Chapter 5 Terminology Flashcards
A horizon
The upper part of a soil where active organic and mechanical decomposition of geological and organic material occurs.
Alluvial sediments
Sediments transported by flowing water.
Archaeological context
Once artifacts enter the ground, they are part of the archaeological context, where they continue to be affected by human action, but where they also are affected by natural processes.
Agrilliturbation
A natural formation process in which wet/dry cycles in clay-rich soils push artifacts upward (προς τα άνω) as the sediment swells (φουσκώνει) and then moves them down as cracks form during dry cycles.
B horizon
A layer found below the A horizon where clays accumulate that are transported downward by water.
C horizon
A layer found below the B horizon that consists of the unaltered or slightly altered parent material; bedrock (βραχώδες υπόστρωμα) lies below the C horizon.
Colluvial sediments
Sediments deposed primarily through the action of gravity on geological material lying on the hillsides.
Cryoturbation
A natural formation process in which freeze/thaw (τήξη) in a soil selectively pushes larger artifacts to the surface of a site.
Cultural depositional processes
Human behaviors by which artifacts enter the archaeological record, including discard, loss, caching, and ritual interment.
Cultural disturbance processes
Human behaviors that modify artifacts in their archaeological context, for instance, digging pits and hearths, canals and houses.
Eolian sediments
Materials transported and accumulated by wind (for example, dunes).
Faunalturbation
A natural formation process in which animals, from large game to earthworms, affect the distribution of material within an archaeological site.
Floralturbation
A natural formation process in which trees and other plants affect the distribution of artifacts within an archaeological site.
Formation process
The ways which human behaviors and natural actions operate to produce the archaeological record.
Geoarchaeology
The field of study that applies the concepts and methods of the geosciences to archaeological research.
Geomorphology
The geological study of landforms and landscapes, for instance, soils, rivers, hills, sand dunes, deltas, glacial deposits and marshes.
Graviturbation
A natural process in which artifacts are moved downslope through gravity, sometimes assisted by precipitation runoff.
Hominins
Members of the evolutionary line that contains humans and our early bipedal ancestors.
Imbrication (συναρμογή)
A fluvial (ποτάμιος) process through which stones in a stream - or riverbed come to rest overlapping like shingles on a roof, with their upstream ends lying slightly lower in elevation than their downstream ends.
Krotovina
A filled-in animal burrow.
Law of supervision
The geological principle stating that, in any pile sedimentary rocks that have not been disturbed by folding or overturning, each bed is older than the layers above and younger than they layers below; also known as Steno’s law.
Marker bed
An easily identified geologic layer whose age has been independently confirmed at numerous locations and whose presence can therefore be used to date archaeological and geological sediments.
Pithouse
Semi-subterranean structures with heavy log roofs, covered with sod (χλοοτάπητας).
Reclamation process
Human behaviors that result in moving artifacts from the archaeological context back to systemic context,as in scavenging beams from an abandoned structure to use them in a new one.
Reuse process
Human behaviors that recycle and reuse artifacts before they enter an archaeological context.
Reverse stratigraphy
The result when one sediment is unearthed by human or natural actions and moved elsewhere, whereby the latest material will be deposited on the bottom of the new sediment, and progressively earlier material will be deposited higher and higher in the stratigraphy.
Sediment rock
Rock formed when the weathered products of pre-existing rocks have been transported by and deposited in water and are turned once again to stone.
Site formation
The human and natural actions that work together to create an archaeological site.
Soil
Sediments that have undergone in situ chemical and mechanical alteration
Systematic context
A living behavioral system wherein artifacts are part of the ongoing system of manufacture, use, re-use and discard.
