Anthro Final Flashcards
Chiefdoms
multi-village territorial units with a centralized decision-making chief oriented group
Tikal, Lowland Guatemala
- part of Mayan empire
- area of lowland, densely-forest Mayan temples and civilization
- featured stelae (stone carvings) with engravements
San José Mogote in Oaxaca, Mexico
- part of Aztec empire at one point
- first pottery using village in the Valley of Oaxaca
- permanent wattle-and-daub style houses with grain storage rooms, then sodality houses, then complex temple
- first occupied 3.4kya
- complex temple burnt down
Teotihuacan
- first generation state in Central Mexico (Aztec)
- 100k+ residents, many pyramids, big city!
- peaked in 1400s-1500s as largest city in Americas
- lots of violence: 2,000 sacrificed at one temple, Street of Dead with lots of pyramids burned down
Moche, Peru
- important for Inca Empire (1200s-1500s)
- state organization starting 350 BCE in Peru
- controlled much of Pacific coast
- big city with urban housing districts, plazas, storehouses, workshops, large monuments
- largest “pyramid” – “Huaca del Sol” – and fancy grave inside
Mesoamerican and South American States
- appear to have developed in the context of interacting (competitive) polities: “chiefdoms”
- supported by agricultural economies
State def.
a governmental entity that persists by politically controlling a territory
Chaco Canyon
- key site of Southwestern US constructed 1050-1100 CE
- “Great Houses” several hundred rooms each
- abruptly abandoned
Ohio Valley Adena & Hopewell
- key site of Early to Middle Woodland period (1000 BCE to 200 CE)
- egalitarian-ish social organization
- dispersed communities of forager-farmers
Cahokia, Illinois
- key site from 1100 CE
- 10k population, one of earlier urban sites worldwide
- huge urbanized mound serving as cultural center (800,000 ft2 tall)
- the beginnings of Mississippian culture
Mississippian period & “culture”
- 1000s - 1500s
- sedentary, large villages and towns, some hunting-gathering
- maize was big deal
- chiefdom system came into play
- Cahokia, Illinois big deal
Anthropocene
proposed new geological epoch marked by global influence
Debate about Anthropocene
it is hard to pinpoint exactly when it started: Agriculture (8kya)? Industrial Revolution (1800s)? Nuclear Age (1940s/1950s)?
Fossil Fuel Society
- began with 3rd century Egyptians burning wood to make steam
- hundreds of thousands of kilocalories of energy produced daily in some Western nations
- Fossil Fuels are a new human method of energy capture
Empire
large states with heterogeneous ethnic & cultural compositions formed through conquest/coercion to extract wealth (food, resources, human labor)
Complex societies
- Big populations, high density
- Permanent & sedentary towns & cities
- Civic organizations (politics, economy, religion)
- Complex social stratification: social classes, specialist occupations, control and extraction of produce
Cultural Evolution
when new forms of social or sociopolitical organizations appear (idea of Lewis Henry Morgan)
Lewis Henry Morgan
- cultural evolution (when new forms of social or sociopolitical organizations appear)
- savagery (food from wild resources) –> barbarism (sedentary agriculture) –> civilization (urban/state – civic society)
Vere Gordon Childe
- materialist & marxist thinker
- idea that prehistoric changes were on par with recent changes (one couldn’t have happened without effects by earlier social, technological and productive changes)
Social Evolution
idea that prehistoric changes were on par with recent changes (one couldn’t have happened without effects by earlier social, technological and productive changes) (as elaborated by Vere Gordon Chile)
Elman Service
Defined types of societies with more emphasis on political organization
band –> tribe –> chiefdom –> state
1st - Neolithic revolution
switch from hunter-gatherering to farming
2nd - Neolithic revolution
switch from farming to states and cities (Urban Revolution)
Mesopotamia key aspects
- Began 7,000 BCE as small farming communities
- Fertile fields and wide, barren plains
- Seasonal rains and mountain streams
- Timber, stone, and metals
- Major rivers for urban-sponsored irrigation
- Minimal natural mineral resources
Ubaid Period
- Mesopotamian era 5,900 - 4,200 BCE
- Cereal cultivation and small scale farming
- Temples as institutions of community focus,
