Final Exam Flashcards
What are features?
Non-portable artifacts that cannot be removed from the ground without altering or destroying their original form. For example: hearths, pits, burials, etc.
What is historical archaeology?
It begins with the beginning of written history in the region under investigation.
What is prehistoric archaeology?
The study of the human past before historic records began.
What is ethnographic analogy?
When we interpret some archaeological data by observing similar artifacts in use among living cultures.
What is the overall goal of archaeology?
The reconstruction of past cultural systems.
What are test pits?
An exploratory excavation made to establish the presence or absence of an archaeological site.
What is the most important aspect of an archaeological dig?
Complete and accurate record keeping
What is used to establish horizontal control at a site?
A grid system
What is an artifact?
An object made or modified by humans
What do historical archeologists focus on?
Immigrants who arrived in the past 500 years.
What are the first steps in archaeological excavation?
Establish a datum and a grid pattern system
What are middens?
Ancient trash piles
Most artifacts that make up archeological records are?
Garbage
What is the most common type of feature?
Pits
What is created when the remnants of human activity are covered or buried by some natural process?
A site
What allows archaeologists to recover a full range of artifacts and other material while only excavating a small portion of a site?
Sampling
The “reading of the archaeological record is called
An analysis
What refers to the relationship between and among artifacts and other materials?
Context
What is culture?
The learned behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, values, and ideals that are characteristics of a particular society of population.
What is cultural relativism?
The anthropological attitude that a society’s customs and ideas should be descried objectively and understood in the context of that society’s problems and opportunities
What is ethnocentrism?
The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct and the only true way of being fully human
An extended period during which the anthropologists gathers data is called what?
Fieldwork
A society’s techniques for acquiring food resources is its what?
Subsistence pattern
What is science?
A method of inquiry
What is a hypothesis?
A proposed explanation for a natural phenomena
A theory is always
Well supported by scientific testing.
What is participant observation?
A unique research strategy of anthropologists which involves learning the language and culture of a group by participating in the group’s daily activities.
Why is the context of an artifact important?
context can reveal valuable information about the artifact’s use, age, and relationship to other artifacts and features
Which of the following is NOT a Hollywood stereotype of archaeologists?
Archaeoloist are trained professionals who try to reconstruct human behavior in the past
Although most anthropologist agree on where Native Americans orginated, they disagree about?
When the population migrations actually took place
The durable aspects of culture such as tools, structures, and art are known as
Material culture
What is the purpose of a grid system?
to record the exact location of an artifact accurately, both horizontally and vertically
Archaeologists get clues about how an artifact was used by?
Analyzing its shape and signs of wear and tear
Which of the following is NOT true of science?
It always provides the right answer to a question
It is essential that archaeoligists take abundant, accurate, and detailed field notes during excavations because:
Archaeology destroys data as it is gathered; once a site is excavated it cannot be re-excavated
A test excavation would be most appropriate in which of the following situations?
When trying to determine a site’s potential for answering a research question
Why do archaeoloists use a datum point rather than simply measuring from the ground surface?
The datum point provvides a universal reference point that can be used across any archaeological site, allowing archaeologists to easily compare data between excavations.
