Archaeology Exam 2 Flashcards
What does a collapse mean?
- the political regime fails
- cities die and complex economies fall
- societies become smaller, simpler, and more egalitarian
Archaeology of “ecocide”
- over exploitation of your environment
Ex. Dust bowl
ex. Rapi Nui
The ecocide hypothesis example
- 1786, La Perouse- deforestation of the island
- Jared Diamond: islanders overused trees for boats, fuel, houses and moving statues
- Ran out of timber, stream dried up, led to warfare, then collapsed
Lipo and Hunt response
- Subsistence relied more on fish and sea mammals
- Palm trees on the island wouldn’t make for good boats
Rapi Nui “stone mulching”
smashing up nutrient rich volcanic stones
- retains moisture in soil
- protect rocks from damage
Deforestation to move the Moai statue
- abandoned, found face down
- used a lot of trees to make logs and roll it
Archaeology survey
documentation of archaeological sites across a landscape
walking survey
Simply walking and recording what you see
Shovel test pits (STPs)
digging a hole in the ground
The Maya (600-800 AD)
not ruled by a single person
- intense competition between cities and their rulers (caused city to spiral)
- city starts to fall ~800 AD
resilience theory
how much can society endure, absorb, adapt to outside forces? Flexibility re-organization
Sustainability
how long can a society maintain a single system or practice(1) without negative consequences and/or (2)through periods of stress
“Christmas in the Kalahari”
- Bought a cow for the family he was working with to feast for christmas
- They told him the cow was sick and skinny
- The cow came and he was fat and healthy
- They told him this to bring him back down to everyone else’s level
Egalitarian society
societies that lack persistent / hereditary inequality of “wealth” and/or status
leveling mechanism
bringing someone back down from being better than others
achieved status
status or authority gained by an individual through their life, not passed on
ascribed status
status or authority inherited from parents, lineage, social class
settlement pattern
the organization, location, size, and proximity of villages, towns, and cities
Landscape Archaeology
analysis of settlement pattern, resource use, and other human activity over a broad region through time
Geographic information systems (GIS)
- Computer mapping and analysis software
- Analyze spatial patterns, settlement patterns, spatial statistics
- Site type and density
Proto-urbanism
larger denser settlements but lacking planning or organized rule
“tell”
a large mound formed by continuous overlying dense human settlements
4 forms of societal organization
- bands
- tribes
- chiefdoms
- states
political hierarchy
- Differences in wealth between families
- Better goods or foods
- Burials
evidence of hierarchy
- Settlement patterns
- Site size hierarchy
— large cities where ruling class lives
Indus valley civilization (3000-3000 BCE)
- pre-planned cities
- plumbing and sewage
- advanced
traditional “first generation” statesq
merge independently
secondary states
require people surrounding them
Jenne archaeological survey
42 sites surveyed and excavated
- radiocarbon dates for urbanism (250-800 BCE)
- early sites are more equal in size
findings at Jenne Jeno
- Farming only important later
- Specialization of labor appears early on
- Metallurgy from the initial city
- Long distance trade
Heterarchy
Multiple forms of organization, shifting power structures, different axes of power/influence shared among segments of a society
2 types of mounds
- structures built on top
burials
— in large groups or with others
hopewell tradition
hierarchical burials
- grave goods
- copper ornament
- carved stone pipes
The Mississippian (700-1400 AD)
associated with warfare and status
Cahokia, IL (1050 AD)
largest city in north america
monks mound
massive earth construction
on top of mound
mound 72
Burial mound
- trade in thousands of beads for the burials
sacrificial burials
mass feasting
- thousands of pots are thrown together after the ceremony
- lots of deer bones (wild)
- tobacco seeds
- ceremonial drinks
inca textiles
patterns they wore to demonstrate wealth and status
inca military force
- slings
- storehouses allowed military forces to expand
- road construction also allowed expansion
inca tambos
- house goods
- primary function was relay station for runners
— pass news or information along road systems
inca ideology and religion
- Inca descendants of the sun
- Assimilation of older religions
- State ritual and large scale ceremony
- Ritual child sacrifice
Dahomey Kingdom and the Atlantic slave trade
depiction of captured peoples at Dahomey, 1725
Savi (1660-1727)
- local-made replicas of European style pipes
- locally made pottery