used for pilgrimages, religious rites, royal patronage, AND economic functions
Uruk Period
- Mesopotamian era 4,200 - 3,000 BCE
- People lived in urban and literate communities
- major urbanizing centers (world’s first cities) based on surplus agriculture and temple management
- Surplus in cereals, flour, fish, wool & textiles
Ziggurat
a rectangular stepped tower, often surmounted by a temple, common later in the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia
Uruk city
- First city in the world
- Founded during Uruk Mesopotamian era in 3,500 BCE
- Had large scale temples with homes for religious officials, craft production areas, stone & metal working houses
Early Dynastic Period
- Mesopotamian era 2900 to 2350 BCE
- Warfare highly important, leading to the rise and fall of several successive polities
- Heavy focus on the military
- Development of military and macro-states
Ur
- Major late military, political, & economic rival of Uruk
- Bible states Ur as the birthplace of Abraham
- Renowned for its cemetery with 2500 simple burials
Writing system
- 5,000 clay tablets excavated in Uruk
- Pictographic symbols, plus numbers and time related signs
- Cuneiform writing system for about 3,000 years
- Tablets talk about administration, showing scenes of control, order and hierarchy
- Sumerian Kings List
Liangzhu site
- Neolithic Era 5,500-3,900 BCE
- Earliest major walled settlement
- Thick ahh walls, moats and canals
- Along Yellow River in China
Taosi site
- 4,100 - 4,000 BCE
- Longshan culture developed along the Yellow river
- THEY DESTROYED TS Sacked and razed, wall destroyed, burials desecrated, mutilated skeletons
Erlitou
- Part of urban, Dynastic era of 4,000-1,500 BCE
- Part of Xin dynasty
- Resources traded from Indian Ocean
- Miillet and rice farmed
- Pigs, cattle, sheep raised
- Existed along Yellow River in China
Zhengzhou and Anyang cities
- Part of Shang Dynasty (first one with writing in China_
- Dogs and humans sacrificed
- State buildings constructed
- Rulers buried elaborately
Cultivars
Wild plants fostered/managed by human efforts to make them more productive
Management
Manipulation and some degree of control of a wild species. Activities can be defined as any technique that may propagate or protect a species, reduces competition for a species, insures the appearance of a species at a particular time or place, modifies the range and/or distribution of a species, etc.
Cultivation
intentional preparation of the soil for planting wild or domesticated plants
Domestication
A state of interdependence between humans and selected plant or animal species. Intense selection activity can induce permanent genetic change in the plant or animal population under selection
Cultigen
A plant that is dependent on humans; a domesticate
Agriculture
Cultural activities associated with planting, herding, and processing domesticated species; farming. A wholesale change toward a new cultural system
“Big five” domesticated mammals
cow, sheep, pigs, goats, and horse
Main New World Domesticated animals
llama and guinea pig
6 traits that made animals susceptible to domestication
- Easily supplied diet by humans
- Fast growth rate and short birth spacing
- Calm disposition
- Willingness to breed in captivity
- Willingness to follow the leader dominance hierarchies
- Calm in enclosures or when faced with predators
Evolution (biological) defintion
a change in the relative frequencies of alleles (specific forms of genes) in a breeding population through time (or from generation to generation)
Major societal groupings throughout history
Foraging, faming and fossil-fuel
First domesticators
Natufian villages of 40-150 people 12,500 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean
Broad Spectrum Revolution
- likely occurred due to changing environments
- diverse cultural adaptation
- wider range of food and plant species we ate
- human population growth
- setting: one of open woodlands & grasslands
Hunter-gatherer energy production
5,000 kilocalories per day
Holocene
Geological epoch in which we live now, which began 11,700 years ago
Hunter-Gatherers
- Small populations, less dense grouping
- Very mobile (seasonal range)
- Little investment in shelters or storage features
- Gathering a diverse range of plants
- Targeting of smaller mammals, birds, fish, shellfish, repetitive
- Kinship main organizing force
- Social status based on age, gender, achievements etc.
