ANT 225 - African Prehistory

Contact Information

Timothy Lynch Research and Instructional Services Librarian tlynch@usm.maine.edu (207) 780-5156/ 780-5344

Introduction

This library course guide is to be used with Dinah Crader's ANT 225 African Prehistory class. Resources and Databases will lead students to information on the Continent of Africa during the Iron Age--its seven regions, precolonial civilizations, and archaeological sites.

Services

Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad)
How to get books, journal articles and other materials from off campus.

Reserve Items
Items that are required for class and are set aside by the instructor in either print or electronic form.

Reference Books

Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara
GOR Reference DT 351 .E53 1997

Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa
GOR Reference DT 2 .E53 1997

Encyclopedia of Prehistory
GOR Reference GN 710 .E53

Databases

URSUS (University of Maine System Catalog)

Academic Search Premier ===== INFO

Anthropological Index of the Royal Anthropological Institute ===== INFO

AnthroSource ===== INFO

IngentaConnect ===== INFO

Sociological Abstracts =====INFO

Research Tips

The University of Southern Maine uses the Library of Congress classification. Books in anthopology and archeology are cataloged in the G section of the library. Browsing the stacks is one way to find information you are looking for.

Finding Books

Another way is to use URSUS our catalog. Use the AND, OR, NOT operators to perform your search. The previous link is from the University of Utah. Note also the example below:

Basic Search Strategy:

Searching Using AND and OR:

1. State your topic in one sentence. (Ex. I'm looking for information about Iron Age human settlements in the Horn of Africa)
2. Separate important terms. (Ex. Iron Age AND settlements AND Africa AND horn)
3. Did you find enough information? If not continue. . . .
4. Add IMPORTANT synonyms and related terms that you would find in the professional literature. (Iron Age or prehistory) AND (settlements or humans) AND (Horn or Somalia or Ethiopia)
5. Truncate terms to get plural as well as singular form.
   Ex. (Iron Age or prehistory) AND (settlement* OR human*) and (Horn or Somali* OR Ethiopia*)

Note these Keywords are an excellent start but they may not encompass all the possible combinations or terms you need to find your research. Always allow for changes, substitutions and other tweaking--and remember to ask the librarian for help if you need it.

Finding Journal Articles

Journal articles from the databases above are researched the same way. But once you find a citation what do you do next?? Note the Finding Articles at USM link for information about obtaining journal articles.

Another feature of finding articles at USM is Article Linker . This button allows access to a number of access possibilities from finding out about electronic access of an article to whether an item is in URSUS to direct connections to Interlibrary Loan. Check out the demo on Article Linker!

Created by: Tim Lynch
Created on: 10.19.2006
Last Updated: 10.25.2006