Midterm 1 Flashcards
Archaeology
Plus root words
Archaeology is the study of all aspects of past human experience through material culture
- arkaios =ancient
- logos = “word”, study of
What is the difference between archaeology and paleontology ?
- archaeology focuses on human experience; they only study animals and plants that have been impacted by or impact human development
- if it doesn’t have to do with humans; than it is palaeontology (ie study of dinosaurs)
Archaeology and science
- aims to understand human behaviour, so in his respect it is part of humanities
- uses hypothesis testing and experimentation as a science
- uses scientific methods, and adapts others from geology, biology, chemistry, and physics to analyze artifacts and soils
- different from other scientists as you cannot excavate the same pit twice
Prehistoric archaeology
Study of human past prior to written documents
Historic archaeology
- study human past through material remains in conjunction with written records
Ethnoarchaeology
- study ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs for archaeology analogy (study modern to differ things about ancient cultures)
Pseudoarchaeology
Claims that appear to be based on fact but are actually fictitious
- use of highly selective data without considering the full range of evidence
- use of data out of context
- may be used to support nationalistic or racist agendas (ex 21st century India with Hindu nationalists trying to assert dominance, Nazi germany)
How to spot fake news
- Pay attention to domain and URL
- Read about us section
- Is it from a joke website/ satirical website?
- Look for science based reasoning and citations of professional and peer reviews research
- Do a reverse image search
Society for American Archaeology (SAA) ethics 9 principles
- Stewardship
- Accountability
- Commercialization
- Public education and outreach
- Intellectual property
- Public reporting and publication
- Records and preservation
- Training and resources
- Safe educational and workplace environments
Stewardship
The responsibility to ensure the conservation and survival of artifacts and sites for posterity
Public accountability
Consult in good faith with all affected groups and make research beneficial to all parties involved
Commercialization
Do not enhance the commercial value of arky objects, especially those not in public institutions or readily available to archaeologists (can’t sell artifacts)
Public education and outreach
- explain and promote the use of arky methods and techniques, and interpretations of the past
Intellectual property
After a limited and reasonable time, make materials and documents available to others
Public reporting and publication
Publish findings to as wise a range of interested publics as possible (including local communities)
Records and preservation
- preserve long term access to arky collections, records, and reports (have data indefinitely)
Training and resources
- archaeologists must have adequate training and facilities to conduct any research they initiate
Canadian Archaeological association ethics
- Stewardship
- Aboriginal relationships
- Professional responsibilities
- Public education and outreach
Kennewick man
- 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) stated that if you find Native American remains you must consult the tribe, and offer repatriation
- human skeletal remains recovered in a overbred in Washington state, USA
- originally thought to be modern, turned over to forensic anthropologists who found spearhead in pelvis indicating older than thought
- forensic anthropologists claimed he looked more European and not native
American - legal battle ensued
Ethical issues of the Kennewick man case
- stewardship of a unique skeleton vs respect for Native American religious beliefs
- how do we determine race and affiliation from human skeletal materials?
- can we allow the destruction of sites/ materials/ knowledge given the historical surrounding arky and indigenous populations? Science vs religions?
- who decides?
Kennewick man: new findings
- osteological study by Smithsonian institute
- brainiac features - Ainu
- spear hunter, knapper
- survived 5 broken ribs, 2 blows to the head, a broken shoulder, and spear in his pelvis
- marine diet
- spent time easing and swimming in cold water
- drank glacial melt water from Alaska
Kennewick man DNA
- new study by Dr. Wake Willersley from university of Copenhagen
- lee wick man is not related to Ainu of Japan or Polynesians
- close genetic affinity with members of the confederated tribes of the colville reservation (Native American)
- however, in general, there is very little genetic information about modern native Americans to make comparisons
Kwaday Dan Ts’inchi
- a Canadian model for cooperation?
