In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology

For courses in Introduction to Archaeology, Method and Theory in Archaeology.

This comprehensive text uses an international perspective throughout while outlining the basic principles, methods, and theoretical approaches of modern archaeology. It gives students a basic foundation on the subject, the career opportunities it offers, and a look at some of the interesting―and not so well known―discoveries that illuminate our past. The text emphasizes remote sensing techniques for archaeological survey, addresses the study of gender and ethnic diversity from the archaeological record, and assesses the importance of archaeology in the modern world.

Brian Fagan is one of the leading archaeological writers and an internationally recognized authority on world prehistory. He studied archaeology and anthropology at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, and then spent seven years in sub-Saharan Africa working in museums and in monuments conservation and excavating early farming sites in Zambia and East Africa. He was one of the pioneers of multidisciplinary African history in the 1960s. From 1967 to 2003, he was professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he specialized in lecturing and writing about archaeology to wide audiences. He is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology.

Brian Fagan has written six best-selling textbooks (all published by Prentice Hall): Ancient Lives: An Introduction to Archaeology and Prehistory; In the Beginning, Archaeology: A Brief Introduction; World Prehistory; Ancient Civilizations (with Chris Scarre); and this volume―which are used around the world. His general books include The Rape of the Nile, a classic history of Egyptology; The Adventure of Archaeology Time Detectives; Ancient North America; The Little Ice Age; Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants; and The Long Summer. He was also General Editor of the Oxford Companion to Archaeology. In addition, he has published several scholarly monographs on African archaeology and numerous specialized articles in national and international journals. An expert on multimedia teaching, he has received the Society for American Archaeology's first Public Education Award for his indefatigable efforts on behalf of archaeology and education.

Brian Fagan's other interests include bicycling, sailing, kayaking, and good food. He is married and lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter, four cats (who supervise his writing), and last but not least, a minimum of four rabbits.

Christopher R. DeCorse received his bachelor of arts and master's degrees in anthropology and archaeology at the University of New Hampshire and the University of California, Los Angeles, completing his doctorate in archaeology at UCLA. His theoretical interests include the interpretation of ethnicity, culture change, and variability in the archaeological record. Dr. DeCorse has excavated a variety of prehistoric and historic period sites in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa, but his primary area of research has been in the archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography of Sierra Leone and Ghana. His most recent research has focused on culture contact and change at the African settlement of Elmina, Ghana, the site of the first European trading post in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently collaborating on several projects that are examining connections between Africa and the Americas.

Christopher DeCorse has taught archaeology and general anthropology in a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs, including the University of Ghana, Legon; Indiana University, Pennsylvania; and Syracuse University, New York, where he is currently an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology. He is particularly interested in the interpretation and presentation of anthropology for under graduates and the general public. In addition to In the Beginning, he has authored The Record of the Past: An Introduction to Archaeology and Physical Anthropology, and co-authored Anthropology: A Global Perspective, a four-field anthropology text, and Worldviews in Human Expression, an introduction to the humanities from an anthropological perspective. He serves on the advisory or editorial boards of Annual Editions in physical anthropology and archaeology, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Journal of African Archaeology, and Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers. He has participated on a number of committees and panels, including work as a consultant on human evolution and agricultural origins for the National Center for History in the Schools.

Christopher DeCorse has received several academic honors and awards, including Fulbright and Smithsonian fellowships and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for outstanding teaching, research, and service. He has published more than forty articles, reviews, and research notes in a variety of publications, including The African Archaeological Review, Journal of African Archaeology, Historical New Hampshire, Historical Archaeology, and Slavery and Abolition. Books dealing with his work in West Africa include An Archaeology of Elmina: Africans and Europeans on the Gold Coast and an edited volume West Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeological Perspectives.