Hi. I'm Larry Zimmerman. I'm a professor of anthropology at USD. I also happen to be an archaeologist, so I use anthropology all the time when I do archaeology.
Anthropology is the study of living peoples and everything they do. Archaeologists use information about modern people to help interpret what people of the past did and what their lives were like.
The most important method anthropologists use to study living people is called "participant observation." This means that you actually take part in the activity you see people doing at the same time that you make observations about it. You take notes while you do it, just like an archaeologist takes notes at a dig.
For your expert role activity, we are going to look at art. Sometimes in archaeology sites art is easy to see. People make paintings or sculptures. But some kinds of art can't be seen at all! Do you know what kind? Music, of course!
We are going to do two different activities. One will be to participate in making paintings using some of the same kinds of tools, paints, and methods that people used to make cave paintings nearly 40,000 years ago. Modern Australian Aborigines use the same methods. Another activity is to learn about a musical instrument used by Aborigines. It is called a didjeridoo. You will hear some stories about how the didjeridoo came to be. You'll get to hear how it is played and the different animal sounds it can make. You'll even get a chance to play one!
If you would like to see some cave paintings on the web, take a short trip to a cave in France. This one is in France, so it will take a little bit of time to come up onto your computer. When you get there, look at the different kinds of animals that were painted. Maybe you can paint some like them!
If you would like to learn more about the didjeridoo, find out what we know about them at Dreamtime: W3 Didjeridu Server. If you explore, there are even a few pictures of Australia and pictures of Aborigines playing didjeridoos.
See you soon! We are going to have some fun and you will learn a lot.