- mummified body found on a glacier in Tatsheshini - Alden park BC
- hunters found body report it to Beringia centre and turned in artifacts
- the centre notified the Aishihik First Nations
- archaeologists and First Nations developed plans for excavation and analysis together
- remains returned to the First Nations for cremation and burial after investigation
- 300-550 years old
- 18-18 years old at fear
- travel 100km from coast to mountains in the south before death (based on stomach contents)
Artifacts found with kwaday dan ts’inchi
- a rope of gopher/ squirrel skins
- a woven hat
- a walking stick
- a knife
- a hand tool
- an Atlanta and dart
- shellfish and salmon
Clovis - first hypothesis (Bering Land- bridge hypothesis)
- Clovis = large spear points made out of chipped stones
- hypothesis = glaciers and large warming incidents have coincided with dates of Clovis points
- ice free corridor between cordillera corridor and lausteride ice sheet?
Coastal hypothesis
- boats/ walking along the coast
Polynesian hypothesis
- world populated by Polynesia
Canadian vs USA patrimony laws
- compared to the US, Canada has very little national legislation to protect arky sites
- signatory to international treaties prohibiting antiquities trafficking
- Canada regulation is mostly at provincial level, and varies considerably by province
- depending on the province, First Nations may have a greater role in regulating cultural heritage
Historic resources act f Alberta
- passed in 1973
- protects all historic resources in the province
- includes all resources buried or partially buried in land, or submerged in any body of water
- includes arky and paleontology resources with prehistoric, historic, cultural or scientific significance
- imposes fines and sanctions
- gives regulatory power to minister or culture and tourism
- grants official permits (mitigating = consulting archaeologists, research considering academic archaeologists)
- supervise historic resource impact assessments
- supervises museums and other educational use of historic resources
Saskatchewan heritage property act
- burials. It found in a recognized cemetery are property of the crown
- royal Saskatchewan museum developed a protocol with the federation of Saskatchewan Indian nations
- human remains are scientifically studied then repatriated to the tribes for reburial
Ontario cemeteries act
- scientific studies of human remains is prohibited without permission of a representative of the deceased
- the owner of the land negotiators what will happen to the remains with the descendants of the deceased
- archaeologists have no say in what happens
Historic sites and monuments act of 1985
- provides for the administration , preservation, and maintenance of designated sites
Canada shipping act of 2001
- established jurisdiction over the preservation of shipwrecks
- no protection for sites along coastlines and ocean beds
Canada environmental assessment act
- required governed by departments to assess the impact of construction projects on the environment (including arky and paleontology)
Cultural property export act of 1985
- prohibits the illicit import, export, or transport of ownership of cultural property that is of importance to arky, prehistory, history, literature, art, or science
*** UNESCO 1970 convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property
- prohibits the international trafficking of cultural objects
- Canada became a signatory in 1978
National heritage sites in Alberta
- designates national historic of sites are protected under jurisdiction of parks Canada
- ## UNESCO
Ancient collectors
- new kingdom Egypt - Pharos restored and conserved old kingdom monuments
- Aztec emperors excavated sculptures and artifacts at teotihucan and placed them in their own temples
- king nabobidus of Babylon
King Nabonidus of Babylon
- 6th century Bc
- excavated the temples of his predecessors
Archbishop James Ussher (1581/1656)
Use of biblical texts to calculate an age for human history of approximately 6,000 years (Oct. 22, 4004 BC)
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
- systems naturae of classification
Jean Baptiste Lamarack (1744/-1829)
- Lamarckian evolution (giraffe neck)
Georges Cuvier (1769-1829)
Catastrophism - now extinct species had been wiped out by periodic catastrophic flooding events (Noah’s flood)
Sir Charles Lyell
Uniformitarian - same principle of science throughout time (physics, geology, etc.)