Holocene specific:
- Broad Spectrum of resources used
- Specialization of labor
- Cultural adaptation
Collectors
- Large population size
- Division of labor (specialization)
- Less mobile (small task groups sent out to collect resources)
- Greater investments in shelters & store facilities
Average farming society energy produced
10,000-30,000 kilocalories per day
Ohalo II
- Important hunter-gatherer site in Israel from 19,000 BCE
- Encampment with simple structures
- Exploiting wild emmer, barley, pistachio, grape, olives - - Upper Paleolithic blade toolkit, plus “bowls” and pestles
Guila Naquitz
- Stratified dry cave site in Mexico
- High seasonal variability: subsistence strategies influenced settlement systems
- Dry season was more forager (highly mobile exploiting scarce resources), wet season more collector (groups of families sticking together)
Fertile Crescent
Southwest Asian site of the first forms of domestication of plants and animals; Agriculture/farming
Natural Selection
Based on concept of ‘selective breeding’ - selection of certain beneficial traits so they will be emphasized in offspring
Natufian Culture
- 13,000-9,000 BCE in Eastern Mediterranean
- More and larger (up to 5x) sites
- Population increase
- Permanent settlements, storing cereals in storage pits
- Sickle blades to cut cereal stems
- Floated between hunter-gatherer and farmer
- Some lived in caves some lived in huts
- Very complex burials, use of animals bones
- Ate gazelle, snakes, lizards, tortoise and birds
Ain Mallaha
- Natufian village: one of the earliest villages in the world! (13,000-9,000 BCE)
- Round houses, with stone foundations and hearths
- Up to 200-300 residents in village
- Collective burials placed in floors of houses
Abu Hureyra
- Natufian village long occupied (13,000-9,000 BCE)
- Gathering & possibly cultivation of “wild” plants, hunting of wild animals like gazelle
- Farming of domesticated plants, later herding of sheep & goats, then pigs and cattle
- Circular huts, like Ain Mallaha
- Small village, 100-200 people
- Shift from circular to rectangular houses
Stratified Tell
mound composed of mud brick and refuse, accumulating over generations as buildings were built, demolished, rebuilt etc. thus mounding up over centuries and millennia
Early Indus Valley Settlements
- Small, rectangular houses made of mud brick
- Social differentiation based on one’s profession
- Artistic depictions of figurines, sculptures, bone carvings, pottery, animals!
- Seals to officiate things
Plant Domestication in Mesopotamia
Wheat and barley 10,000 BCE
Plant Domestication in China
Rice, foxtail, broomcorn in 8,000 BCE
Plant Domestication in North America
Maize, corn, beans, pepo squash, sunflower, marsh elder, chenopod between 10,000 and 4,000 BCE (pepo squash first)
Plant Domestication in South America
Potatoes, quinoa, cotton, yams, peppers, arrowroot between 8,000 and 5,000 BCE
Plant Domestication in Indonesia
Bananas, yams, taro in 7,000 BCE
Plant Domestication in Africa
African rice, pearl millet, and sorghum between 4,000 and 2,000 BCE
Traits of animal domestication
- Animal species outside natural range (herding)
- Morphological changes
- Abrupt population increase
Pleistocene-Holocene transition
- Began 11.7kya
- Cultural diversification due to rapid climate change (less ice, more grasslands
Pleistocene-Holocene cultural periods
Paleolithic in Europe
Archaic in Americas
Epipaleolithic in Asia
Later Stone Age in Africa
Last Glacial Maximum
- 28,000-15,000 yrs ago
- Due to maximum extent of ice sheets, worldwide sea levels dropped 400 feet
- The Bering Land Bridge connecting Asia and Alaska
- Cold & dry grasslands with some shrubs
The first people to travel to America
- Came 30,000 to 12,000 years ago via Bering Land Straight
- Communities of mobile hunter-gatherers/foragers
- Small bands of families (15-35 individuals)
- Several waves of migrations
Clovis Stone Tool Industry
- 13,500 - 12,800 years ago
- Large fluted spear points
- Used by early Native Americans to hunt megafauna
Migration Hypothesis #1
- Bering Land Bridge + Ice-Free Corridor Route
- Go through central Alaska and travel through central Canada
Migration Hypothesis #2
- North Pacific Coast Route
- More likely
- Populations of hunter- gatherer-fishers from Northeast Asia/Siberia moved into the Americas by traveling down the ice- free Pacific coastline
Monte Verde, Chile
- Up to 12 temporary tent-structures with wood frames and hide walls
- Large round structure with a patio and sand/gravel foundation
- 20-30 people
White Sands, New Mexico
- 21-23 kya (oldest dated site in Americas)
- Collections of pollen and small seeds
Paisley Caves, Oregon
- 14.5 kya
- Pre-Clovis
Santa Rosa Island, SoCal
Island-coastal adapted cultures by 13,000+ years ago
