Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries with Archeologist Dr. Andrew Martin
“I love the opportunity here at Principia to deeply explore different disciplines and help students gain insights. Many advances in academics are made this way.”
Dr. Andrew Martin joined the College faculty in fall 2014, bringing with him a remarkable range of teaching and research experience. He holds a PhD in archaeology and a master’s in museum studies from Cambridge University in England. Interestingly, his doctoral research was on the Illinois Hopewell, the ancient Native American people who lived along the Mississippi River bluffs near the College.
Martin’s recent book, Archaeology beyond Postmodernity: A Science of the Social, addresses problems with current concepts of prehistoric religion, using Native American and other indigenous accounts of religious practices to show how premodern religion was probably more of a science for prehistoric people—a way of describing the natural world so that they could predict and control it. The book further explores issues in modern concepts of religion, methods for studying the past, and even contemporary foreign policy in the context of religion.
Having taken part in eight archaeological excavations on three continents and worked in museums in the United States and England, Martin enjoys getting students out of the classroom and into the field where they can see prehistory for themselves. While teaching Introduction to Archaeology, for example, he took students upriver to Kampsville to see a Native American excavation site and artifacts from approximately 7,000 years ago.
“I’ve never been too happy with the divisions between academic disciplines, largely because many of these divisions are artificial,” Martin says. “I love the opportunity here at Principia to deeply explore different disciplines and help students gain insights. Many advances in academics are made this way.”
This is an abridged version of an article that appeared in the Winter 2015 edition of the Principia Purpose.