Archaeology Midterm Flashcards
archaeology
the study of human past through material remains (part of anthropology)
- shares concerns with history but with different goals/methods/data (material vs textual)
2 branches of arch
- historical (text-aided)
- prehistoric arch (non literate societies, so material remains only)
5 elements of arch
- Methodology
- Material remains (apply methods to)
- Interpretation
- Human Past
- Anthropological questions
material remains can include…
artifacts, features, eco facts, human remains, sites, regions, context
taphonomy
study of site formation processes (as a result of human activity)
cultural processes of taphonomy
occur before/during deposition
1. Acquisition
2. Manufacture
3. Use
4. Discard
types of deposition of cultural processes
disposition over space or time
stratigraphy
layered cultural or natural deposits (deposition of artifacts)
curation
items kept for a very long time (evidence of repair holes and recycled materials)
natural and culture site formation processes
occur after deposition
cultural transformations
reusing or redoing already present sites elements OR cultural disturbances
natural transformations
flooding, volcanoes, glaciers, vegetation growth, earthquake, animal activity, erosion, soil deposition, decay
(after deposition)
natural conditions favoring preservation
- Bacterial/microbial action is inhibited due to conditions within bog/swamps (lack of oxygen or moisture)
- dry environments (cave) protect from light and weathering
analogy
the unknown function or identity of something is inferred from a known case
(Based on uniformitarianism)
uniformitarianism
the same behaviors and processes we observe in one setting may well have happened somewhere else
smudge pit
charred corn pits found in Southeast India and Midwest
specific analogy
compare to a better-known time period in the same cultural tradition
(use records from descendants of original item owner to compare)
general analogy
broad comparison across different cultural traditions
ethnography
the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures.
ethnohistory
biased texts: leaves out lots of info about material culture
Ethnoarchaeology
archaeologists documenting the material culture of living people
- can help explain taphonomy
Experimental archaeology
controlled replication of artifacts or activities (GA)
- can help explain taphonomy
Garbology
- Fresh Kills Landfill (Staten Island NYC)
- Total of 44 times in different locations and depths of data collection
- ethical issue of going through peoples trash
- dating with pull tabs of beverages
- newspaper = text-aided arch
The Speculative Phase
*age of antiquarians
- men with influence collected items and brought back
- very little methodology or knowledge was actually used
- Objects beauty and curiosity were more emphasized than context
- Colonialism begins (didn’t believe that primitive people could create such amazing art and constructions)
3 Age System
stone age
bronze age
Iron Age
* first chronological system of record
Christian Jurgernsen Thomsen
devised the 3 age system (chronological system for dating)
Pitt-Rivers & Petrie
introduced better records, more emphasize on space (context), classifying material evidence (all evidence, not just pretty stuff)
catastrophism
earth history is seen a series of dramatic changes to its environment/surface (flood, earthquakes)
Sir Charles Lyell
- (Principles of Geology 1833)
- argues that processes that shaped the earth can still be seen today
- *uniformitarianism
- the present is the key to the past
uniformitarianism
the processes that shaped the earth are the same ones we see acting today (volcanoes, water, erosion)
Charles Darwin
- The Origin of Species 1859
- The Descent of Man 1817
- Concept of human evolution (influenced by uniformitarianism by Lyell
Lewis Henry Morgan
- early anthropology figure
- Evolutionary interpretation of human (divided past into 3 stages)
1. savagery 2. barbarism 3. civilization - stages are devised by the intro of pottery, agriculture and writing
- unilinear evolution
unilinear evolution
all societies pass through the same strategies of cultural development (ladder of progress)
cultural historical approach
Rejection of evolutionary metaphor, human past as a history, piecing together what happened
Franz Boas
- french anthropologist working with native american cukltures
- Rejected unilinear evolution
cultural relativism
no universal standard for judging human progress across all cultures bc each culture is unique
historical particularism
each culture is a product of particular historical circumstances
**kidder time space grid
functionalism
- culture is designed to fulfill important functions and meet universal human needs
- culture isn’t passed down but its there for a reason (new 20th century idea)
cultural ecology
human culture is an adaptation to the envt.
