Chapter 1-2 Flashcards
What is context
The association and relationships between archaeological objects that are in the same place
What is Culture?
A uniquely human means of non-biological adaptation based on learning and shared behaviors for coping with the environment
What is provenience?
The place of origin for archaeological materials, including locations in three dimensions and association with other objects
What is relative date?
Earlier and later than something else
What is absolute date?
A time measurement in specific units like years
What is an artifact?
Any portable object or item created or modified by human action
What is an eco fact ?
Any of the remains of plants, animals, sediments or other unmodified materials that results from human activity
What is a feature?
An immovable structure, layer, pit, or post in the ground having archaeological significance
What is a feature?
An immovable structure, layer, pit, or post in the ground having archaeological significance
What is a site?
The accumulation of artifacts, eco facts, and features that represent a place where people lived and/ or carried out certain activities
What is archaeology?
The study of the past through the systematic recovery and analysis of material remains
Archaeology is divided into two categories:
1. What is cultural archaeology?
It one of the most familiar to the general public. It is the study of vanished civilizations, and to reconstruct extinct societies
Archaeology is divided into two categories:
2. What is field archaeology?
It is about artifact acquisition and analysis.
Is archaeology a branch of anthropology ? True of false?
True, archaeology is a part of anthropology
What is anthropology?
the study of all aspects of humankind- biological, cultural, and linguistic; extant and extinct- employing an all encompassing holistic approach
What are the limitations of history?
- Focuses of literate cultures
- Bias toward the culture of the authors, winner of conflicts, to important people and events and perspectives that fit a culture mythical narrative
- Suffers from the accuracy of pre-modern records that blend history with myth and literature
What are the limitations of archaeology? Not history
- Archaeological records are dominated by material that survive, often bias towards cultures whose environmental preserved things
- Artifacts reflect everyday life, not the exceptional
- Absence of detailed specific information, leave archaeologist to infer most of their conclusions
How did archaeology began?
Treasure hunting
Until the 19th century for scholarly interest
Who were the fathers of archaeology
Giuseppi Fiorelli and Pitt Rivers
How do archaeologist succeed ?
They need to remember that while collecting and analyzing artifacts, their goal is to understand the people and the culture that created them
What is a speculation?
A reasonable guess
What is an educated guess?
Experience based speculation
What is a hypothesis?
A reasonable and testable explanation of what has been observed
What is a law?
Mathematical expression of a theory
What is truth?
A philosophical concept not in the realm of science, unquestioned acceptance
What is observation?
Something seen
What is an opinion
Belief offered without evidence
What is faith?
Belief of truth is unquestioned
What is factual data?
Quantities and credible information from a reliable source
What is an independently verifiable data
Factual date from multiple independent observers
What is a lie?
Intentional falsehood
What is fraud?
Deceit for personal gain
What is cherry picking?
Using selected data to confirm a preconception
What is a mistake?
Unintentional misinformation
What is an error?
Imprecision
What is incomplete?
Missing part of the story. All science is incomplete
What is science?
A process, a method of inquiry and analysis. It is not a subject, a body of knowledge, a search for truth. It is also a search for the falsifiable
What are the scientific methods?
- Define the problem
- Determined the empirical implications
- Gather data through experimentation or observation
- Verify or reject the hypothesis
- Reject, revise, or repeat
What does good science demand??
A logical connection between observations and explanation. Whether arrived at deductively and there is no supernatural causation. It is independent verification and objectivity in both data and analysis
What is bad science?
- Political or philosophical bias arising from the observers agenda
- Unconscious cultural bias
- Preconception, working backwards with method that favor a desired outcome
- Projecting moral values onto nature
- Confusing correlation with causation
Context is everything. So what do we need to know?
What- the physical description
Where- the physical location of the site and precise location of all object in three dimensional space
When- age of the site and the artifacts
Why- the purpose and the role it plays in culture
Who- the people and culture that created it
What is context in archaeology?
Archaeological artifacts are useful only if they can be spatially located in three dimensions, the surrounding soil matrix was documented, the relationship to other artifacts and features can be determined, and the cataloging and record keeping system has integrity
Why does context matters?
Every archaeological excavation destroys that portion of the site forever. The only preservation of the context is what we capture and record
What is accretion of soil?
gradual build up of material comes from wind blown dust, water borne sedimentation, volcanic ash, biological processes, remains of meteors
What is an artifact?
movable objects that have been used, modified, or manufactured by humans. It includes stone, bone, metal tools, beads and other ornaments, pottery, artwork, religious and sacred items
What is an ecofact?
Plants and animal remains found in an archaeological site
What is osteology?
The study of bone
What is paleopathology?
Study of patterns of disease
What is dentition?
Analysis of teeth
What can we learn from skeletal remains?
Sex, age, ethnic origin, pathology of health and disease, patterns of injury and lifestyle, and constituents of diet
Why are teeth “archaeo-odontology so great ?
Teeth are the best preserved elements of human and animal remains. The condition of dentition reveals much about diet and overall health of the deceased, enamel last, It can accurately indicate age of immature individuals and can give clues to ethnic origins , and can be a mirrors of culture in certain societies
What are some technological advancements in archaeology?
Satellite imagery, aerial surveys, marine archaeology , ground penetrating radar, sonar, and seismographs, magnetometers, soil resistivity
Why is archaeology in the golden age?
New tools, productive collaboration with other fields of science, computer analysis, instant communication, and transportation access to all of the earth
Why look underwater?
Hundred and thousands of vessel have sunk over the millennia, human settlements were often near the sea and the sea level can change dramatically with clime and geological subsidence, earliest site are now submerged
What are some tools of underwater archaeology?
Sonar, Scuba, submersible cameras, remote control manipulator, vacuum dredging
What can ice core analysis do?
It has emerged as powerful tool for reconstructing climate change
Who was James Ussher and what is his significance?
Anglican Bishop of Northern Ireland. He published that the universe is only 6,000 years was accepted by many Christians into the late 19th century, and the basis of many fundamentalist beliefs.
Who was Lord Kelvin (William Thompson) and what was his significance?
One of the greatest scientist of the 19th century. He proved that the Earth was about 50 million years old. It is has been erred by a factor of 100 times
What is absolute dating ?
A date expressed as specific units of scientific measurement such as days, years, centuries, or millennia, “intervals of time”
What is relative dating?
Dates expressed relative to one another, earlier or later
What is stratigraphy (relative) ?
It is all about superposition. Means that the deeper you dig, the older things get. It presumes that nothing has been disturbed and no layers are missing. It only gives an older than/ younger than answer
What is serration?
A relative dating method that orders artifacts based on the assumption that one cultural style slowly replaces an earlier style over time. Although serration is relative, it can be a powerful tool for contrasting sites. Once done, dating one such site with absolute methods can enable many others to be dated inferentially
What is dendrochronology?
The annual growth rings on trees reveal both the passage of time and the environmental conditions present while the tree was alive “bar code pattern”
Trapped charge dating
Relies upon the fact that electron become trapped in the crystal lattice of certain materials as a result of background radiation from the earth itself
What is an archaeological site?
a site is a place where people lived and/ or worked and where the material objects that they made, used, lost, or discarded can yet to be discovered
Fill in the blank: Anthropology attempts to be
holistic and integrative
What are catastrophists
They believe the world had changed dramatically since creation through series of catastrophic , natural processes set in motion by God upon his original creation of the world
What are uniformitarianism
The belief that the appearance of the earth could be understood as resulting for the slow actions of known processes such as weathering and erosion over a very long period of time
