Early Development of Archaeology

Question 0

History

Answer 0

Unique events; no change in culture or technology, only decay

Question 1

What are notions of time?

Answer 1

Night and day (i.e. humans and animals can distinguish between day and night)
-Past, present, and future (concepts of time)

Question 2

Thunderstones

Answer 2

Prehistoric hand axes found in plowed fields

• Sold to goldsmiths during Middle Ages
• Burials were looted disregarding past, no understanding

Question 3

James Ussher

Answer 3

Published Annles of Old Testiment (1650)

-Creation happened 4004 B.C. on the nightfall before Sunday, October 23rd (earth is only 6,013 years old)

Question 4

What does the expansion of scales of time and space (1600-1700s) mean?

Answer 4

The realization of astronomical distances

• Earth is a very small place in a very large universe
• Vast scales of spaced allowed acceptance of vast scales of time

Question 5

James Hutton

Answer 5

Published the Theory of Earth (1795)

• Discovered formation of sedimentary rock, suggests ancient earth
• The Principle of “Uniformitarianism”

Question 6

Uniformtarianism

Answer 6

Laws of nature are constant

• Gravity and speed of light doesn’t change with time
• Sediment in the Ocean changes at a very slow rate (few kilometers per 100 years)

Question 7

Christopher Lyell

Answer 7

“Father of modern day geology” (influenced ideas of Darwin)

-Published Principles of Geology (1737); advanced study of stratigraphy

Question 8

What are stratigraphy and fossils?

Answer 8

Provides chronological framework for the earth; “superposition”

Question 9

What are the principles of Superposition?

Answer 9

In any undisturbed sequence of layers, the bottom layer is the oldest and the upper layer is the youngest

Question 10

Charles Darwin

Answer 10

Published the Origin of Species (1859)

• Gradual evolutionary change in plants and animals (*humans)
• The theory of Natural Selection or “survival of the fittest”

Question 11

Jacques Boucfier

Answer 11

Human antiquity

• Recovered stone tools with extinct animals in France (1847)
• Deep (ancient) stratigraphy estimated to be >5,000,000 years old

Question 12

John Lubbock

Answer 12

Human antiquity

• Coined the terms “Paleolithic” and “Neolithic”
• Applied Darwin’s concept to archaeological records
• Moral and technological progress (inevitable and unilinear)

Question 13

Paleolithic

Answer 13

Old Stone Age

Question 14

Neolithic

Answer 14

New Stone Age

Question 15

19th century Paleolithic archaeology

Answer 15

The first scientific discipline of the study of human antiquity
-Assumed all ancient human societies went through same process; primitive -> sophisticated humans

Question 16

19th century view of Social Evolution

Answer 16

Change = simple -> complex

• Savages, barbarians, and civilized
• Progress = increased intelligence, beauty, and goodness
• Western civilization’s role was to “lead” less advanced humans

Question 17

Savages

Answer 17

Starving, ignorant, supersticious, and violent

Question 18

Barbarians

Answer 18

Less starving, ignorant, superstitious, and violent

Question 19

Civilized

Answer 19

Not starving, moral, wealthy, sophisticated, and reasonable

Question 20

Rethinking progress

Answer 20

The end of European Imperialism

-Increased understanding of evolutionary process

Question 21

“Processual” archaeology

Answer 21

Evolutionary and scientific perspective

• Universal laws of social change
• Societies as systems with environment and technologies as significant variables

Question 22

Post-“Processual” archaeology

Answer 22

Post-Modernism

• More particular and less universal in scope
• Explicit recognition of political context of archaeology
• Focused on roles of individuals instead of systems of past

Question 23

Archaeology today

Answer 23

Expansion of multiple perspectives

-Darwinian and evolutionary theories continue to develop

Question 24

Post-“Processual” archaeology

Answer 24

Dating methods using “pre-history”

-Establishes sequences of change; pace of change is NOT linear

Question 25

Absolute Dating

Answer 25

Provides a secure date in which an event or fossil was discovered

• Can be very expensive (not used as much)
• Documented through historical text

Question 26

Relative Dating

Answer 26

Provides an approximate time period in which and event or fossil was discovered
-Doesn’t show pace of change

Question 27

Christian Jurgensen

Answer 27

“Three Age system”; Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age

-Doesn’t apply to the America’s