- Julian Steward
changes in the 20th century
- functionalism
- cultural ecology
- radiocarbon dating invention
Processual Archaeology (“New Archaeology”)
- after 1960
- the past shows us unveil patterns of human behavior
Post-processual Archaeology
the pasts depends on their POV
- studying the past for the present
Lewis Binford
- sludge pit enlightenment
- arch = more objective science
- culture is an adaptation
- universal patterns explain the past
- importance of insider POV when studying
Contemporary archeology
- new scientific methods, interpretative arch (other kinds of arch like feminist and interpretive)
Research process for archaeology
- design a research project
- collect and record data in field
- analyze and interpret results
- conservation and publication
survey and surface archaeology
identifying sites and finding out about them without excavation
field walking
identifying sites through walking and observing sites only
shovel-testing
identifying sites in regions with poor surface visibility (small sample of an area)
remote sensing
identifying sites using air photos or satellite images; aerial view of large sites; see changes in topography
LIDAR
lazer scanning device that works with GPS satellites to produce axises and create images of topography (type of remote sensing)
surface collections
signs of materials on the surface
mapping
mapping of surface features (drone, LIDAR)
subsurface sampling
across large sites; mapping underground (sugar, digging)
geophysical methods
mapping deep underground (ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, soil resistivity)
excavation
digging (large amount of data, but large amounts of resources)
test pit excavation
small area excavation (snapshot)
types of test pit excavation
trench (chronological)
wedge exposure
step trench (wide exposure for areas at risk for caving in)
horizontal control record-keeping
mapping and photographing features in situ (og place)
vertical control record keeping
profile drawing, mapping depth, digging in levels (nature guided)
screening
finding little items and keeping track of where dirt comes from
judgement sampling
seeking out data directly relevant to your research question
random sampling
seek out data that are representative of the total population (even stuff they might not be digging)
stratified sampling
preferentially sampling areas that you are think are more likely to contain data; dividing area into strata or zones (low intensitivity spot checking of areas)
classification
organizing large amounts of data into managable sections
important aspects of conservation and publication
- protest sites from looters
- leave site was found as much as possible
- publish the info that was discovered
human vs primate physical morphology
bipedalism
lack of body hair
sexual dimorphism
human vs primate life cycle
- live 2.5x longer
- long life after menopause for women
- unique care for young for longtime
human vs primate behavioral complexity
- language complexity
- cooking food
nonlinear history of human ancestry
- walking apes
- tool makers
- recent ancestors (homo Erectus, archaic humans, Neanderthals)
- anatomical modern h. sapiens
walking apes
- earliest hominin ancestors from Africa 7 mya
- Australopithecines (gracile)
- survivors of the EHA
- longer arms bc of tree climbing
- walked up-right but with sexual dimorphism of apes
- omnivores (gracile); herbivores (robust)
tool makers
- first members of genus homo
- first stone tools (oldowan tools)
- olduvai Gorge, tanzania
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
site of first tools (oldowan)
- large numbers of animal bones and large tools
- cut marks on bones
- scavenging the leftovers of big game (large and small tooth marks, and tool marks)
Oldowan tool industry
- rocks as tools
- animal butchering, cutting wood/plants
- predominantly right handed (handiness with brain mirrorization)
homo erectus
- setting fires
- using tools
- maybe language (vertebral canal)
- large skull for brain size
- large body
- receding forehead
- loss of body hair
- smaller teeth
- slower childhood/ juvenile dependency
- less sexual dimorphism
- archeulian tool industry
- fire
- first to leave Africa
first hominin to leave Africa
- very successful in even cold environments that they migrated to
- left between 1.9 mya and 7000 kya
use of fire
- cooking for increased digestibility and decreased disease
- ward of predators
- stay warm
Acheulian tool industry
- More specific rock chosen; carved on both sides; harder to do right tools
- All purpose tool: cutting, scrapping, farming
- One kind of tool for more than a million years
- seen in Olorgesaile, Kenya
Olorgesailie, Kenya
- Over 400 hand axes
- Many animal bones (baboons mostly) with cut marks
- At least 2 large scale baboon butchering (hunting)
archaic humans
- sophisticated behavior
- more hunting
- large brains
- more complex tools (Levallois technique and halted composite tools)
Levallois technique
flaking carefully and struck off one flake and the flake is the tool
Hafted (composite) tools
stone tool attached to a wooden or bone handle (can strike with more momentum)
Neanderthals (archaic humans)
- care for sick and elderly
- major butchering and hunting
- live in natural rock shelters
- bury dead
- little evidence of art
- mousterian tools
- large nose
- similar ear anatomy
- short and stocky for long term cold envt. living
- more muscular
Mousterian tools
very excellent use of Levallois technique
life span of neanderthals
Life span of 40-50 years
- High rate of death and injury
- Worn teeth
- Evidence of cannabalism and interpersonal violence
AM Homo sapiens
- in Africa by at least 200 kya
- small flat face, sharp chin, gracile skeleton, big brain, small teeth
- less robust than any other hominin in history
- diversification throughout the world
what happened to the other hominins? only h. sapiens left
overlap of about 1000 years with Neanderthal and AMH
- likely that the Neanderthal population decreased to a small population in Spain and then died out
— climate change, violence, territory takeover, limited resources
race
not categorical, rather a genetic diversity of populations and overlapping races all together
homo sapiens behavioral complexity is most obvious during..