Pre-Clovis
There is now good evidence for earlier arrival of “pre-Clovis” Native Americans
Diuktai Cave, Siberia
Pre-Colvis site 16.8kya with diverse tool kit
Types of evidence used for Clovis and pre-Clovis
Human footprints, tools, settlements evidenced by radiocarbon dating
Post Last Glacial Maxim
- Started 15kya
- Canadian Ice sheet over Canada shrinks
- By 13 kya, the ice-free corridor was habitable by human groups
- Expanded forest tundra and grasslands in North America
Behaviorally modern humans
- Anatomically, people started looking like us 300kya
- Culture (learned behavior) 50kya
Mousterian Tool Industry
- Middle Paleolithic, 250-40 kya
- Scrapers, backed knives and sharper points
Tool Timeline
Oldawan, Achedean, Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic
Upper Paleolithic Tool Industry
- Post 50kya
- Retouched blades, bladelins/microlith stone tools, cores
- Bone needle to sew clothes
African Middle Stone Age
- 280-50kya
- Stone points used in spears, found in South Africa cave
- Bone harpoons
Flake
a type of stone tool that was used during the Stone Age that was created by striking a flake from a prepared stone core
Fluting
process of striking the base of the blade towards the tip
Denisovans
- Distant cousins of modern humans, found in Asia
- Much genetically closer to Neanderthals
- Lived 50-200kya all over Eurasia
- Genetic adaptation to high altitude in the Ethiopian highlands
Morphology of early anatomically modern humans
- No retromolar space
- Chin
- Small nose
- Canine fossa
- Vertical forehead
- Smaller browridges
- Smaller face
- Rounded occipital
Homo luzonensis
- Fossils found in Callao Cave, Luzon in the Philippines
- Older than 50kya
- Mix of australopith-like and modern-like traits
- Short stature
Upper Paleolithic Material Culture/Symbolic Behavior: “the full package”
- Started by Upper Paleolithic humans 50kya
- Abstract & realistic art incases and body decoration
- Carved figurines
- Beads made of ostrich eggshell, bones/ivory/teeth
- Musical instruments (bone pipes, flutes etc.)
- Practiced ritual burials
- Ex. Siberian site of Sungir, with jewelry, tools & sculpture found in burial site (dated to 15kya)
Plus practical stuff:
- Microlithic stone tools (especially blades and burins)
- Grinding and pounding stone tools
- Improved hunting and trapping tools (spear throwers, bow and arrows, boomerangs, nets etc.)
- Increase in long distance transfer of raw materials
AMH vs Neandertals: subistinence and material culture
- Modern human & Neanderthal DNA 99.5-99.99% identical
- AMHs exploited more prey types
- We have more complex shelters (mammoth bone hut)
- Evidence of sewn clothes
Demographers have calculated the minimal # of individuals needed to create & maintain a viable breeding population and gene pool and that number isssssss……
500
Jebel Irhoud
- One of the earliest Homo sapiens sites
- Lived in Morocco 300kya
Skhul
Site in Israel of 10 AMHs from 130-100kya with deliberate burials
Qafzeh
Site in Israel of 14 AMHs from 120-90kya with deliberate burials
African replacement (Out-of-Africa II)/Assimilation Hypothesis
- Theory that modern homo sapiens evolved in African and then expanded out, also breeding with archaic homo species outside Africa
- Evidenced by Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes
- Neanderthals and AMH split about 600kya
Multiregional Evolution
- Theory that modern homo sapiens migrated out of Africa and then evolved simultaneously but separately with some gene flow between populations
- Neanderthals and AMH split about 600kya
Homo naledi
- Hominim species found in Rising Star Cave, South Africa (15 individuals)
- 236-335 kya
- Some homo features: humanesque skull, versatile hands, long legs and humanesque feet
- Some austrolopith features: small brain, primitive shoulders, flared pelvis and curved fingers
Kebara
Israeli site from 60kya with evidence of symbolic burial
La Chappelle-aux-Saints
French cave site with adult Neanderthal man withe evidence of deliberate burial with 60kya
La Ferrassie
Site of deliberately buried Neanderthal in France from 50kya
Neanderthal traits (just get gist)
- Adapted for cold
- Large brains
- Big noses: to warm air and take in a high volume of air
- Cranium circular from rear
- Thinner bones
- No saggital keel
- Receding frontal bone
- Mid-facial prognathism
- Occipital bun
- Heavily muscled
- Thicker limbs
- Barrel-shaped chest
- Bowed femora
- Weighed 30% > AMHs
- Limb proportions like modern Arctic people
Significant sites of Neanderthals
- La Chappelle-aux-Saints, France
- La Ferrassie, France
- Neander Valley, Germany
- Engis, Belgium
- Forbes’ Quarry, Gibraltar
Neanderthal Subsistence strategy
- Successful big-game hunters: horses, mammoths, deer, bison, elephants, etc.
