Tuesday, 2 April 2013


I could not for the life of me think of a final blog. So I decided to Google the title of the class 'Archaeology of Death' and see what popped up. The screen above is the result of my search. I decided that I will go through the first three websites and critique them to the best of my abilities. I will also attempt to determine whether they are relevant or pointless reguarding the subject matter that I have searched, as they are the first things to pop up.

1. Archaeology of Death MA Postgraduate - Courses - University of Central Lancashire
This is a website made by the University of Central Lancashire providing information on their MA course in the Archaeology of Death and how to apply. My critique of this being the first website is that it does not inform on the subject I have inquired after. I did not search any of the following words; 'MA,' 'university,' 'postgraduate,' 'learn,' 'school,' 'program,' etc. This should have not been the first result of my search. I would have liked it to be something informative, descriptive or defining. Anyway on to the next.

2. Category: Archaeology of Death - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As it mentions in the title this is a 'category' within Wikipedia that supply links to several pages of specific cases of 'archaeology of death' and is not in itself a page. The best way I can put it is that this is a gateway search that directs people to specific cased of death in archaeology such as: bog bodies of Northern Europe, cheddar man, fire mummies, jade burial suit, wulfsen horse burial etc. Useful information could be derived out of this search if you want an idea of the topics that fall within this category. It is also drilled into undergrads that Wikipedia is not an academic source and thus should not be bothered to even be looked upon. My correction to that statement however is that though Wikipedia is not an academic source they do cite some of their information. Thus the references can be used as they are usually academic, that is if you can find them. The UVic library for seeming to have so many books is not as stocked as it may seem when searching for specific sources. Overall I'd say this was a decent result better than the first but still not what I'm looking for so early on in my search.

3. The Archaeology of Death and Burial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.        
The third search (especially in regards to this class) is extremely relevant. It is a Wiki page that summarizes and breaks down Pearson's The Archaeology of Death and Burial the very textbook used in our class. It explains he explains all the approaches used to study the subject; his preferred method is post-processual, but he also explores social anthropology and processual archaeology. For people searching on Google who are not in this course this page gives them a good source to start of their research or further their knowledge as it encompasses a great deal within the subject. I would say this along with the second result were much more valuable than the first for this particular search. However I would have still preferred a definition or a small symmetrization on what the subject actually is which was highly lacking in these results. All in all I must say that I was underwhelmed by this search.     













No comments:

Post a Comment