the Late Pleistocene
Behavioral complexity during the late Pleistocene
- more diverse tools
- wider range of prey
- exploitation of aquatic resources
- dog domestication
- built shelters
- made clothing
- better environment coping
- treated the dead in complex wats
- music making
- art
- religion
diverse tools of the late Pleistocene
- used different materials (bone and antler)
- blade tools
- microliths
- harpoon points
- atlatls (spear throwing)
common prey of late Pleistocene
Red deer, roe deer, bison, wolf, fox, brown bear, horse
Exploitation of aquatic resources
- Ancient harpoons
- Fish hools
- Sea-going watercraft evidence (depicitons of boat on stone)
- Harpoon points for atlatls spear throwing
Holocene
- after 9,000 BC
Eurasia/Africa: Mesolithic (9000-3500 BC)
Americas: Archaic (8000-1500 BC)
Mesolithic
Eurasia/Africa (9000-3500 BC)
Holocene
Archaic
Americas: (8000-1500 BC)
Holocene
Late Pleistocene (“Ice Age”)
- up to 10,000 BC
Eurasia/Africa: Upper Paleolithic
Americas: Paleoindian
Paleoindian
Americans – Late Pleistocene (“Ice Age”)
Upper Paleolithic
Eurasia/Afirca — Late Pleistocene (“Ice Age”)
Life in the Late Pleistocene: Upper Paleolithic Europe
- large number of animals
- complex ritual life
- 5 large dwellings
- art
- jewelry
- ceramics
- textile
- basketry
Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic (25-23,000 BC)
Salt licks near the site attract animals
- few plants
- large number of mammoth bones
*** great evidence of life in the Late Pleistocene
relative dating
gives age relative to something else
absolute dating
gives an absolute date in years (absolute chronology)
stratigraphy
oldest at the bottom (law of superposition)
seriation
styles of objects change overtime, so can be used to sort artifacts over time
- allow for the creation of a chronological series
stylistic seriation
orders artifacts by style over time
frequency seriation
orders sites or deposits based on the frequencies of the artifacts styles in them
- assumes that styles have a predictable career; order by trends in general
chemical interactions with soil dating methods (bone chemistry)
- as bones decay, they absorb F and Uranium and release nitrogen
- can tell the age of bone based on chemicals found and can compare it to bones nearby
Radiopotassium (K-Ar)
- ratio of K-40 to Ar in volcanic rock/ash
- K isotope decays into Ar at fixed rate
- Ar gas is trapped in cooled volcanic ash
- Ar escapes when rock is heated, so K decays when rock is cool
- good for very old stuff bc of very slow decaying process
radiocarbon dating (C14)
- all living organism absorb C14 through their food and evnt
- when decaying, C14 goes back to C12
**most important dating techinque
dendrochronology
- counting tree rings
- Tree size depends on climate or environmental conditions (thick or thin years)
- can match wood to region using master tree ring
historical chronologies dating
deposits have actual dates on them; can determine style and date association
the peopling of Australia
- Australia and SE Asia at last glacial maximum
- Crossed from SE Asia on boats (able to build and use open ocean travel)
- 65,000 BC or earlier
Lake Mungo, Australia
- early human remains
- mungo man with red ochr
- mungo lady ritually creamated
- hunted new animals
- exploration of aquatic resources at oasis
peopling of the Americas
- paleoindians in the late Pleistocenes
- first believed it was Clovis culture but now no
- form of travel is unknown either by boat or over ice covered canada land bridge
Monte Verde, Chile
- Earliest sites that broke the clovis barrier when accepted (early group of people in the americans than expected)
- child footprint
- tools
- rectangular houses
- fire places and hearths
The Clovis Culture
11,000 BC
- Very successful group; could have possible traveled through ice bridge
- Typically mammoth or bison kill sites with evidance of clovis points (big game killing sites)
The peopling of the Pacific/polynesia
- traveled very far
- colonized easter island – farthest point from anything else
- star compass and mapping (resource adaptation)
- incredible for their ability to travel very far with only blue water navigation
Paleolithic diet
comprised entirely meat, fish, nuts, fruit, vegetables, eggs, insects, honey, breast milk
– fewer carbs and more protein
(result of widespread agriculture)
Carrier Mills, Illinois
4000-3000 BC
- continuous occupation over long time frame
— evidence of deep middens (trash heaps)
—77 species (exploit. of resources)
— exploitation of swamp/lake
— storage of acorns and nuts
— living there minimum of 3/4 of the year
End of Pleistocene/End of Ice Age
- warming into the holocene
- extinction of megafauna
- climate change + overhunting
- radical changes in culture
- end of Clovis culture
- what caused the extinction of large game at the end of the ice age??
