ARPA 335/435 History of Communications: an archaeological view

This new unit is a result of my thinking about issues broader than my previous involvement in language origins.  As a result of my research in to the origins of language (W. Noble & I. Davidson 1996 Human evolution, language and mind.  Cambridge University Press), I have become interested in the lessons from the history of communication as they may help us understand some of the forces that will influence the future of communications, including the expansion of communication in cyberspace.  The new unit to be taught for the first time in Semester 1 2003 is designed to be of interest not only to archaeology students but to anyone with a broader interest in historical topics, including heritage, or in communications.

A standard sequence of changes in human communication might include: pre-language; language; writing; printing; photography; telephony; cyberspace.  In this unit students will be expected to learn the basic outline of the history of these stages.  Each of the stages can be attested through the nature of the material evidence whatever other sources of evidence there are. Students will be expected to be able to put those changes and the material evidence into a more theoretical context through guided reading in several topic areas.

The main topic areas are:

  1. The principal changes in communication in the evolution and history of humans
  2. How have changes in communication affected the material manifestations of particular societies?
  3. The impact of changes in the means of transmission of information, including changing transport
  4. The processes involved in ensuring that communications in different media are or are not reliable

Issues I have been contemplating during my Study Leave are: 1) how important the marking of places, as in the sort of cave paintings seen at Chauvet Cave, might have been in communicating relationships to those places;

Photo 1: Iain Davidson looking at the 32 thousand year old Horse Panel in Chauvet Cave

 

2) what was the importance of monasteries in the reproduction of texts in the Middle Ages, and how did education happen before the advent of the printing press

Photo 2: Mediaeval Abbey at Rievaulx, north Yorkshire, England.

3) to what extent was the expansion of railways dependent on the availability of reliable signalling at a distance? 

There are hundreds of such issues, and students will have an opportunity to follow your interest in a particular period of history through the study of communications at that time.

As befits a unit on this topic, the whole unit will be taught on-line, including part of the assessment.

Students may enrol at 300 level who have completed 2 units at 200 level, but admission to 400 level is restricted to students enrolled in a postgraduate award.