Chapter 8, 13, 14, 15, & 16 Terms

Question 1

Taphonomy

Answer 1

Understand depositional history, how site formed over time.

Question 2

Artifacts

Answer 2

Object or material made or modified for use by hominins.

Question 3

Features

Answer 3

Unremovable human activity.

Question 4

Ecofacts

Answer 4

Natural materials with environmental info about site

Question 5

Contexts

Answer 5

Space, location, and temporal association of artifacts and features.

Question 6

Ethnoarchaeology

Answer 6

Examines contemporary societies into past human behavior. Ex.: learning ways from existing tribal groups.

Question 7

Experimental archaeology

Answer 7

Observations of modern behavior as testable ideas about interpretation of archaeological patterning.

Question 8

Bering Land Bridge

Answer 8

Priest Jose de Acosta said species crossed Asia to enter New World. During Pleistocene lowered sea levels exposed floor of Bering Sea.

Question 9

Beringia

Answer 9

Dry land 1300 miles connecting Asia and Americas, existed ruing Pleistocene epoch.

Question 10

Megafauna

Answer 10

+100 pound animals like mammoth, mastodon, giant bison, horse, camel, and sloth. At kill sites were knives, scrapes, and finely flaked and fluted projectile points with animal DNA or blood.

Question 11

Foragers

Answer 11

Llive in camp for short time as food resources come to season.

Question 12

Collectors

Answer 12

Stay in camp for long time as there are local plant and animals.

Question 13

Natufians

Answer 13

Hunter gathers in Near East 12 kya, collector types with sedentary settlement.

Question 14

Craft specialization

Answer 14

Neolithics had more time for cloth weaving, pottery making, and metallurgy.

Question 15

Domestication

Answer 15

Evolutionary process, requires permanent genetic transformation of wild species by selective breeding with natural processes.

Question 16

Agriculture

Answer 16

Cultural activity, farming based exploitation by humans to domesticate plants and animals.

Question 17

Neolithic plants

Answer 17

Species tend to grow in long dry season following short wet period. Pollen, starch, and phyloliths are abundant, taxonomically distinctive, tough shell, and wind dispersal. Preserve poorly in open site based on soil acidity, draining, and weathering.

Question 18

Neolithic animals

Answer 18

Most domesticates were maintained for meat and stayed that way, until 4 kya when changes in herd (age and gender ratio), slaughter pattern, and popularity of breed brought new use for livestock. Oxen plowed, horse carried, cattle and goat milked, and sheep wooled. Animal waste became fertilizer for agriculture.

Question 19

Cities

Answer 19

Urban ccenters supported by vicinity of lesser communities, most settled communities were hamlets, villages, or towns.

Question 20

States

Answer 20

Governmental entity by political control of territory, like most modern nations.

Question 21

Civilizations

Answer 21

Larger social order of states formed by language, tradition, history, economic ties, and set of shared cultural values.

Question 22

Social strafication

Answer 22

True social classes including hierarchy or class structure based on political, economic, or social standing.

Question 23

Environmental explanations to forming civilization

Answer 23

Arie Issar & Mattanyah Zohar say fluctuating water resources caused by major climatic changes was key factor in development of civilization in Near East. Environmental & climate changes can’t explain rise & fall of all early civilizations.

Question 24

Cultural explanations to forming civilization

Answer 24

Explains major prehistoric changes in shaping human behavior. Transition from villages to cities & states is by economy or politics. Bruce Trigger said there’s no evidence of shaminism, but there is uniform class systems, kingship, and control of production.

Question 25

Anthropocene

Answer 25

Epoch where human behavior was 1 of major geomorphological and geological processes.