Charles Darwin (1809-1859)
- natural selection
- on the origins of species
John Lyon Stephens and Frederick Catherwood (Maya)
1830s-1840s
- when first got there a huge effort to convert people to Catholicism and wipe out old culture
- found arky sites in travels and documented them
- universities began to fund these adventures
Herbert spencer
- unilinear cultural evolution
- progress is not an accident, but a necessity, it is a fact of nature
Sir Edward b Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan
- unilinear cultural evolution
- established stages through which all human societies progressed (savage, barbarian, civilized)
The three Age system
- Christian Thomsen
- three age system: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age
- sequence extrapolated to all of Europe
Christian Thomsen (1788-1865)
- curator of national museum of Copenhagen Denmark
- three age system
Revolutions
V. Gordon Childe
- heavily influenced by the Marxist idea that society progresses through revolutions source of innovation and change
- Neolithic revolution
- urban revolution
V. Gordon Childe
- revolutions
Neolithic revolution
V. Gordon Childe defined the change for this revolution, he noticed the change between hunter gatherers to domestication and agriculture
Urban revolution
V Gordon Childe
- cities and towns : people started living in cities instead of towns and villages
- the development of writing and classes
Culture history
- the description and chronological and spatial ordering of arky data, became the sole objective of arky research and remained so until the 1950s
- interpretation consisted primarily of description of the diet, technology, migrations and lifeways of past society
Culture history and change
- Invention
- Diffusion
- Migration
Invention
- a new idea either modified an old idea or replaced it
- may occur by accident or research
Diffusion
- new ideas or cultural traits spread from one person to another or from one group to another, often over long distances
- mechanisms: trade, warfare, visitation between communities or migration
Migration
- the actual movement of populations
- example lost tribes f Israel, Vikings settling in minessota
Franz Boas
- detailed ethnographic data were collected and used to draw conclusions about ancient indigenous peoples
- father of anthropology
Culture areas
- defined based on territorial extent and similar to ethnographically documented groups
- may also include sub areas
Gordon Willey
- divided American southwest into Anasazi, Hohkam, and Mongolian subareas
Tradition (culture history)
Artifact types, assemblages of tools, architectural styles, economic practiced or art styles that distinguish an area for a long period of time
Horizons
- represented by distinctive artifacts and cultural traits that cross cut traditions in neighbouring areas (ie religious cults)
Direct historical approach
Working backwards in time from historically indigenous peoples to prehistoric times
Julian steward
- cultural ecology
- multilinear cultural evolution
- assumed that certain basic culture types would develop in similar ways under similar conditions
Multilinear cultural evolutions
- Julian steward
- proceeds on May courses and at different rates, not just on one universal track
Cultural ecology
- Julian stewards definition of his study in environment and cultural change
1. Similar adaptations may be found in different cultures in similar environments
2. No culture has ever achieved an adaptation to its environment that has remained unchanged over any length of time
3. Differences and changes during periods of cultural development in any area can either add to societal complexity or result in completely new cultural patterns
Walter Taylor’s a study of archaeology (1948)
- called for shifting emphasis from chronological sequences and distributions to detailed multilevel studies of individual sites and their features
- critique of cultural history approaches
- move from description to explanation - why certain patterns or developments occurred
- cooccured with the discovery of radiocarbon dating
Processual arky
- similar to cultural ecology approach
- focuses on the cultural processes and explanation of cultural change
- hypothesis testing and scientific method
- identifying universal laws of cultural change and human behaviour
- systems ecology: cultures are combinations of different, interrelated components
