General

Question 1

What are the 3 basic properties of material in the archaeological record?

Answer 1

correlates = principles used to relate human activities to the archaeological objects

c-transforms = principles used to describe the nature of object loss from the cultural system and the post-depositional changes that result from cultural activities

N-transforms = principles used by archaeologists to describe the post depositional changes in the record that result from non-cultural processes

Question 2

What are the 4 main principles of stratigraphy?

Answer 2

o The law of superposition
o The law of association
o the law of horizontal deposition:
o the law of original continuity

Question 3

What is the law of superposition?

Answer 3

refers to the layer cake effect. Simply states provided that there has been no subsequent disturbance, deeper stratigraphic layers are older than those overlying them

Question 4

What is the law of association?

Answer 4

states that provided that there has been no disturbance, materials in the same stratigraphic layer are associated with each other. however because some layers represent vastly greater time periods than others, the usefulness of this law varies

Question 5

What is the law of horizontal deposition?

Answer 5

states that any layer deposited in an unconsolidated form will tend toward the horizontal. this means that strata found tilted lie over the contours of previous basins. of course the shape of stratigraphic layers composed of cultural material will not necessarily be horizontal but, rather, will be determined by the people who made them

Question 6

What is the law of original continuity?

Answer 6

states that a natural deposit will end in a feather edge. thus if the edge of a stratigraphic layer is not feather edged, its original extent has been destroyed

Question 7

What are the 2 kinds of uniformitarianism?

Answer 7

• Substantive uniformitarianism: the world remains unchanged from earlier times and the rate and intensity of processes creating change have remained the same
• Methodological principle of uniformitarianism: the laws of physics, chemistry, geology, biology have remained the same through time