Archaeology for the spring, group B

[Alaine Kensington]

After clearing out the biology things from earlier, Professor Kensington had set up for Archaeology. Her slide presentation with the introduction was set up on the white screen with a beamer already, and this time she'd brought a couple things to show around the class as well - mainly pottery shards.

[Herbert "Herbie" Skik]

Herbie simply sat - he was there from the biology class, and he really didn't feel like walking four stairs down again already. This might be interesting too.

"So, wat does dis class do, prefessah?"

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen walked into the classroom and found a seat near the front of the classroom. She plopped her bag down on the desk and looked at the pottery shards laid out.

"Hullo, professor. What're those?"

[Damien Griffiths]

Damien was inside after a short break, right after Kahlen.

"Hi Kahlen. Didn't see you for biology, not interested?" He looked at what she was looking at, and wrinkled his nose. "Isn't that just junk?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less had likewise stayed in his seat to await the next class, and had in the meantime was finishing a rather complicated drawing of his pack. "Those are the remains of dead tools," he said. "I presume we will be making them alive again."

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen waved at Damien. "Nah, biology's not really my thing. I think archeology will be interesting though."

She sat down after looking at the shards for a minute or so. "How was bio?"

[Tane Matthewson]

Tane stuck around after biology. He was sure this would be interesting. 'There aren't many ways to look into the past.' He looked at the pottery with restrained interest.

[Beau Boudreaux]

Beau stayed put after biology as he also had archaeology. He was much more nervous about this class as he was not very good at history. All those dates and names, he was not good at remembering them.

[Philbert Decanter]

"Pah! Those that fritter their time away staring at dirty bobbles lose sight of the future!" Philbert jumped from his seat, having stayed over from biology, but not having found the next class to be particularly stimulating, and started to leave. "I hope you are all perpetually amused by brushing rocks for hours."

[Alaine Kensington]

"Well, Mr East Tundra, they are certainly old tools. However, we won't be making them whole again. Archaeology is a science that studies the remains of old cultures, their material residues, and tries to recreate their way of life back then. What I have here are a number of pottery shards that I've brought from Syria, as an example of what you can find in a field excavation. They're about five thousand years old, which means they're from the New Stone Age, or Neolithic period, which is when people started settling down and farming was introduced. It's also the oldest period we know pottery from. That said, let me give you an overview of what we'll be doing this semester."

She indicated everyone to sit down, looked at Philbert and back to her desk, where she tapped a key on the computer. A slide with a number of topics popped up.

"The course will be divided in a bumber of theoretical classes, which we'll have in this classroom, and in the early summer I intend to organise an excavation for all of you to participate in. More about that later. In the theoretical course we'll first start with a short history of Archaeology, from the early eighteenhundreds to now, then a view of the different substudies in archaeology, which involve chemistry, physics, biology, social sciences, and math, in several degrees. Third, we'll have a very general view of important developments in the world's population and civilistation, a short about the evolution of the main humanoid species - and their mysterious origins.
"We'll also discuss excavation methods, and theories on interpretation of materials as viewed through the development of the study. I'll finish it off with an artefact class where I'll bring along my private collection, which we'll have a look at to see what is what, and how much you've remembered from the classes.
"Before I start with a general history, are there any questions you'd like to ask?"