03042018 Flashcards
Extra opportunities
- Visit the James B. Petersen Memorial Gallery of Native American Cultures @Fleming Museum on campus
> Send email + briefly reflect (approx. 2 paragraphs) on what you learned, relating your learning experience to archaeology and the course - Following the instructions for our 1st assignment, choose a new article from the Journal of Archaeological Science, any from RECENT volumes 91-93 (March 2018-May 2018)
- 2-3 puts to total points for the course for completing 1 of these extra opportunities (4-6pts if do both)
Poverty Point, Louisiana
- Near the Gulf of Mexico
- Things moving in down from the north
1. Concentric circles Mound A (monumental architecture)
> Take more than a generation to build
> Social organization, collective effort by the coordinated groups
> More hierarchical society
2. Borrow Pits, Ridges
Soil Micromorphology
- Look at how the sediment built up by examining profile of the soil
> Stable + long enough for the development before another layer came in?
Poverty Point Mound A
By soil
- Construction sequence of the Mound A platform: show images from the South Profile excavation
> Submound Ab: a ground surface that is stable + preconstruction ground surface
- 238,500 m^3 of mound fill!
- Intentionally mixed together in thematic loads (from 100-400m away) before being deposited in a systematic modular fashion.
- Carefully selected from specific deposits that are not uniformly distributed across the Macon Ridge
> Purpose, system, exponential mind to build it
- Mound A constructed in an estimated 30-90 days. Calculations on volume an d5 hour work days suggest 91,000 person days of labor, or 1,000-3,000 people working for 30-90days!
> Done very quickly
Indian Knoll, Green River, Kentucky
- Northeast from the Poverty Point
- Excavate with axes (NOT good excavation)
> If in modern time: preserved the site instead - A lot of diff deposit (up to 8ft deep): artifacts
> musical instruments, shell forgets, beads, - Men, women and children burials
> Show social status (associated artifacts, exotic items in the burial)
> NOT in children/young adults - Trade materials from far away
Indian Knoll Bannerstones
- Bannerstones made by exotic materials
- Wings of spear throwing
*** Late Archaic period, ca. 6,000-3,000BP
- Population increase. Evidenced by increase in sites
- Cemeteries show further development of territories. Warfare evidenced by traumatic injuries
> Trade of exchanges: lessen the tension, funding the prestiges, diplomacy - Artifact styles show local and regional cultural affiliations
> Broader - Huge increase in trade and exchange
> Why? (Determined by environmental context)
> Engage different cultural groups, political in some ways - Signs of status “differentiation” (hierarchy)
- Evidence from the burials - Beginnings of plant domestication and “horticulture” or gardens (as opposed to full blown “crops”)
> Gardens: people coming back routinely to manipulate it
***Time line
- Upper Paleolithic ends with end of the Pleistocene epoch
> Last glacial; megafauna extinctions; timing varies depending on where (~15kya) - Mesolithic begins at end of Upper Paleolithic and beginning of the Holocene epoch and ends with beginning of Neolithic
- Neolithic begins with the advent of agriculture
*** Significant environmental changes during the Mesolithic
Including:
1. Rise in sea-level
2. Warming episode - by 8,000BP Europe reached present temperatures
3. Changes in forest and distribution of trees/plants. Pleistocene grasslands replaced. Northern Europe = coniferous; Southern Europe = mixed coniferous/deciduous
4. Megafauna disappear (more likely due to climatic effect)
5. Reindeer move northward, out of Europe
> Ppl moving with them = adapting to the new environment
6. Replaced by forest animals including: deer, wild cattle, wild pigs, ibex
*** In Mesolithic get
- Shift in tool tech, continuation of Upper Paleolithic trends
> i.e. trend toward smaller, more specialized tools
> Continued trend toward — microlithic tools —— composite, inset tools
> Inset tools: handle with multiple pieces of flakes/blades - Shift in population densities and distribution
- Actually lower population densities than in Upper Paleolithic
- Formerly open areas now forested
- Little edible biomass in boreal forest
- Resources smaller, more dispersed
> Dispersed resources = dispersed people - Major shift in diet: called “broad spectrum revolution” in 60s
> Shift from big game to greater depend on wild plant resources (a necessary precursor to agriculture)
- Not really a revolution at all (gradual)
> Adaptation to environmental changes
- People already had broad diets in Upper Paleolithic
- While changes in resources and diet, NO difference in organizational principals of subsistence strategies
** Resources changed (from Concentrated to Dispersed)
> So diet changed, but strategies remained the same ***
Mesolithic “ends” with appearance of agriculture
- Timing = different in different regions
> NOT a guarantee about adoption of agriculture - Once thought that people would automatically adopt agriculture. WHy wouldn’t they?
- Called the “Wave of Advance Model” that hypothesized that you could chart the transition to Neolithic and farming starting with the Origin point and radiating outward
> Similar to wave caused by a pebble (takes time to see the effects) - Some cultural sequences disprove model
> Agriculture around them, but they maintained Mesolithic way of life
> e.g. Vedbaek (Vay-Bek) near Copenhagen in Denmark, heavy reliance on marine resources, no need for agriculture
***** Fertile “crescent”
- Most productive area in the world
- Political unrest destroy the cultural assets
- Name: Agricultural potential
- Mountains in the region: Jericho, Abu Hureyra, Shanidar
Near East Chronology
Dry and not as cold / 9,600 / PPNB
10,000 ————————/10,500/ PPNA
Warm and moist (forest expands) / late Natufian
12,500 ————————/12,500 early Natufian
Cold, dry stepped desert
14,000 ————————
Warm and moist / 15,000 geo. Kabaran
17,000 ————————
Cold and dry
20,000
* Abrupt shift at 12,500 from mobile to sedentary villages in Levantine area now Israel, Lebanon and Jordan - area on the eastern Mediterranean at foothills of mtns
Area diverse environmentally by topography - get different habitats in mountains, river, and sea
Four main geographical units:
- Coastal plain - springs, good soils
- Hill zone - most diverse - rich tree forest, clay soils; warm dry summer, wet cool winters
- Levantine rift - area east of hills include Dead Sea; real dry; some wild cereals
- Jordanian plateau - rocky desert, little rain; lots of gazelle, wild sheep, pigs
Natufian, 12,500-10,500BP
- “Vertical” economy
> Warmer climate allowed important plants to grow in more varied environments/altitudes (move 1 elevation each time based of the timing)
> e.g. wild emmer wheat, wild barley, wild legumes like lentils - Semi-subterranean, round houses. Storage facilities
- Partial plan of Level I @Ain Mallaha, Israel
> Circular in shape Hearth, pestle, bin (?)
- Hut foundations @Nahal Oren, Israel
> Slope, curving - Stone sickles
> e.g. inset: stone sickles from Ali Kosh, Iran and dynastic Egypt
> Adaptation to harvest grains - Hunted wild gazelle, wild pig, wild horse, cattle
> Maintain some of the previous subsistence strategies
> BUT @transitional period