- Maize, yam, foraged snail, and diverse fish resources important for enslaved people
— Still trying to live a normal life
plantation excavations
- locally producing goods
- glass bottles, pipes, metal guns
— hunting and gathering
Watoro
runaway slave settlements
Archaeology of enslaved people in America
- Spatial patterns of segregation
- Material culture differences
- Evidence of African cosmology
Monticello, Virginia
- compressed into limited spaces
— family units
Dr. Anna Agbe-Davies
lots of variation between sites
Creolization
the process by which elements of different cultures are blended together to form a new culture
Ex. The Oval Site
NYC African Burial Ground
- People interred with linen wrappings, well made wooden coffins, with precious goods
Rediscovery of African burial ground
- small fraction
- individually in wooden boxes
- high mortality rate
- half of children under 12
African Bural ground major findings
- Most adults african born, children likely born in New York
- High stress, prevalence of illness associated with enslavement
- High mortality rates, especially for children
- Upper spine stress in women, lower spine stress in men
Environmental reconstructions
set of approaches to reconstruct past environments
Geoarchaeology
application of geology and earth sciences methods to study site formation process
- focus on stratigraphic sequence
Munsell soil color chart
different colors are different materials or substances
determining size and shape of particles
- jar of water test
- field test
sediments
deposited, come in from somewhere else
ex. river flood, wind blown, downhill erosion
soils
develop in place
- need organic matter
Paleosol
dark layer in the middle of the ground
- was a living surface at one time, then got buried
Soil geochemistry
- measurement of elemental composition of soils and sediments
— soil quality
— evidence of human occupation
Ex. ethnoarc. of aguateca, Guatemala floor - they knew where people ate, cooked, sharpened knives etc.
Paleo-malacology
study of archaeology mollusks
anthracology
study of charcoal
- find what species a tree or plant was
Isotopes and environmental reconstruction
carbon and nitrogen
C3 and C4
Oxygen isotopes
O16 and O18
- O16 evaporates more easily
Yellow River floods
When it floods, the water is not constrained and can flood over other areas
- getting massive amounts of sediments over other landscapes
Han Dynasty agricultural expansion
- good farming
- wind blown sediments
- prone to erosion
Levees
keep water in specific channel
Ex. Sanyang Zhuang
- preserved by a major river flood
1642 AD flood of Kaifeng
- the city was at a lower level than the Yellow River
- all the flood water went into the city and caused a massive catastrophe
Niche construction
humans modify their environments in a way that impacts theri own genetic evolution
- invoked in domesticated studies
- intensity of human impacts on the world
example of niche construction
Lactase persistence
- we stop producing lactase as we get older and it’s harder to digest milk
— back in time, there were gene mutations to help digest milk longer
irrigations
adaptations to extreme environments
Ex. Ancient Canals
- divert water supplies
Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC)
- developed massive bronze age cities
- lots of labor, populated cities
BMAC water management
artificial channels, irrigation networks, filter and check-dams, piping of water into the city
MGK, China (300-400 CE) had…
complex system of canals and fields
Hohokam Culture (200-1400 CE) (Case Grande Ruins, Arizona)
- complex systems of massive irrigarion channels off of rivers
- able to support the largest population and agricultural fields
- heterarchical system
Canal
artificially shaped
Channel
natural irregular shapes
Terrace agriculture
“land staircases”
- represent niche construction
Ex. Wari Empire (600-1000 CE)
Ex. Ayawiri, Peru
- settlements on top of mountains
Archaeology at Ayawiri
radiocarbon dates to see if they match the settlements
Findings at Ayawiri
- terraces date to the same time as the Pukara (radiocarbon dating)
- only quinoa and related crops grown locally (archaeobotany)
- Llama dung contains only agricultural weeds (archaeobotany)
African Savannnah grasslands
- nutrient poor
- central enclosure for livestick
— produced a lot of animal dung in the middle which made the soil enriched with nutrients
Ex. Luxmanda, Tanzania (1000 BCE)
Anthropocene
viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment
Paul Crutzen (2000)
proposed that humans were now the most powerful force impacting climate
Golden Spike
when we see the start of anthropocene
mass extinction hypothesis
Was mass extinction caused by humans or climate change
- originally thought because of humans
Anthrosols
anthropogenic soils
- formed by human activity
- amazon basin soils
