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Archaeology
at Columbia encompasses a range of disciplines, cultures,
and approaches. In the Department of Art History and Archaeology,
students and faculty come together under the joint title of
the department through studies of urbanism, architectural
space, and the context of visual images. Archaeology students
here have access not only to the rich opportunities the department
has to offer, but also to the Program in Archaeology that
is a cooperation of six departments at Columbia University,
as well as the network of archaeologists, archaeological sites,
and museum collections in New York City as a whole.
Within the Department of Art History and Archaeology, eight
faculty members contribute to the interdepartmental program
in archaeology with research and teaching in pre-columbian,
medieval, and mediterranean subjects. Five of these faculty
also contribute to the Center
for the Ancient Mediterranean: their research and teaching
span the Bronze Age, the Greek and Roman worlds, Byzantium,
and Near Eastern Art and Archaeology. On the Columbia campus,
resources such as the University's Art Properties collections,
the Department's
Wallach Art Gallery, and finds from the Columbia University
expedition to Phlamoudhi, Cyprus provide students with opportunities
to work with ancient artifacts and gain exhibition experience.
Fieldwork by Art History and Archaeology faculty in Sicily,
France, and Cyprus create opportunities for students to gain
practical experience in archaeology. Projects, such as in Egypt
and the Andes, organized by faculty in other departments, provide
additional opportunities for students. Archaeology is uncovering
the past through its material remains—the people, histories
and deep sequences that antiquity offers. It is an anthropology
of the past, entangled with the parallel issues of subjectivity,
politics and multivocality. Archaeology has come to mean many
things to different generations of scholars, from the study
of material culture to culture history, from social process
to social relations, yet it is always grounded in the materiality
of the past and its implications.
At Columbia University, archaeology is a multidisciplinary
field practiced by faculty and students in the social sciences,
natural sciences, and humanities. At present, there are sixteen
faculty in the Departments of Anthropology, Art History and
Archaeology, Classics, Historic Preservation, History, Middle
Eastern Languages and Cultures, and the Center for Environmental
Research and Conservation, who conduct research on prehistory,
ancient society, or historical archaeology. There are also
four researchers at Lamont-Doherty who conduct research in
fields such as dendrochronology, paleoclimatology, and remote
sensing.
Among the locations in which students and faculty are conducting
or participating in field programs are New York City, upstate
New York, the North American Southwest, Mexico, Belize, Honduras,
Peru, Argentina, Italy, Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Yemen. Archaeologists
at Columbia also work with professionals at a wide range of
institutions in New York through consortium arrangements. Among
the institutions at which students in particular programs may
take courses, conduct research, or work on internships are the
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New
York University, the City
University of New York, the New
York Botanical Garden, the American
Museum of Natural History, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn
Museum of Art, the National
Museum of the American Indian, the South
Street Seaport Museum, and the Museum
of the City of New York.
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