Anthropologie générale 6-9 Flashcards
What is the purpose of archaeology?
The purpose of archaeology is to discover the human past and learn how people of the past lived and understand through models and artifacts how and why human behavior has changed over time, So archaeologists study the human past and the evolution of culture.
Artifacts are the tools and objects that people have fashioned, used and left behind.
Why do archaeologists deal almost exclusively with Homo sapiens and almost never with earlier hominin species?
Homo sapiens, is the only homo specie who left behind symbolique and material culture.
What kind of field research methods do archaeologists use?
They use surveys and excavations, surveys can often be done from space ( GPS, plane exploration..) you can see shapes and you know if they are from nature or the result of human activity, they also use remote sensing to see if they indicate any human activities
What is an assemblage in archaeological terms?
assemblage is the set of artifacts and structures in a place (a site) at a particular time.
These are all objects found in excavations that go with a particular site or a particular geographical environment
What is a subsistence strategy? (also called a mode of subsistence)
The subsistence strategy is the way in which people ensured their survival.
Previously we had either food collectors (gatherers) or food producers who depended mainly on plants and pets.
Why do archaeologists and cultural anthropologists often need to collaborate?
Archeologists need cultural anthropologists, archeologist study people who are dead, and they can’t interview them or ask them questions, they must interpret the remains they have left, and in order to do that they may be need to compare them with societies are living today and that’s where cultural anthropologists come around.
what is a Band ?
Band: A small group of less than 50 members who move around, they don’t have animas along with them, they hunt and collect food so they are hunters and gatherers. They move a lot from place to place, family ties are not that important. In bands, they tend to be highly egalitarian. Most of homo eractus lived as a band.
what is a tribe ?
A farming or herding society, usually larger than a band, that relies on kinship as the framework for social and political life; provides relatively egalitarian social relations but may have a chief who has more prestige (but not more power or wealth) than others. Sometimes called a rank society.
what is a chiefdom ?
A socially stratified society, generally larger than a tribe, in which a chief and close relatives enjoy privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige and that has greater craft production but few full-time specialists.
what is a state ?
State: a highly stratified society, very structured, with a lot of specialties and classes, possesses specialized government institutions to administer services and collect taxes and tributes; monopolizes use of force with armies and police, like Morocco
what is an empire ?
Forms when one state conquers another. Existed in the past. Japan was an empire. Which of the 3 can study empires: cultural anthropologists study living, only the archeologists can because empire don’t exist no longer.
Both paleoanthropologists and archaeologists study bones. But only archaeologists face poignant ethical issues with regard to the bones and artifacts they study. Why is that?
Archaeologists use artifacts and the remains and expose them to museums, whereas this heritage belonged to populations that were dominated, and who must also benefit from the proceeds of these museums, Because it concerns an important and sensitive heritage of their culture that constitutes their identity.
Archaeologists work on bones that are culturally, socially and ethically close in a much more direct way to people who are still alive and can be their ancestors.
(1) How long ago did our ancesstors begin īo settle down, and where ?
they begin settling down around 12 000 years ago in South-west Asia and the middle east , that swhat we call the neolithic age
How long ago did our ancestors begin to settle down, and where ?
they begin settling down around 12 000 years ago in South-west Asia and the middle east , that swhat we call the neolithic age. they started in Africa then in south east Asia what we call now “la Mesopotamie”, the Levant ( la region de la jordanie, Irak turquie, aujourdhui ).
What is mutualism? And how does it help us understand domestication?
mutualism is a process win win between two species who needs each other for surviving without any planification part of equal system ex bees and flowers,
Domestication is a conscient human process who devlopp reproduction of another species more usefull for him and the domesticated species needs human to survive.
Why are domestication and sedentism closely related?
We have to be sedentism to have possibility to domesticate species.
in order to become sedentary you have to domesticate something, and when you domesticate something you become sedentary.
Did full domestication of plants happen all of a sudden? Explain
They were many stages, first people procured plants ( hunter and gatherers) , at some point some of the plants you are cultivating are more interesting than others , then you want to start domesticating the varieties, on a small scale then bigger
- Wild food procurement
- Wild plant food production
- Cultivation
- Agriculture
- Industrial agricultural
Did full domestication of animals happen all of a sudden? Explain
The domestication of animals has also followed a process, first through hunting, then controlled hunting, then through herding, then loose breeding, then close breeding and finally industrial breeding.
How do archaeologists infer evidence of animal domestication?
First indicator: we find bones of animals outside their natural environment, for example, you re doing and archeological survey, and over there you find bones of lions, dear, but where humans are you find a lot of bones of sheep, and they normally don’t belong to that place, it means they were domesticated and pursued by humans
And morphological change is also an indicator, art representation, also findings of tools that humans used for hunting.
What is some evidence of early sedentism in Southwest Asia?
Construction is very important, as we noticed the hunters in the documentary have structures where they live , ells ne sont pas durables pour y habiter tres longtemps, but when you start finding things built with stones and sand you can think that people have been living here for a long time, so that s an evidence of sedentism. Also, findings of storage in southwest asia, and they found mortars ( mehrass).
What are some of the consequences of sedentism?
Let s seperate them :
+ positive consequences of sedentism : permanent housing, dont have to build to start all over again, more food production, more fod availability,the ability to feed several more people on a smaller piece of lan, fecundity of women
-negative consequences of sedentism : the spread of disease, land becoming private property which results on inequality, living in a land for a long time causes chronic diseases, the environmental consequence is more important because we tend to exhaust the soil, and that impacts biodiversity since it decreases considerably because you are planting the same things, and you have to cut down the forests to plant more.
How do archaelogists infer evidence of social complexity?
The most obvious one is monumental architecture: pyramids and big temples.., we find different type of graves ( decorations and things that distinguish grave ) , and the existence of grave goods, and evidence of occupational specialization they might find only bronze fossils and other places a lot of pottery.