- focus on why cultures change over time
- topics: environmental circumscription, pop growth, energetic models, settlement pattern
- use of middle range theory to answer arky research questions
- Lewis binford
Lewis binford
- figure head of processual arky
Systems ecology
Cultures are combinations of a different, interrelated components
Contingency (postprocessual)
there are no (or very few) universal laws governing human behaviour
- rejection scientific method
- arky knowledge is subjective, not objective
- arky typologies are constructs, not accurate representations of the arky record
- consideration of the perspectives of the ancient peoples themselves and of descendant groups
Meaning (postprocessual)
- culture is interactive and constructed. Traditions must be constantly reinvented to persist
Agency (postprocessual)
- individuals are systematically ignored in favour of the group (in processual)
Bias (postprocessual)
Archaeologists often systematically neglect to investigate the past of minority groups such as women, ethnic minorities, and often illiterate commoners “peoples without history)
Social responsibility (postprocessual)
- archaeologists must critically examine their responsibilities, and consider their moral and emotional involvement of modern publics
Catalhoyuk
- turkey
- example of sure studies postprocessually
- Neolithic (new Stone Age) and chalcolithic settlement
- dates back 7500 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC
- 2 main mounds left
- composed entirely of mud brick domestic buildings with no obvious public buildings
- burials under floors
- head of cattle mounted on walls
- figurines
Matrix
- the physical substance around an arky find; the physical medium that surrounds, holds, and supports the arky material
- most cases dirt
Provenance
The three dimensional position of an object within the matrix
Association
Two or more arky items occurring together within the same matrix
Context
The interpretation of the significance of an artifacts disposition in terms of its matrix, provenience, and association
Types of context
Primary context
Secondary context
Primary context
The original context of the find, undisturbed by any factor
Secondary context
The context of a find whose primary context had been disturbed by later activity
Taphonomy
- the study of the processes of site disturbance and destruction
- an understanding of site taphonomy can help an archaeologist make informed and cautious interpretation of the past
- example gophers
How does a site get interred
- abandonment
- rotting plant material
- unconformities (natural geographic deposits, abandonments, still from a river flood, wind blown sand, volcano ash etc.)
Site formation processes
- natural transformation
- cultural transformation
Natural transformation.
- decomposition
- flooding
- volcanoes
- earthquakes
- erosion
- burrowing animals
- freeze thaw cycles
- acidic and salty environments
Cultural transformation.
- discarding
- recycling
- curation (taking things from old context and putting in old one)
- volcanic ash
- contemporary sites
Preservation conditions
Some sites better at preserving than others
- waterlogged environments and wetlands
- dry conditions
- extreme cold conditions
- volcanic ash
- Contemporary sites
Four types of material culture:
- Artifact
- Ecofact
- Fearure
- Fossils
Ecofact
Natural
- example plant remains, Pytoliths
Feature
A non- portable artifact that cannot be removed from its matrix without destroying its integrity
Examples:
- hearth
- pits
- buildings
- living floors
Fossils
- preserved remains of animals, plants, and organisms from the remote past
- usually studied by palaeontologists or paleoanthropologist
- if a fossil is intentionally collected, used, or modified by ancient peoples it becomes an artifact
Relative dating methods
- used to date artifacts, feature, or geological deposits in relation to one another
Absolute dating methods
- used to measure how old a specimen or deposit is based on a fixed calendar system
Stratigraphy
- relative dating methods
- the study of how different rock or soul formations are laid down in successive layers or strata
- bottom layer almost always older
Law of superposition
- geological layers in the earth are Stratford one upon another, like the layers of a cake
- the lower strata are earlier than the upper strata
- this is even true in cases of cross bedding, erosion, aeolian deposits etc.
