terms, short essay questions, and multiple choice questions. Also features a transition guide which makes it easier to understand how the units in the book correspond to how an instructor currently structures his/her course.