- Attacked from close-range with spears
– “Rodeo rider” type head & neck injuries - Also gathered plants where and when available, processed & cooked them
- Some use of aquatic resources (shellfish, crab, etc.)
Neanderthal Material and Living Culture
- Necklace made from perforated teeth, ivory and eagle talons
- Pigments for art? (potential use of materials for symbolic/artistic purposes)
- Mousterian tools
- Used tar as glue maybe
- Lived in caves with hearths (controlled use of fire)
Microliths
small and precise stone tools
Island Dwarfism (insular)
idea that small islands lead to small animals getting larger and large animals getting small due to resource availability
Kabwe
- 125-600 thousand year old Homo heidelbergensis skull found in Zimbabwe
- Mix of ancestral (H. erectus-like) traits & derived (H. sapiens-like) traits
Bodo
- 600 thousand year old Homo heidelbergensis skull found in Ethiopia
- More primitive than Kabwe (higher facial prognathicism, slight sagittal keel, flat & receding forehead (like Kabwe), thick, but not continuous supraorbital torus)
Sima de los Huesos
- Pit of Bones in Atapuerca, Spain from 500-400kya
- Homo antecessor
- Mix of features but lean more toward Neanderthal-like anatomy rather than an AMH
Middle Pleistocene Homo nicknames
Aka “archaic Homo sapiens” aka “The Muddle in the Middle”
Time period that Neanderthals and Denovians (last living ancestors of AMH) lived in
Middle Pleistocene 800-100kya
Homo antecessor
- Earliest hominins in Europe (1.2-0.8 mya)
- Found in Sima de los Huesos
- Animal bones with cutmarks (chopping the meat up?)
Homo cepranensis
Early hominin found in Italy (1.2-0.8 mya)
“Cerano Man”
Out-of-Africa I
- Homo Erectus leaves Africa 2-1.8 mya
- Likely increasing population and adapting to exploit different habitats
Middle Pleistocene Homo in Asia
Mix of homo Erectus features and AMH, more modern looking than in Europe
Zhoukoudian, China
Limestone cave system has homo erectus, “Peking Man” from 780 – 250 kya
Homo erectus morphology (get gist)
- Low forehead
- Big brain
- Long & low braincase
- Occipital crest
- Angular torus
- No chin
- Less facial prognathism
- Saggital keel
- Small teeth
- Large & continuos supraorbital torus
Homo erectus in Africa aka homo ergaster
- Found at Koobi Fora & West Turkana, Kenya & Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania & Drimolen and Swartkrans, South Africa
- Dates from 1.9-0.9 mya
- Turkana (Nariokotome) boy (1.6 million year old skull in West Turkana, Kenya)
Dmanisi, Georgia
- 1.7 million year old skull found
- Similar to African Homo erectus, but more ancestral traits
- Small brain and short
Homo erectus tools and material culture
- Tools lasted more than a million years
- More big game hunting: megafauna
- Biface handaxes
- Controlled use of fire (burnt wood and charred bones found)
Bifaces tools
stone-tools that are flaked on both sides, such as hand axes, picks & cleavers
Presence of homo in Indonesia
Homo erectus lived there 1.3-1.45 mya
- Got there via low sea levels during glacial periods opening Sunda Shelf between continental Asia and Java
Homo florensis/the hobbit lived here 100-60kya
- Had tiny brains, thick bones, no chin and was 3 feet tall
- Hunted wide range of animals like giant rat