Law of strata identified by their contents
- the despsitional unit at any particular site can be distinguished from each other by differences in The various kinds of objects and associations they contain
Mixing
When digging operations turn dirt over and leave it in place in the deposit created by the digging
Filling
A despositiobal unit is laid down to altar the original al level of the ground
Collection
The acquisition and reuse of ancient objects
Unconformities
Temporal. Reals I. The stratigraphic sequence as a result of a change that causes depositon to cease for a period of time
Derivation
- relative dating method
- the chronological ordering of a group of artifacts or assemblages where the most similar are placed adjacent to each other in a series
Frequency derivation
- measures changes in the proportion abundance, or frequency, observed along finds (counts) - blocks represent percentages of the population
Historical documents
Absolute dating method
Cross dating
- absolute dating method
- uses objects of known historical age to date other arky finds
- can be problematic due to collection
- works on: previously documented items
Dendrochronology
- absolute dating method
- a dating method that matches the annual growth rings of an arky recovered wood sample to an established temporal sequence
- the “old wood” problem
- works on: wood only; AD 1500-50,000ya
Radiocarbon (C14)
- absolute dating method
- a dating method that uses the decay of carbonate organic remains
- works on wood, charcoal, ivory, plants, shell, bone, and other organics
- doesn’t work after 1950, because of nuclear weapons
- anything older 50000 years old isn’t as useful
- carbon 24 radio isotope of carbon - unstable, oxidizes
- scientists figure out half life carbon to find out how much time has passed
- only works on things that were once alive
- want to find these materials in secure/ sealed context - no mixing, filling etc
Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating
- a newer, more accurate form of radiocarbon dating
- accelerates ions to high energies before mass analysis (several prevent the speed of light)
- can be used in very small samples (5mg- 1g) - not wasting as much material
- is more expensive, but more accurate, so the benefits outweigh the costs?
Thermoluminescence dating
- 3x as expensive, but a good fallback option if you don’t have carbon
- measures trapped electrons in surrounding radioactive material (from when once heated)
- reheats samples to emit photons
- used for things that were once heated (ancient pottery, terracotta)
- dates finds 50 to 20,000 years old
Electron spin resonance dating
- measures trapped electrons through exposure to different magnetic fields
- used for more delicate materials such as bone and shell, that decompose if heated
- it can date finds that are up to a million years old
Archaeomagnetic/ paleomagnetic dating
- low budget but not as effective
- based on reversals and changes in the earths magnetic field over time
- compares the magnetic characteristics of a deposit to those known from the earths past date to the deposit
- works on: only things that have been fired (soil and clay feastures such as hearths, ovens, kilns, furnaces)
- does NOT work on pottery vessels because they can be moved around (unlike thermolumimescence)
- when heated developed orientation and stays locked in place
- sample boxes, line up to current pole, measure difference in angle of orientation
Inclination vs declination
- have to measure two different angles
- trying to match up probability curve to known inclination curve at a time
- try to cross reference it with declination
Potassium argon dating
- dating Paleolithic deposits
- uses rate of decay of a radioactive form of potassium into argon
- can date samples from 50,000 to 2 billion years old
- works on: the minerals and rocks surrounding fossil
- does NOT date fossil itself
Uranium series dating
- paleo deposits
- measured decay of uranium isotopes found in calcium carbonate deposits
- uranium decays into other isotopes
Works on: limestone bedrock, cave deposits - finds between 50,000 and 1 million years old
Fission track dating
- dating Paleolithic deposits
- measure the number of uranium fission tracks in a sample (narrow trails of damage)
- works on volcanic rocks (obsidian, basalt)
- finds between 100,000 and 20 million years ago
- not as precise
Ethnohistory
- the study of the past using indigenous historical records and oral history
Ethnoarchaeology
- the study of loving societies to aid in understanding and interpreting the arky record
Experimental arky
- conducts controlled experiments to explore the mechanical properties of the material culture, to compare with observation in the arky record
Aztec Atlatls
- Nahuatl word derived from atlatlacani meaning water throwing
- spears made of cane, tipped with obsidian
- used for hungering and warfare
- Aztecs claimed that they invented the atlatl during their migration in a town called Atlacuihuayan
- this is contradicted by ark record, widely used
Yukon Atlatl dart
- found sept 4, 2018
- carcross/ Tagus First Nation
- only intact arky atlatl dart from Canada
- over 1000 years old
- found in an area associated with woodland caribou hunts
British museum atlatl
- probably one of the gifts sent back to the king of Spain by Cortes
- fancy examples wrapped in gold z
Paleolithic atlatls
- animal forming handle - many animals, depicted such as bison, hyena, ibex, mammoth
- tells us durable cultural tradition for thousands of years
Did atlatls have weights?
