01022018 Flashcards
Symbolism, sport, and sustenance
- Ancient Maya hunting
- Sarah Neumann
Things to study
- Artifacts: tools, pots, etc.
- Body remains
- Architecture, trace
Zooarchaeology
- Animals in archaeology
- Interaction btw animals and human in the past
- e.g. domestic animals, hunting
> Symbolic meaning
Studies in zooarchaeology
Collect dead animal bodies / bones
1. Identification and quantification (e.g. use: teeth, bones > jewelry)
2. Contributions to and changes in ancient diet (Bronze age to Neolithic > Increase in sheep; becoz of technologies to raise sheep / climate change etc.)
3. Domestication
- Mouflon - ovis orientalis > wild;
sheep - ovis aries > domesticated species tends to be smaller
- Milk production (raising female for reproduction and milk production, killed when they stop producing);
kill-off pattern (male > female)
4. Bone tools, ornaments, and crafting technologies (>trade)
Research focus: Maya area sites
- Still many ppl living in Mexico: speak Maya, keep the traditions
- A particular ball game
- Mysterious “The Maya Collapse”
- Collapse and consumption
> Relative abundance of white-tailed deer remains at El Zotz over time
> High abundance at early classic
> Failing off (collapse) during late classic-terminal classic transition
> Start hunting other animals, e.g. rabbit, turtle (small body animals)
> Collapse changes the ways that ppl living
Optimal foraging
- Hunters (including humans) seek to max their hunting efficiency
- Always pursue the prey that offers the greatest caloric return
Topics to consider in the Maya
- Dealing with deer
- NOT hunted: exponential growth within 10 years
- Most stable @little hunting pressure - Slash-and-burn agriculture
- Quickly depleted > NOT sustainable
- BUT perfect habitats for the deer - Change in hunting styles
> Pre-collapse (classic) hunting = spear
VS post-collapse (postclassic) hunting = trap - Animals NOT only = nutrition > crafts
- Arts: Hunting = Power and pleasure (characters = males)
- Training for hunt (ball game + imitating hunting for practice)
- Training for war
- Animals and enemies (make human looks like deer before sacrifice)
- Other kinds of conquests
- Meat and more (e.g. ecological, political, and social impacts)
> Hunting = more than consuming proteins
Lecture
- Log school hse (continued)
***Depositional environments (continued)
- Non-depositional (e.g. lakeshore)
- Accretional (e.g. Rockshelter)
- Alluvial (e.g. floodplain)
- Eolian (i.e., windblown) > Mangolia
- Colluvial (e.g. mudslide)
- Volcanic
Abbr
- B.C. (Same as B.C.E) = Before Christ (Before common era)
- A.D. (Same as C.E.) = Anno domini - in the yr of our Lord (Common era)
- B.P. = Before present
- Eolian: Anguilla (site in Caribbean)
- Hurricane Irma 9/6/2017 > Damage on ppl, animals, vegetation, archaeological site
> Erosion, wind action on the land: Upper Shoal Bay East, Anguilla - Hurricane Luis 1995
- Layers: Bright sand soil (done by hurricane / storm) - dark soil - bright sand > separation of context (NOT happened in non-depositional)
- Colluvial
- Slope / slide > burial thgs as ppl do not have time to move
- e.g. Panabaj, Guatemala mudslide in 2005; Camarillo, California in 2014; Santa Catarina Penula, Guatemala in 2015,
- Volcanic
- Montserrat
- Surface collection before grass grows too long
- Wooden stakes to mark site
- Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat (still active)
> The site previously working on is now covered by liquified mud
- Easy to date volcanic activity > C14 dating - Scott’s Head, Dominica
- Knowing the composition, depth > find the burials