Chapter 2 Edited Flashcards
How are Sites Formed
come into existence through a series of site formation processes, tools discarded or lost food remains thrown in trash pit or pile dead bodies abandoned or intentionally ceremonially buried valuable objects cached
Taphonomy
how materials become part of the paleontological or archaeological record.
Artifact
any object manufactured by a human being or human ancestor. Usually defined further as a portable object like a stone spearpoint or clay pot to distinguish it from larger more complex archaeological features.
Ecofact
element found in archaeological contexts that exhibits human activity, but was not made by people and so is not, strictly speaking, an artifact.
Site
a place where people lived and/or worked and where the physical evidence of their existence in the form of artifacts, ecofacts, and features can be or have been recovered.
Primary Refuse
archaeological artifacts and ecofacts left at the place they were used or produced.
Feature
a combination of artifacts and/or ecofacts at a site, reflecting a location where some human activity took place.
Secondary Refuse
archaeological artifacts and ecofacts that were removed by the people who made used, or produced them from the place where they were made, used, or produced, to a designated refuse area or areas
How Sites are Found
some natural processes expose them, rivers cutting into banks wind blowing sand waves eroding beach
Pedestrian Survey
a systematic walkover of an area in the search for archaeological remains.
Lidar
Lidar: an imaging method that uses pulses of laser light- light detection and ranging- to produce 3-D images. Lidar is able to penetrate the leaf canopy of trees and is useful, therefore, even in heavily forested regions. Lidar is very useful in the search for aboveground archaeological remains and in mapping sites with aboveground remains.
Cache
a stash of stuff placed away for safekeeping
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X Ray Flourescence
a technique for identifying the chemical makeup of a raw material
Coprolites
fossilized feces, useful in the reconstruction of an ancient diet
Pollen
pollen grains are the male gametes in plant sexual reproduction
Phytoliths
microscopic, inorganic particles produced by plants
How to determine sex of a skeleton
Human and ape males have skeletons that are often readily distinguishable from those of females of the same species
Males tend to be larger, with heavier, denser, and tougher bones than females
Larger, heavier skulls, with larger and rougher areas for muscle attachment
In some ape species - males have a bony crest on top of skulls, and females lack this feature
Males have a large ridge of bone above eye orbits,
females either lack this feature or have a smaller ridge
Among humans, all the various angles of the pelvis that control the overall size of the birth canal are, of necessity, larger in the vast majority of females than in males
Modern forensic scientists as well as paleoanthropologists can correctly distinguish males and females more than 85% of the time
Male skulls are more likely to feature prominent brow bones and jaws that are strong and square; also larger are the occipital crest, where muscles attach in the back of the head, and the mastoid process, the bony bump behind your ear. Female features are smaller, or “gracile.”
How to determine age (at death) of individual from the skeleton
The bones of human children go through a series of developmental changes through the course of their lives
Tooth eruption and replacement provides developmental time-posts in human maturation
Deciduous dentition - the baby teeth - erupt above the gum line in a regular and fairly well-established time and order
The permanent teeth replace the baby teeth in a regular pattern and at well-fixed ages until the wisdom teeth come in
Long bones - various bones of arms, legs, hands, feet
At birth, each long bone is in three sections, a shaft (diaphysis) and two endcaps (epiphyses)
During epiphyseal fusion the shafts and endcaps fuse to one another during growth at more or less set times during teen years -reflects maturity and full growth
deciduous dentition
baby teeth. The teeth that are shed like the leaves of deciduous trees
Diaphysis
the shaft of a long bone. On either end of the diaphysis, there is an epiphysis
Epiphysis
the endcaps of the long bones. The epiphyses join at the ends of the diaphysis of each long bone
Dating Techniques Based on Radioactive Decay
Among the best-known techniques are radiocarbon dating, potassium–argon dating and uranium–lead dating.
absolute dating vs. relative dating
Absolute date: any date where a year or range of years can be applied to a site or artifact
Relative date: a date that places a fossil or archaeological site or artifact in a sequence with other specimens
K/Ar dating
potassium/argon dating
Half-life
measurement of the amount of time it takes for half of the radioactive isotope in a given sample to decay into a stable form
C-14 dating/radiocarbon
Radiocarbon dating: radiometric dating technique based on the decay of a radioactive isotope of carbon 14C or radiocarbon
Carbon dating: radiometric dating technique based in the decay of a radioactive isotope of carbon: 14C or radiocarbon
accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS)
a variety of radiocarbon dating. In AMS dating, the amount of carbon-14 left in a sample is measured directly by an actual count of atoms
Dendrochronology
tree-ring dating
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphic (stratigraphy): related to the geological or cultural layer in which something has been found
seriation
obsidian hydration
is a geochemical method of determining age in either absolute or relative terms of an artifact made of obsidian.
potassium argon dating argon/argon dating
absolute dating method based on the decay of radioactive potassium to stable argon gas. Because of the long half-life of radioactive potassium, there is no upper chronological limit to the application of the technique
NAGPRA
NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) modern native Americans are the legal stewards of burials that can be shown to contain the remains of their ancestors
Trace Element Analysis
determining the geographic source of the materials used by an ancient people through the analysis of small or “trace” concentrations of elements or chemicals in those raw materials.
Palynology
Palynology Palynology: the identification of plants through the remains of the pollen grains
faunal assemblage
Faunal assemblage: the animal bones found at a site and the species represented by those bones
