Ch.8 Flashcards
Briefly explain what archeology is and what he tries to accomplish.
All material objects and structures created by humans and our hominin ancestors
Main goals are to reconstruct how humans lived in the past, to identify how cultures have changed through time, and understand what influences these changes
Outlined the archeological process
Purpose for archeological work:
-Research orientated
-Rescue archeology (CRM)
Archival research:
-Historical document
-Maps
-Previous archeological studies
-Oral history
Survey:
-Aerial photos
-LiDAR
-GPR
-Fieldwalking
-Test pits
-GIS
Map:
-Create a site plan
-Create strategy for excavation
-Lay In grid
Excavate:
-Dig
-Screen for artefacts
-Record stratigraphy
-Retrieve and document artefacts
Analyze:
-Clean, catalog, and organize artefacts and Ecofacts
-Lab analysis of various elements of excavation
-Compared to other archeological find/collections
-Collate notes, map, and all information from excavation
-Write report
Preserve:
-Label and preserve artifacts, photos, and documenting following archival standards
-Save and store for future study
Artifacts: objects that have been deliberately and intelligently shaped by humans or our hominin ancestors.
Features: non-portable items created by humans, such as house walls or ditches.

Ecofacts: Biological remains that are likely associated with food consumption or other human activities.
Provenance: Three dimensional position of an artefact within the matrix have an archeological site. 
What is ethnoarcheology and why would archeologists use this approach?
The study of the way present do you societies use artefacts and structures and how these objects become part of the archeological record.
Can predict which materials would be most likely to survive in a burial site turn the patterns they would reveal if they were excavated. Important Clues to assist in their interpretation, provide Clues and possible explanations to assist in understanding the past.

What is taphonomy?
The study of various processes that may have affected the formation of a particular site.
What is a survey and why do archeologists do surveys?
Briefly describe different types of surveys
The physical examination of a geographical region which promising sites are most likely to be found
-As simple as walking slowly over a field with eyes trained on the ground.
-Aerial surveys could be used for mapping purposes or to photograph large areas with attributes that may suggest the presence of otherwise invisible sites. such as LiDAR system or Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Ground penetrating radar (GPR), Geographic information systems (GIS)
What is involved in an excavation?
What are the two kinds of information about human activities that can be gained from excavation?
The systematic uncovering of archeological remains through removal of the deposits of soil and other material covering them and accompanying them.
Excavation is a form of distraction; a site, once excavated, is gone forever.
(1) Contemporary activities that take place horizontal in space
(2) Changes in those activities that take place vertically overtime
Identify the four objectives or approaches that have guided archeological interpretations
•Initially, archeologist used additional approaches that focussed only on reconstructing the material remains of the past by putting together pots, reassembling statues, restoring houses, known as the cultural history approach.
•Reconstructing the lifeways—culture—of people who left those material remains, referred to as the cultural ecology approach.
•Explaining the cultural process is the lead two ways of life and material culture of particular kind. Known as processual archaeology, or new archeology
•Post processual or interpretive archaeology, stress the symbolic and cognitive aspects of social structures and social relations. Focus on power and domination, draw attention to ways that evidence may reflect individual human agency and internal contradictions within a society. 
What is a subsistence strategy?
Briefly describe the substance strategy typology used in archeology (i.e., what are the four groups divided into food collectors versus food producers.)
Why me archeologists be interested in investigating subsistence strategies?
Definition: The ways that people in a particular society go about meeting their basic material survival needs. Substance is a term often used to refer to the satisfaction of the most basic material survival needs; food, clothing, and shelter.
Food collectors or foragers ( Those who gather, fish or hunt) And food producers (those who depend on domesticated plants or animals or both.) Small scale food collectors live in harsher environments likely to change residence often in search of resources.
Complex Food collectors live in environments richly endowed with dependable food sources and may even build settlements with permanent agriculture.
Herders: may farm exclusively or heard exclusively, or do a little of both. those who depend on herds are called pastoralists.
Farmers, among those who farm there are further distinctions. some farmers depend primarily on human muscle power plus a few simple tools.
Seeking to identify social structural elements and cultural practises that mean hands or impede the transformation of one kind of social form to another.

In recent years, what have archeologists had to explicitly come to terms with?
Do all people welcome anthropologists, or tourists come out to their lands?
No, for example as former colonies become independent states, their citizens become interested in uncovering their own past and gaining control over their heritage. This has often meant that the artefacts discovered during archeological researched must stay in the country in which they were found.
What has local groups gaining control over their heritage often lead to?
Ownership other peoples heritage and antiquities is an important form of control over the People’s history
Were all items in museums intended for public view?
No, some of which are considered sacred by their makers and were not intended for public view, have been openly displayed in western museums for many years.
Why do anthropologists want to analyze human skeletal remains (i.e., what information candies analyses provide)?
How does this contrast with the descendants of those individuals represented by the skeletal remains
Skeletal material offers important data on the patterns of migration, disease, violence, family connections. Social organization and complexity, technology, cultural beliefs, and many other phenomena. Remains of ancestors of people now living in the area from which the bones were removed, and many of these peoples believe that the dead should not be disturbed and that is disrespectful to have their ancestors bones analyzed.
For these groups, excavation, analysis and display of their ancestors exemplifies the disrespect and Colonial domination of indigenous peoples in North America that has existed since Europeans first arrived.
What is cultural resources management?
Definition: Archeological projects that are focussed on mitigating the effects of development through identifying and interpreting significant cultural and heritage sites; sometimes referred to as “salvage archeology”
How may collaboration between archeologists and in the news peoples work toward reconciliation?
Canadian institutions are working proactively with indigenous communities to develop repatriation policies and procedures, especially to work towards reconciliation with indigenous peoples as part of the Calls to Action of Truth and Reconciliation commission.
