Chapter 1 - The Mediterranean and Archaeology Flashcards
What is the difference between pre-historial and historical times
Prehistorical - no written sources, historical - written sources
What are “ages” determined by? (ex. Stone Age, Chalcolithic, Bronze, Iron Age etc.)
Determined by materials being used
What are the 3 sub ages of the Stone age?
Palaeolithic (old), Epipalaeolithic/ Mesolithic (Middle), Neolithic (New)
What ages occurred over the years 5000-3100 BC?
Chalcolithic
What age occurred between the years 3100-1200 BC?
Bronze Age
What age occurred over the years 1200/1000 - 800/700 BC?
The Iron Age (Near East/ Greece/Rome)
What 5 periods did the Near East undergo?
Upper Palaeolithic/Mesolithic (12500-10000), Neolithic (10000-5000), Chalcolithic (5000-3100), Bronze (3100-1200), Iron (1200-330)
What 5 periods did Greece undergo and when did they each end?
Bronze (3100-1200), Iron/Dark (1200-800), Archaic (800-480), Classical (480-330), Hellenistic (330-146)
What 5 periods did Italy (Rome) undergo?
Iron (1000-753), Archaic (753-509), Republic (509-31), Imperial (31BC-330AD), Christian (330)
What important event occurred in Italy in 753BC?
The official founding of the Roman capital
What important event occurred in Italy in 509BC?
The Eutruscan kings kicked out of Rome
What important event occurred in Greece in 146BC?
The official invasion of Greece by the Romans
What is a non-sedentary group of people?
Unsettles groups who do not need in cities
What evidence of presence do non-sedentary groups leave behind?
Burials, discarded tools, post holes, unnatural clusters of animal bones
What evidence of presence do complex settlements leave behind?
Architecture, city plans, artifacts, ecofacts (organics), tombs, written sources
Why are pottery artifacts very important to archaeology?
Images (artwork) can be used for dating, makers marks can distinguish levels of a dig
What is a sherd and a shard?
A piece of pottery is a sherd and a piece of glass is a shard
Around what time did the agricultural revolution occur?
Approx 7000 BC
What is paleobotany?
The study of “ecofacts”
What are ecofacts?
Items touched by man but made of organic material
What can ecofacts tell us about the humans that produced them?
Tells us what people are eating, harvesting, domesticating etc.
What can bioarcheology tell us about settlements?
Animal remains tell us about food sources, domestication, and pets
What can bioarcheology tell us about settlements?
Animal remains tell us about food sources, domestication, and pets
What is straigraphy?
The levels that build upon each other to create archaeological dig sites
What layer is the earliest and what layer is the oldest in a dig site?
The lowest layer is the earliest and the highest layer is the lastest
What is “leveling up”?
The building up of strata by humans
What is the name of a map site?
Strata or profile
How are layers defined?
Each layer must have a discerning characteristic
What are the two types of relative dating?
Typology (the ordering of artifacts by form and style) and Seriation (human artifacts are ordered by period of manufacturer/use)
What are the two types of absolute dating?
Radiocarbon (the amount of C14 vs C12 and C13) and dendrochronology (tree ring dating)
What are the 3 sources for historical dating?
Inscriptions (specific year of construction), coins (give us a year of minting), textual sources (tell us about politics, religion, trade, daily life)
