Midterm 2 Flashcards

1
Q

What is the importance of the grid system in archaeology?

A

It serves as a way of mapping the entire site, by divvying up the larger site into smaller areas.

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2
Q

What are the differences between chronometric and relative dating methods?

A

Relative dating methods reveal the order of a sequence of found objects, materials, or events found within a site. Discovereing which is older/newer.

While Chronometric dates the actual age in the number of years of said items, materials, events, etc, found at the site.`

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3
Q

What evidence is used to determine if fossil species were bipedal?

A

If the fossils provide long bones

If it has a Foramen Magnum (Hole at bottom of skull, connecting spinal cord to brain)

The Pelivs/Hip Bone will be shorter but wider and a lot thicker

Finding a Femur is a good sign of Bipedalism, as the femur makes it effortless for us to stand up right.

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3
Q

Australopithecines Characteristics and Behaviour

A

Characteristics: Smaller Brain size, reduction in front teeth, sexually dimorphic.

Behaviour: Meat eating from scavengine, no evidence of hunting

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4
Q

Paranthropus Characteristics and Behaviour

A

Characteristics: MOre robustly built, Larger brain size, very large molars and premolars, large jaws fro chewing, presence of sagittal crest, pneumatized skull

Behaviour: Adapted to a diet made of coarse vegetation, strong sexual dimorphism, possible gorilla-like behaviour

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5
Q

The Habilines Characteristics and Behaviour

A

Characteristics: Larger Brains, Rounder Skull, Smaller Teeth, Less Facial prognathism, Postcranial like Australopithecines

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6
Q

The Australipithecus Garhi characteristics and behaviour

A

Oldest fossil that we know of that used stone tools

Behaviour: Tool use, butchery of meat

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7
Q

Characteristics and Behaviour of Homo Erectus

A

Characteristics: Larger body, larger brain, robust build, less sexual dimorphism, higher skull, less prognatic, smaller jaws and teeth, larger supraorbital torus, occipital torus

Behaviour: First to potentially migrate out of Africa, New Tools (Acheulean tools), Hunters or Scavengers, use of fire, made shelters

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8
Q

Homo Floresiensis Characteristics and Behaviour

A

Characteristics: 1m Tall, Small brain, Island Effect

Behaviour: Used fire, Stone tools

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9
Q

What is island effect?

A

Hominins who migrated onto islands evolved to be smaller

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10
Q

Archaics characteristics and behaviours?

A

Characteristics: Large brain size, modern human stature, more robust build, massive supraorbital torus, occipital torus

Behaviour: Hunted Large Game, Stone tools

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11
Q

Neanderthal characteristics and behaviour:

A

Characteristics: Very robust build, very large incisors, short limbs

Behaviour: Adapted to life in cold climates, buried their dead, evidence of portable art, evidence of care for the elderly

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12
Q

Homo Sapiens characteristics and behaviour

A

Characteristics: Roundest skull, small teeth, presence of a chin, slender build, oldest remains in Africa (?)

Behaviour: Contemporary with Neanderthals (coexisted), No evidence of cultural differences during that time

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13
Q

What is the Foramen Magnum?

A

Hold at bottom of skull where spinal chord is attached to brain

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14
Q

What and Who are the Protohominins?

A

Early Hominins

Sarchelanthropus Tchadensis
Orrorin Tugensis
Ardipithecus Ramidus

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14
Q

What are the general characteristics of Protohominins?

A

Small Brain, Mostly apelike characteristics, Possibly Bipedal, Lived in forested environments

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15
Q

What are flakes?

A

Sharp pieces of a stone used for cutting

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16
Q

Oldest Stone Tools

A

Dikika
Lomoekwi
Nyayanga

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16
Q

What are the theories on what happened to Neanderthals?

A

Out Of Africa Hypothesis
- Modern humans migrate out of Africa and replace all archaic hominids

Partial Replacement Model
- Modern humans interbreed with other archaic hominids, but some are replaced

Multi-Regional Hypothesis
-All archaic hominids evolve into modern humans through gene flow

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17
Q

Advantages of Domestication

A

Production of a Surplus
Reliable food supply
Become more sedentary
Supports larger populations
Allows more task specialization

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18
Q

Disadvantages of Domestication

A

More susceptible to famine (through natural disasters)
Spread of contagious diseases
Less varied diet (in the beginning)
Demand more work
Conflicts over land and crops
Beginning if social inequalities

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19
Q

Models for the origins of domestication

A

Population Growth Models

Climate change

Trading Networks

Increased knowledge of plants and animals

Expansion into new environments

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19
Q

Population growth models

A

As population grow, production of food becomes necessary

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19
Q

Climate Change effect on domestication

A

Climate change forces populations to look for new food sources and food production

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20
Q

Trading Networks effect on domestication

A

Some food items are cultivated for trade, but later become staple food sources

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20
Q

What is culture?

