˗ˏˋ archaeology history ´ˎ˗ Flashcards
1
Q
who were diderot and d’alembert?
A
- two philosophers who set out to write an encyclopedia that would collect all human knowledge into a series of massive tomes (books)
- basically our first attempt at writing an encyclopedia
2
Q
what is archaeological theory?
A
ideas that archaeologists have developed about the past and about the ways we come to know the past.
3
Q
what are thunderstones?
A
objects such as ground stone axes that people in medieval europe believed were formed in spots where lightning struck the earth.
4
Q
who was michele mercati?
A
- vatican doctor who lived from 1541 to 1593, wrote of the thunderstones: “those who study history judge that before the use of iron they were struck from very hard flint for the folly of war”
- thought it was people, not lightning
- thought the tools were made for war
5
Q
who was antoine de jussieu?
A
- compared the thunderstones with stone tools from the american islands and canada
- was on the right track
6
Q
who was thomas jefferson?
A
- 3rd U.S. president
- decided to excavate a prehistoric burial mound on his property
- racist towards POC, not a very good person
7
Q
what is the three-age system?
A
- system developed by danish antiquarian christian jürgensen thomsen that catalogues artifacts into relics of three periods—the stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age—based on the material of manufacture
- in 1816 he was given the job of cataloguing collections for the newly founded national museum of antiquity
8
Q
what was the growth of archaeological research closely linked to?
A
- the expansion of european empires
- the archaeology of the nineteenth century often reflects the ideology and biases of european colonists
- basically the eurpoean colonizer mindset
9
Q
what happened in the early 1800s?
A
- scientists started to explore origins of life on earth and evolution
- at this time, there was political struggle between christianity and materialism which meant the resistance to evolution was aggressive
- materialism is the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications
- christians calculated earth was created in 4004 BCE
- materialists were saying Earth was way older
10
Q
what was the evidence of a premodern human?
A
a neanderthal skull was discovered in 1857 near düsseldorf (germany).
11
Q
what is the paleolithic period?
A
- about 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 B.C.
- where humans lived with now-extinct animals
- also called the old stone age
12
Q
what is the neolithic period?
A
- 10,000–4,500 BC
- there are polished stone tools
- also called the new stone age
13
Q
what else happened in the 19th century?
A
- an explosion of exploration in the expanding european empires
- treasure hunters (some robbed, some were looking for education)
- most findings were used to support the idea of the “unchanging savage”
14
Q
when was archaeology established?
A
by the late 1800s, was becoming increasingly professional with training.
- north america focused on sorting objects into culture groups
- egypt and palestine focused on stratigraphic excavation and seriation
15
Q
who was sir flinders petrie?
A
he pioneered the methods of stratigraphic excavation and seriation.
16
Q
who was v. gordon childe?
A
- 1892-1957, australian archaeologist
- powerful visual memory allowed him to make comparisons and recognize patterning in the archaeological collections across europe
- shifted the focus from artifacts to societies of people living in a network of social and economic relations
- was a politically active marxist who emphasized the social organization of production and revolutionary change in human societies
- inspired by working with soviet archaeologists, as well as the work of US ethnographer lewis henry morgan
- helped steer archaeology towards the study of ancient cultures, rather than just the recovery of objects
17
Q
who was sir grahame clark?
A
- 1907-1995, british archaeologist
- began to excavate star carr in 1949, a prehistoric hunter-gatherer site
- brought together botanists, zoologists, and archaeologists on one project
18
Q
who was julian steward?
A
- 1902-1972, american anthropologist
- was developing the school of thought known as cultural ecology
19
Q
what is cultural ecology?
A
the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments.
20
Q
what is mesa verde SW colorado?
A
- built around 1190 CE by the ancestral pueblo people
- mostly abandoned by 1300 CE
21
Q
what is new archaeology (or processual archaeology)?
A
an approach to archaeology based firmly on scientific method and supported by a concerted effort aimed at the development of theory.
22
Q
who was lewis binford?
A
- 1931-2011, american archaeologist
- argued that archaeology didn’t need more data or better methods, but questioned the way archaeologists could know the past
23
Q
what is induction?
A
- drawing general inferences on the basis of available empirical data
- hard artifcacts you can hold in your hand
24
Q
what is deduction?
A
- drawing particular inferences from general laws and models
- laws/theories in science and how we can apply them to understanding people
25
what is middle-range research?
- research investigating processes that can be observed in the present and that can serve as a point of reference to test hypotheses about the past
- ex: binford carried out a project in which he fed bones to hyenas and recorded the patterns of breakage and the markings on the bones. he could then compare these patterns with those found on early human sites to test the hypothesis that these sites were produced partially by carnivore activity
26
what is the systems theory?
- an archaeological theory that views society as an interconnected network of interacting elements
- like a thermostat and furnace in a house
27
what is the national historic preservation act (NHPA)?
- the legislation that regulates cultural resource management archaeology
- majority of all construction projects in USA depend on federal funding, and therefore, this applies to almost all of them
28
what is postprocessual archaeology?
- a movement, led by british archaeologist ian hodder, that argues archaeologists should emulate historians in interpreting the past.
- should we be focusing on proving/disproving hypotheses like physicists, when analyzing events that cannot be reproduced?
- or should we approach archaeology like historians, where we’re just piecing together past events?
29
what is an etic?
- an approach to archaeological or anthropological analysis that does not attempt to adopt the perspective of the members of the culture that is being studied
- e.t., alien, outsider perspective
30
what is an emic?
- an approach to archaeological or anthropological analysis that attempts to understand the meanings people attach to their actions and culture
- em, me, insider perspective
31
what is hermeneutics?
- the process of continually refining knowledge by confronting older knowledge and improving on it with new information
- your findings become someone's "old" knowledge to refer to
32
what is feminist archaeology?
- an approach that focuses on the way archaeologists study and represent gender and that brings attention to gender inequities in the practice of archaeology
- a lot of men in archaeology, not women
- think of taylor's "the man" song
33
what is a venus figurine?
- any upper palaeolithic statuette portraying a woman, usually carved in the round
- named due to the commonly misunderstood arms as “missing” like on the famous statue venus de milo
34
what is the venus of willendorf?
- created around 25,000-30,000 years ago
- made of limestone and red ochre
- discovered in 1908 in willendorf, austria
- measures just under 4.5 inches tall
- decorative?
- fertility idol?
35
what is the agency theory?
a theory that emphasizes the interaction between the agency of individuals and social structure.
36
who was the pharaoh hatshepsut?
- the king herself
- tomb unearthed in 1928, but her mummified remains weren’t discovered until 2007
- the statues found in Hhatshepsut’s deir el-bahri temple depicted a pharaoh wearing the striped cobra headdress, false beard and kilt of a king
- however the inscriptions on the temple walls were decidedly feminine
37
what is evolutionary archaeology?
- a range of approaches that stress the importance of evolutionary theory as a unifying theory for archaeology
- pioneered by robert dunnell (1942-2010; american archaeologist)
- encompasses ecological studies that look at changes in culture as changes in human adaptation as well as attempts to apply darwinian theory to changes in the frequencies and types of artifacts found at a site
38
what are faunal analysts?
- also known as zooarchaeologists
- studies animal bones found on archaeological sites
39
what are acoustics?
branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound.
