Chapter 1

Question 1

Anthropology

Answer 1

the study of what makes humans, human

Question 2

Four subfields of anthropology

Answer 2

• Biological/Physical
• Archaeology
• Linguistic
• Cultural

Question 3

Archaeology

Answer 3

the study of the human past through the trace of the past that exist in (what humans have left behind)

Question 4

Archaeological remains

Answer 4

archaeology enables us to read the trace of the past that exist with us in the present

Question 5

Archaeological remains

Answer 5

• Objects made or modified by people
• Organic material
• Geological features

Question 6

Archaeologists work in many diverse settings

Answer 6

Universities/college, museums, a nonprofit organization, government

Question 7

Cultural Resource Mangement

Answer 7

companies or firms dedicated to excavating or surveying areas in advance of a construction project (archaeologist go out to make sure that nothing gets damaged)

Question 8

Archaeological survey

Answer 8

• look for traces of past humans action
• mapping the physical remains of human activities
• range from a small or large physical structures/ stone tool fragment
• discover single sites and also how various locations and distributed in a region

Question 9

in situ

Answer 9

items found in the site they were originally deposited

Question 10

geological factors

Answer 10

natural erosion, accumulation of sediments, vegetation, etc.

Question 11

recovery methods

Answer 11

how are items are to be collected (pick them up from the surface, dig, aerial photography, satellite imagery, ground-penetrating radar, GPS, drones, GIS software applications, etc.)

Question 12

Excavation

Answer 12

a long-standing recovery method in archaeology

• Horizontal excavation (excavate a broad area across the surface to expose the remains of a single point in time)
• Vertical excavation (excavate a significant depth of deposits to expose the record of a sequence of occupations)

Question 13

Geological stratigraphy

Answer 13

sediments are deposited and build up over time ina stratigraphic sequence

Question 14

Law of Superposition

Answer 14

in any undisturbed depositional sequence, each layer is younger than the layer beneath
* Not always undisturbed, so correlation of data is a MUST

Question 15

Erosional

Answer 15

sediment carried way

Question 16

Depositional

Answer 16

sediment is deposited

Question 17

Depositional environment

Answer 17

they were on the surface initially, but sediment built on top of them over time

Question 18

Stratigraphy

Answer 18

accumulation of strata that result from both geological and anthropogenic deposits

Question 19

Anthropogenic deposits

Answer 19

deposits that result from human activity (building fires, dumping garbage, building on tops of already occupied sites)

Question 20

Stratigraphic analysis

Answer 20

by examining depositional units

Question 21

Depositional units

Answer 21

material deposited at a particular point in time

* not always easy to identify depositional units as this burial example

Question 22

Provenience

Answer 22

record the precise context of objects recovered during excavation
*they use a grid with square size from 1 square meter to 25 square meters, depending on the size of the archaeological site

Question 23

Datum point

Answer 23

A reference point for all depth measurements and is key to the control of the excavation

Question 24

Excavation tools

Answer 24

depends on scale and goal of the project (backhoes, bulldozers, hand trowels, shovels, dental picks, screening, floating botanical material in which charred remains float while mineral sediments settle, etc.)

Question 25

Arch excavation

Answer 25

always destructive (you can never excavate an area a second time

Question 26

Arch Record

Answer 26

depositional unit

Question 27

Artifacts

Answer 27

Objects that show traces of human manufacture - lithic analysis (stone tools) - Ceramic analysis (pottery and fired clay items - Metallurgy (the study of metal artifacts and by-products of smelting

Question 28

Ecofacts

Answer 28

remains of biological organisms or results of geological processes Help reconstruct the ecological setting of the site and often are evidence of human activity at the site as well - Faunal (the study of animal bones - Paleoethnobotany (the study of archaeological plant remains charred seeds and pollen) - Human Osteoarchaeology (the study of biological characteristics of human skeletal remains)

Question 29

Post-depositional processes

Answer 29

move material around the site and distort the stratigraphy (events that take place after the site was occupied)

Question 30

Taphonomy

Answer 30

Study of the processes that affect organic remains after death (moved by water, chemical weathering, chewing by animals, passed through the digestive track)

Question 31

Micromorphology

Answer 31

soil analysis of minerals and organic material

Question 32

Microbotanical analysis

Answer 32

study of pollen, grain, and plants minerals

Question 33

Use-wear and residue analysis

Answer 33

study of edge of stone tool or food residues left on ceramic vessels

Question 34

Isotopic analysis

Answer 34

study proportion of isotopes in bone to reveal diet and possibly human migration on earth

Question 35

Ancient DNA analysis

Answer 35

genetic connection to our ancestors

Question 36

Number of Identifiable specimens (NISP)

Answer 36

counting the number of bone of animals at a site - complete one rabbit skeleton and ten cow left tibias this method counts each bone, so it looks like there were more rabbits then cows)

Question 37

Minimum Number of Individuals (NMNI)

Answer 37

Fixes this problem by recognizing the number

Question 38

Typology

Answer 38

list of artifact type for a particular site used to create an inventory of the artifact

Question 39

Attribute

Answer 39

particular characteristic of an artifact (type of clay, shape, size, color, design)

Question 40

Absolute chronology

Answer 40

artifacts with a specific known date of manufacture stated in calendar years

Question 41

Radiocarbon dating

Answer 41

measures decay of carbon isotopes

Question 42

Dendrochronology

Answer 42

counting tree rings

Question 43

Relative chronology

Answer 43

artifact typology placed in sequential order without a sp

Question 44

Seriation

Answer 44

comparing the relative frequency of artifact types

Question 45

How is archaeology useful?

Answer 45

- Evidence to Indigenous/Native peopls used for obtaining fedral recognition - Communities reconstruct and preserve their ancestral past - Companies from building on scared sites or destoying ancestral site - Stop precribe burns that could destroy artifacts or sacred sites - CHallenge colonizer mentality and border with evidence of previous settle ent and social complexity - Help genocide survivors find the remains of fiamily members - Learn and teach traditional