A

Culture is learned
Culture is symbolic
Culture is shared
Culture is always changing
Culture is adaptive

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21
Q

What is the Archeological Process

A

Purpose for Archaeological work -> Archival Research -> Survey -> Map -> Excavate -> Analyze -> Preserve

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21
Q

Types of Archeological Surveys

A

Aerial Photos
LiDAR
GPR
Fieldwalking
Test Pits
GIS

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22
Q

Excavating process

A

Dig
Screen for artifacts
Record statigraphy
Retrieve and document artifacts

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22
Q

Goals of Archaeology

A

Recover, describe and prserve sites or artifacts

Reconstruct Past Lifeways

Understand the processes of cultural evolution

Why things change overtime

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22
Q

What are Sites?

A

Tools/items

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23
Q

What are Localities

A

Remains
(Larger area containing multiple sites)

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24
Q

Explain Surface Survey (pedestrian survey) , it’s uses and limitations.

A

Def: Search surface for odd/anomolies to merit digging

(Pedestrian) form a line with people and walk and look slowly , and flag anything.

Limitations: Can’t cover very large areas

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24
Q

Explain Aerial photographs & satellite images

A

Can be used for mapping purposes or to photograph large areas with attributes that may suggest the presence of otherwise invisible sites. (such ass buried walls, crop marks, shallow soil)

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25
Q

What do Crop marks mean when surveying?

A

Shallow soil, Could mean something’s buried closer beneath the surface

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25
Q

Explain LiDAR

A

(Light detection and ranging)
- Helps see under the canape (Mass forestation)
- Sometimes can see whats hiding under the soil

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26
Q

Explain Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)

A

A Non-Intrusive method, it’s a radar that bounces waves back so that archaeologists can see whats hiding underground without digging

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27
Q

Explain Ethnohistorical data

A

Ancient maps, folklore, and documents looked at to find/pinpoint locations.

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28
Q

Explain natural erosion

A

Luck, that nature helps uncover fossils, tools, etc.

Via through the weather, natural disaster, etc

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28
Q

What is a datum point?

A

an arbitrarily established point on the site from which all. measurements are taken

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28
Q

What are artifacts

A

Objects that have been intentionally made with thought by humans or hominin ancestors

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29
Q

What are Features

A

Non-portable items created by humans, such as house walls or ditches

30
Q

What are ecofacts

A

Biological remains that likely associated with food consumption or other human activities

30
Q

Explain Provenance

A

When archaeologists study sites through survey or excavation, they carefully record the immediate matrix(e.g., soil, gravel, sand, or clay) in which an object is found and its provenance

Also record any items around it that could lead to identifying relationships and association between objects

31
Q

Explain ethnoarchaeology

A

The study of the way present-day societies use artifacts and structures and how these objects become part of the archaeological record

31
Q

What is Taphonomy?

A

The study of the various processes that may have affected the formation of a particular site

32
Q

What are ways in which Human Activity can be particularly damaging on anthropological sites

A

Through Industrial Farming, Pillaging and Looting

33
Q

Explain UAVs/Drones in Archaeology

A

Low cost option

Can penetrate dense forest cover to detect archaeological features and sites on the ground

Lasers are attached to low-flying planes and generally used in places covered by rain-forests (LiDAR)

33
Q

Explain Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

A

GIS is a “computer-aided system for the collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, and presentation of spatial data of all kinds”

or

A database with map-based interference

34
Q

What is Digital Heritage?

A

Digital information about the past available on the internet.

35
Q

Macroevolution

A

Focus on long-term evolutionary changes

35
Q

Microevolution

A

Focus on short-term evolutionary changes

35
Q

Anagenesis

A

The slow, gradual transformation of a single species over time

36
Q

Phyletic gradualism

A

A theory arguing that one species gradually transforms itself into a new species over time

36
Q

Cladogenesis

A

The birth of a variety of descendant species from a single ancestral species

37
Q

Punctuated equilibrium

A

A theory claiming that most of evolutionary history has been characterized by relatively stable species coexisting in an equilibrium that is occasionally punctuated by sudden bursts of speciation, when extinctions are widespread and many new species appear.

37
Q

Bipedalism

A

Walking on two feet

37
Q

Australopiths

A

An informal term to refer to al hominins that were the earliest bipedal hominins

38
Q

Mosaic evolution

A

A process of change over time in which different phenotypic traits, responding to different selection pressures, may evolve at different rates

38
Q

Cranial Capacity

A

The size of the braincase

39
Q

Flakes

A

Chipped-off pieces of stone that may or may not have been used as small cutting tools

40
Q

Oldowan Tradition

A

A stone-tool tradition named after the Olduvai Gorge (in Tanzania)

40
Q

Taphonomy

A

The study of various processes that objects undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records

41
Q

Ancheulean traditions

A

A lower Paleolithich stone-tool tradition associated with Homo Erectus and characterized by stone bifaces, or “hand axes”

41
Q

Early Stone Age (ESA)

A

The name given to the period of Oldowan and Acheulean stone-tool traditions in Africa

42
Q

Assemblages

A

Artifacts and structures from a particular time and place in an archeological site

43
Q

Culture Defined

A

Sets of learned behaviour and ideas that humans acquire as members of a society

43
Q

What are the two terms that refer to the process of culturally and socially shaped learning?

