Chapter 2

Question 1

Types of Research

Answer 1

1. Ethnography

2. Excavation

Question 2

Ethnography

Answer 2

Detailed description and analysis of a society or culture

Question 3

Participant Observation

Answer 3

Taking part in the important events of societies and asking careful questions of the people.

Question 4

Fieldwork

Answer 4

Firsthand research experience

Question 5

Informants

Answer 5

Knowledgeable people willing to work with the anthropologist.

Question 6

Within-Culture Comparisons

Answer 6

Testing a theory within one society by comparing individuals, families, households, communities, or districts

Question 7

Regional Controlled Comparisons

Answer 7

The comparison of ethnographic information obtained from societies found in a particular region—societies that presumably have similar histories and occupy similar environments

Question 8

Cross-Cultural Research

Answer 8

Worldwide comparisons

Example: Whiting’s work on the adaptive value of a long postpartum sex taboo.

Question 9

Ethnohistory

Answer 9

Studies based on descriptive materials about a single society at more than one point in time.
Explains variations in cultural patterns

Question 10

Excavation

Answer 10

The discovery and processing of an archaeological site

Question 11

Excavation has 2 goals:

Answer 11

1. to find every scrap of evidence (or a statistically representative sample) about the past that a given site holds
2. to record the horizontal and vertical location of that evidence with precision.

Question 12

Artifact

Answer 12

Anything made or modified by humans.

Question 13

Lithic

Answer 13

Technical name for tools made of stone.

Only kind of artifact available for 99% of human history

Question 14

Ceramics

Answer 14

Pots and other items made form baked clay.

Question 15

Fossils

Answer 15

Hardened Remains or impressions of plants and animals that lived in the past.
Conditions must be favorable and specific for preservation.
Only 3% of species that ever lived have been found.

Question 16

Features

Answer 16

Artifacts of human manufacture that cannot be removed from an archaeological site.
Ex. hearths, pits, buildings, living floors.

Question 17

How are Sites Created?

Answer 17

Sites are created when remnants of human activity are covered or buried by some natural process

Question 18

Taphonomy

Answer 18

The study of the processes of site disturbance and destruction.

Question 19

How are sites found?

Answer 19

1. Pedestrian Survey.

2. Remote Sensing.

Question 20

Pedestrian Survey (walkover)

Answer 20

Walking around and looking for sites.

Detecting anomalies in the soil.

Question 21

Remote Sensing

Answer 21

allow archaeologists to find deposits from a remote location

Question 22

Stratigraphy

Answer 22

The study of how different rock or soil formations are laid down in successive layers or strata

Question 23

Conservation

Answer 23

The process of treating artifacts, ecofacts, and in some cases even features, to stop decay and, if possible, reverse the deterioration process.

Question 24

Dating the Evidence 2 TYPES:

Answer 24

• Absolute/Chronometric Dating.

- Relative Dating.

Question 25

Multiple Ways to Date the evidence

Answer 25

-Radiocarbon, Thermoluminescence, Electron spin resonance, ^40Ar-^39Ar Dating, Potassium-argon (K-Ar), Paleomagnetic, Uranium-series, Fission-track.

Question 26

Radiocarbon (carbon-14) dating

Answer 26

Dating method that uses the decay of carbon 14 to date organic remains. It is reliable for dating once-living matter up to 50,000 years old.

Question 27

ThermoluminescenceDating

Answer 27

Used on samples of ancient pottery, brick, tile, or terra cotta, which (when they were made) were heated to a high temperature that released trapped electrons.

Question 28

Electron spin resonance

Answer 28

Useful for dating organic materials, such as bone and woodThe material to be dated is exposed to varying magnetic fields in order to obtain a spectrum of the microwaves absorbed by the tested material.

Question 29

40Ar–39Ar dating

Answer 29

Used in conjunction with potassiumargon dating, this method gets around the problem of needing different rock samples to estimate potassium and argon

Question 30

Potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating

Answer 30

Uses the rate of decay of a radioactive form of potassium (40K) into argon (40Ar) to date samples from 5,000 to 3 billion years oldDates minerals and rocks in the deposit, not artifacts themselves.

Question 31

Uranium-series dating

Answer 31

Uses the decay of two kinds of uranium (235U and 238U) into other isotopes (such as 230Th, thorium)•Particularly useful in cave sites.

Question 32

Paleomagnetic dating

Answer 32

•Based on reversals and changes in the earth’s magnetic field over time.

Question 33

Fission-track Dating

Answer 33

•used to date crystal, glass, and many uranium-rich materialscontemporaneous with fossils or deposits that are from 20 billion to 5 billion years old•This dating method entails counting the tracks or paths of decaying uranium-isotope atoms in the sample and then comparing the number of tracks with the uranium content of the sample.

Question 34

Relative Dating

Answer 34

Used to determine the age of a specimen or deposit relative to another specimen or deposit.

Question 35

Ethics in Anthropological Research

Answer 35

Most important ethical obligation: to protect the people in a study.
•Informants given pseudonyms
•Honest, objective reporting
•Present results to scientific community
•Publish results