Bones and Stones
Program Evaluation
15APR1999
Jesse is in his third year of college. He took this program because of an interest in archaic traditions of religion,
archaeology, and the evolution of consciousness. He has a passion for knowledge and is focused on archaeology and
Celtic studies. He plans to go to graduate school soon.
He completed all of the reading. In seminars he was always well prepared and made regular contributions. He speaks
with a fine concise form in asking his questions; I never found him to be lacking in enthusiasm. He has a good
understanding of the archaeology and anthropology of the prehistoric and preliterate world; his reading and his
discourse were always at a high level.
He wrote two research papers: "Social Upheaval in the Early Bronze Age and its Effect on Cyriote Polity" and
"Brugh na Boyne and the Irish Triple Goddess." The first paper was four pages of text, and 21 references and
a bibliography. On the whole his writing was good. In his second paper he wrote a thirteen-page text that had 61
endnotes, fourteen illustrations, a good bibliography and an errata page; it was a narrowly focused and well-organized
paper with strong content. Both of his papers were college upper level quality. He will maintain his papers in his
portfolio for inspection.
He maintained an image response book of writings and drawings on selected ancient artifacts and prehistoric
images. He says that he learned valuable skills while interpreting images.
His attendance was good; he missed ten out of 150 hours of class time and was seldom late.
His self-evaluation is a true account and should be read with this report.
Jesse is a fine student who should be able to handle serious work at almost any level. I urge him to continue honing
his communication skills. I wish him well in his continuing education. I would be happy to recommend him for
graduate school.
SUGGESTED COURSE EQUIVALENCIES (in quarter hours) TOTAL: 16
*4 - Archaeology: Theories and Methods
*4 - Human Evolution and Physical Anthropology
*4 - Comparative Analysis of Artifacts and Images from the Prehistoric World
*4 - Advanced Research Techniques and Research Writing;
(*Denotes upper-division credit)
Bones and Stones; The Roots of Society
The Achievements of our Prehistoric Ancestors
A Learning Community
Advanced Humanities and Social Sciences Program
Winter Quarter 1999; 16 hours credit
This was a program of exploration and discovery. Our goal was to understand the world of the earliest humans and to
ponder the achievements of all of our ancestors through reading texts of bone, stone, paint, metals and ancient
cities. Our major activity was research. Our search utilized the tools of human evolution, archaeology, anthropology,
art history, and cosmology. This work involved research, careful interpretation of evidence and speculative reasoning.
Activities were lectures, seminars, image workshops, field trips, and library research. Central to these were
reading, writing and discussion. Seminars were the core of our learning community and the chief means of
exploring the ideas of the group.
Books read:
W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults;
L. Cavalli-Sforza, Great Human Diaspora; History of Diversity and Evolution;
C. J. Lumsden & E. 0. Wilson, Promethean Fire
J. Lester, Writing Research Papers;
S. Mithen, Prehistory of the Mind;
C. Renfrew & P. Bahn, Archaeology:Theories, Methods and Practices;
W. I. Thompson, Coming Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Conscience.
We made heavy use of library research materials in journals, archives, non-standard resources and the slide library
for images.
There were two types of writing: image response (speculative writing) and expository research writing. Each student
wrote two separate research papers; first of three to five pages, the second of eight to twelve pages complete with
citations and bibliographies. A complete copy of each paper was distributed to members of the seminar for reading
and criticism. Each paper was presented to the seminar for discussion along with a panel of other similar topics.
Each student was given twenty minutes to discuss the paper with the seminar and each member of the seminar
wrote critical comments to all papers.
Each student participated in image response writing and drawing while viewing slide images and artifacts. In these
sessions students strived to describe, analyze, interpret and understand a prehistoric artifact. In image response
writing the students develop skills in close observation, careful analysis, and creative and logical thinking.
Faculty: Gordon Beck, Emeritus Professor or Art History and Archaeology is an art historian, student of prehistory
and European civilization. He has degrees from Bowling Green State U., Western Reserve U., a Ph. D. from the U. of
Illinois; and postdoctoral study in art history at the Cini Foundation, Venice, Italy. He has taught program in Austria,
England, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia on art and classical archaeology for Evergreen for
twenty-one years. This is his forty-fifth year of college teaching.