A

Socialization and Enculturation

43
Q

What is Socialization?

A

the process through which people develop culturally patterned understandings, behaviors, values, and emotional orientations.

44
Q

What is Enculturation?

A

the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values

44
Q

Culture is ____ as well as ____

A

Shared , Learned

45
Q

What is Habitus

A

Social/cultural norms learnt through absorption in the course of practical daily living. Such as Table Manners. Is a result of learning which is heavily influenced by out interactions with material culture

46
Q

What evidence is there if any for hunting in Homo erectus?

A

Numerous animal bones occur also with the remains of H. erectus, and sometimes these bones seem to have been deliberately broken or charred.

46
Q

How do archeologists explain the rise of State Organized societies?

A

Governments and states emerged as rulers gained control over larger areas and more resources, often using writing and religion to maintain social hierarchies and consolidate power over larger areas and populations.

46
Q

How does the concept of human agency relate to the concept of nature?

A

Although nature may resist and complicate human actions, producing all sorts of unintended consequences, nature has neither the intentionality nor the choice that humans do. Nature may constitute a dynamic structure, but it is not an agent. Human beings alone are the motor of history.!

46
Q

Domestication

A

Variety of ways that humans affected the reproduction of another species, with the result that specific plants and animals become more useful to and dependent on people.

47
Q

Evolutionary Niche

A

Sum of all the natural selection pressures to which a population is exposed

47
Q

Agriculture

A

The systematic modification of the encironments of plants and animals to increase their productivity and usefulness

47
Q

Agroecology

A

The systematically modified environment (or constructed niche) that becomes the only environment within which domesticated plants can floursih

48
Q

Sedentism

A

The process of increasingly permanent human habituation in one place

49
Q

Why did animal domestication happen?

A

To provide food rather than to help get food.

49
Q

Broad-Spectrum foraging

A

A subsistence strategy based on collecting a wide range of plants and animals by hunting, fishing, and gathering

49
Q

Grave goods

A

objects buried with a corpse

50
Q

Social stratification

A

A form of social organization in which people have unequal acess to wealth, power, and prestige

51
Q

Chiefdom

A

A form of social organization in which a leader (the chief) and close relatives are set apart from the rest of society and allowed privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige.

51
Q

Neolithic

A

The “New Stone Age” which began with the domestication of plants 10,300 years ago

52
Q

Mesopotamia

A

The area made up of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, corresponding to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, the northeastern section of Syria, and parts of Turkey and Iran. Often referred to as the “Cradle of Civilization” where early complex societies developed.

52
Q

Egalitarian Social Relations

A

Social relations in which no great differences in wealth, power, or prestige divide members from one another

53
Q

Surplus production

A

The production of amounts of food that exceed the basic subsitence needs of the population

54
Q

Occupational specialization

A

Specialization in various occupations (e.g, weaving or pot making) or in new social roles (e.g., King or Priest) that is found in socially complex societies

54
Q

Complex Societies

A

Societies with large populations, an extensive division of labour, and occupational specialization

54
Q

Patterned

A

Related cultural beliefs and practices show up repeatedly in different areas of social life. Like Language

55
Q

Example of Patterned cultural variation

A

Language in Canada is French and English, which this cultural pattern can be traced through time to the colonial era

55
Q

How is Culture adaptive?

A

because cultural traditions can be reconstructed and enriched, generation after generation, primarily because human biological survival depends on culture.

56
Q

What is a symbol in culture

A

something that stands for something else

Everything we do in society has a symbolic dimension, from how we conduct ourselves at the dinner table to how we bury the dead

56
Q

What are Hominins?

A

All Bipedal Apes

56
Q

Complex Symbolic representation

A

adapting key features of the environment to cultural symbols

57
Q

Human Agency

A

Human beings’ ability to exercise at least some control over their lives

58
Q

Holism

A

A perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind and body, individuals and society, and individuals and the environment interpenetrate and even define on another.

From a holistic perspective, human beings are complexe, dynamic living entities shaped by genes, culture, and experience into entities whose properties cannot be reduced to the materials out of which they were constructed.

58
Q

Coevolution

A

The interconnected relationship between biological processes and symbolic cultural processes, in which each makes up an important part of the environment and to which the other must adapt.

58
Q

Why Do Cultural Differences Matter?

A

The same objects, actions, or events frequently mean different things to people with different cultures.

58
Q

Cultural Relativism

A

understanding another culture in its own terms sympatghetically enough that the culture appears to be coherent and meaningful design for living

58
Q

Cultural Hybridity Example

A

Inuits have included christianity from missionaries into their culture. Using some aspects to create a hybrid of their culture.

Christians with Inuit traditions

A merger of cultures

59
Q

Culture Imperialism

A

The idea that some cultures dominate others and that domination by one culture leads inevitably to the destruction of subordinated cultures and their replacement by the culture of those in power