Dear Andy
I can recommend John Hather's book - Hather, J G, 2000. The Identification
of Northern European Woods; A Guide for Archaeologists and Conservators,
London, Archetype Publications.
It has an excellent key at the beginning which goes through logical steps
to specific groupings of similar structures. Along the way it also has helpful
tables to distinguish genera that are easily confused. Of course it only
deals with North European species, but would be useful for gaining the basic
skills.
When I am training someone in wood identification, I find that asking them
to create their own mini id key (e.g. how to separate the Betulaceae or the
ring porous species) and/or to draw the anatomy in all 3 planes is effective.
(Admittedly, this tends to be on a one to one basis, rather than 28 students!).
Dana
>-- Original Message --
>Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:28:49 +1000
>Reply-To: The archaeobotany mailing list <[log in to unmask]>,
> Andrew Fairbairn <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Andrew Fairbairn <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Mark Nesbitt's seed key and teaching
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>Dear list
>
>I have just completed (thankfully) our science in archaeology course, which
>
>I have modified to include some introductory archaeobotany practical
>classes. I thought I'd share an experience of teaching novice undergrads
>
>using Mark Nesbitt's excellent new Near Eastern seed key.
>
>Archaeobotany is very new here and I realised that I was dealing with
>undergrads who were totally unprepared for any lab work. Fortunately for
>
>me, I just received my copy of Mark's key and thought I'd use it to
>introduce a) the idea of using keys and also b) to explain the basics of
>
>identifying seeds. To cut a long story short, I designed a table of
>identification characters used in the key, filling in those that were too
>
>difficult for a novice to determine. This left 7 characters to identify
>using the microscope. The characters were explained in a lab notebook I
>provided for the students, cross-referring to the Nesbitt text and its
>detailed figures. The characters were then used to work through the
>polyclave key. I chose Taeniatherum caput medusae, as a large-seeded grass
>
>that I had specimens of from one of my Turkish sites.
>
>Amazingly, out of a class of 28, 25 people got the identification correct
>
>and two others got the identification wrong for the right reason (i.e.
>identified the wrong character but followed the key correctly to a logical
>
>endpoint). Only one person failed dismally. The exercise was very useful
>as
>it gave the students a taste of what we do and introduced the idea of
>systematic and well-reasoned identifications. It was also a good trial run
>
>of the key. Most students found the polyclave structure very useful, as
>they could work out exactly what they had done wrong, or at least narrow
>
>down the possibilities. So it was a great teaching medium as well as a
>research tool. I was very surprised at the outcome, fearing abject failure
>
>and a counter-productive, morale -destroying exercise.
>
>I'd be interested to know if anyone else has tips on some useful texts and
>
>exercises for introductory archaeobotany teaching, especially for wood
>charcoal.
>
>Andy
>
>
>
>ENGLAND FOR THE CUP!!!!
>
>Dr Andrew Fairbairn
>Lecturer in Archaeology,
>School of Social Sciences,
>Michie Building,
>The University of Queensland,
>QLD 4072,
>Australia
>
>Tel: +61 (0)7 3365 2780
>Fax: +61 (0)7 3365 1544
>http://www.ansoc.uq.edu.au/
>
>Associate Editor
>Vegetation History & Archaeobotany:
>http://www.springer.com/west/home?SGWID=4-102-70-1103691-detailsPage=journal|description|description
>
>**Unless stated otherwise, this e-mail represents only the views of the
>Sender and not the views of The University of Queensland**
----------------------------------------------
Dana Challinor MA (Oxon), MSc
Freelance Charcoal Specialist
___________________________________________________________
Tiscali Broadband from 14.99 with free setup!
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadband/
|