- experiment Raymond 1986
- mostly found in west-
- improved distances a little.. maybe (not statistically significant)?
- improve accuracy, maybe counterbalance
Jamestown settlement
-1607 small band adventurers under sponsorship Bettina company founded the first lasting English settlement in Americas at Jamestown
What are the goals of archaeology:
- Conserving and managing the world arky sites for the future
- Studying sites and their contents in a context of time and space to reconstruct and describe long sequences of human culture. This descriptive activity reconstructs culture history
- Reconstructing past lifeways
- Explaining why cultures change or why cultures remain the same over long periods of time
- Understanding sites, artifacts, food remains, and other aspects of arky record and their relation to our contemporary world
Grotte de Chauvet, France
- cave paintings
- calcified bear bones and teeth, and small mammoth figure
William stukeley
- one of earliest arky fieldworkers
- Stonehenge model
Raps nui
Native name for Easter island
Moai
Statues on Easter island
Soultrean hypothesis
- claims that the earliest human migration to the Americas took place from Europe, during the last glacial maximum
Heinrich Schliemann
- employed engineers who had worked on the Suez Canal to advise him on earth moving at Troy
- German businessman who married a Greek women and set sail to find homers legendary city of Troy
- northwestern turkey
- proved homer legends ha some basis in reality, also destroyed much of the land
T.E. Lawrence
- Lawrence of Arabia exploits
- also excavated roman and Hitte city of Carchemish
Frans blom
- Maya ruins
Altamira cave, Spain
- cave paintings
- convinced by same people excavated, until years later when they found more in a new area that had not been seems by previous excavators
Alfred Kidder
- pecos pueblo
- pottery
- 6 settlements one on top of the other
Settlement pattern
- the distribution of sites and human settlement across the natural landscape
Middle range theory
- The arky record is a static contemporary phenomenon - static info preserved in structured arrangements of matter
- Once energy ceased to power the cultural system in the arky record, a static condition was achieved. This, contents of arky record are a complex mechanical system, created both by long dead human interaction, and by subsequent mechanical forces and formation processes
- To understand and explain the past, we must comprehend the relationship between static, material properties common to both past and present and the long extinct dynamic properties of the past
Environmental circumscription
An explanation for the origins of the state that emphasize the fundamental role exerted by environmental constraints and by territorial limitations l
Ian hodder
Catalhoyuk turkey
- multidisciplinary perspective and innovative
Methods
Akrotiki greece
- volcanic eruption.
Artifact
An object manufactured or modified by human beings
Assemblage
All the artifacts found at a site, including the sum of all subassemblages at the same location
Subassemblage
An association of artifacts denoting a particular form of activity practiced by a group of people
Culture
Arbitrary unit applied to similar assemblages of artifacts found at several sites, defined in a precise context of time and space
Culture area
An arbitrary geographic or research area in which general cultural homogeneity is found
Cycle of arky research
- formulate project
- research design
- research permit
- logistics
- survey
- excavation
- analysis
- conservation
- publication
Textbook;
- design formulation
- inplementation
- data acquisition
- processing and analysis
- interpretation
- publication
Saxon ship burial at Sutton hop, England
- found funerary boat
- Phillips
Analogy
A process of reasoning whereby two entities that share some similarities are assumed to share many others
Time decompose: food remains
Apple core: 2 months
Orange/ banana peel 2-5 weeks
Time decompose wood
Plywood 1-3 years
Time decompose fabric
Nylon: 30-40 years
Wool sock: 1-5 years
Time decompose plastic
Film container 20-30 years
Plastic bag 10-20 years
Time decompose metal
Aluminum 80-200 years
Time cans 50 years
Time decompose ceramic
Forever
Time decompose: glass
1 million years