over hunting + climate change
evidence for overhunting
- *most obvious in America
- Clovis big kill game sites
- Large drives show evidence of possibly killing too much meat than actually needed
- Climate change was not necessarily a linear change (periods of warming and cooling (interglacials))
—- Animals did not die off during previous interglacials - humans and megafauna coevolved, so they did have some adaptations before extinction
evidence for climate change
- non animals and animal went extinct
- large animals were more impacted than smaller ones
The Holocene
- 9,000 BC to present
- new names
- hunting-fishing-gathering
- more specialized tools
- processing and storage of food
- exploitation of smaller areas more intensively
- cemeteries
- more violence
Mesolithic/Archaic adaptations (hunting-fishing-gathering)
- farming
- exploited smaller areas more (bc of more population)
- Reduced mobility and greater seditism
- diversified resource base
- broad spectrum foragers
- specialized exploitation of specific local resources
ex/ rabbit drives, salmon runs - storage of food
- special tool (fish hooks, microliths)
holocene Eurasia/Africa naming
Mesolithic
Holocene Americas naming
archaic
methods for studying past environments
- ice core/lake sediment core
- tree rings
- pollen series from lack cores
tree ring evidence
Evidence of drought vs growth periods
ice core/lake sediment core evidence
stratigraphy showing various chemicals that indicate envt. conditions
- dust, oxygen isotopes, organic material
- can calibrate with other cores
pollen series from lake cores evidence
- What species are present? (marshy to forest to dry grass envt.)
- Forest clearance by people (wild plant composition changes)
archaeobotany
the study of plant remains from archaeological contexts
(macro/microbotanical remains)
- flotation analysis or chemical analysis
Zooarchaeology
the study of animal remains from archaeological contexts (e.g. faunal remains)
- what parts of animals were eaten
- see seasonability of occupation
Domestication
control over the life cycle of plants and animals great enough to cause changes in their physical form and behaviors
Plant domestication
- Bigger and numerous seed kernels
- Being grown outside their normal habitat or home land
ex/ Wild wheat have brittle rachis and domesticated wheat have a tougher rachis (additional step is necessary for harvesting, but people are getting more wheat when harvest)
Animal domestication
- shrink/lose their horns
- smaller body size, but amount of meat is increasing or staying the same
- more wool
- Shorter legs, so they are slower
- Faster growth rate overall (adulthood much quicker)
Human-animal domestication relationship
- Killing males instead of females
- Isotope values show that animals are eating food they normally would not have (grains/wheat that was domesticated by humans)
- Hunting mortality profiles differ from herding mortality profiles
evidence of new subsistence
- Residue analysis on artifacts
- Coprolites (poop)
- Human bone chemistry
- Malnutrition in human remains
- Landscape alterations for agriculture
new farming era
- Transition to agriculture was different in different regions
- Not everyone went for domestication
- Preadaptation to agriculture
- multiple independent origins
terminology for early farming societies
Old World: Neolithic
Americas: Formative
Fertile Cresent Farming
- first farmers in the world
- very quick transitions with big cahnges
- end of the pleistocene
- mesolithic communities arise and focus on grain crops
- increasingly depending on wild cereals
- more sedentary
- very successful living in large settlements
what comes after the natufian period (12,000-9,500 BC)?
Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period (9,500-6,000 BC)
Meat consumption at Jericho, Israel
Increases for domesticated animals, and decreased for wild animals as time goes on
(greater reliance on domestication over hunting)
Abu Hureyra, Syria (10,500-6,000 BC)
After Natufian period, during Neolithic period – more domesticated grains
– domesticated sheep and goats
– rectangular living strucutres
– more tools for farming vs hunting
Tehuacan Valley, Mexico (10,000-1,000 BC)
- Increase in population and decrease in mobility
- Evidence of wild plant foods and archaic grinding stones
- Evidence for the origin of maize
- changes in diet (bone chem)
- hunter-gathers to farmers
- changing types of tools
- changes in animal anatomy/behavior
evidence for the origin of maize
- Region dryness allowed for excellent preservation of goods
- Expert had already uncovered tiny 5000 ya corn cobs in caves similar
– grinding tools instead of hunting
– corn gets bigger
(originally Teosinte was wild ancestor)
Why did people start farming and why then?
- choice or necessity
choice for farming reasons
- Agriculture as societal progress
- Special competition model (more people in world, so exertion of dominance)
- End of the ice age (bad climate for growth to good)
necessity to farm reasons
- Population pressure (more people in the world)
- Deletion of wild resources/risk management (bc of heightened populations)
- Local climate crisis (admist changes after ice age)
