Midterm 2 Flashcards
Why Archaeology? 4 reasons
- documents human history; 2. Unbiased; 3. fills in gaps between, contradicts, or supports historical documents; 4. answers anthropological questions
Historical archaeology
holistic enterprise that exists at intersections of documentary, oral,historical, and archaeological records
James Deetz
founded idea of American Historical Archaeology and archaeology of American Material Culture; promoted global perspective by exploring capitalism and its global cultural impact
Material Culture
new side of archaeology; sector of physical environment that we modify through culturally determined behavior
Site Formation Processes
aka taphonomic processes; environmental effects and human behaviors that create a site and that affect it after its original deposition
Transformation Processes + Behavior/Natural Processes
all the conditions and events that affect material remains from the time of deposition to the time the archaeologist recognizes and acquires them as data; includes natural processes (natural disasters) and human processes (bombing)
- Behavioral Processes: human activities that produce tangible archaeological remains; include acquisition, manufacture, use, deposition → acquisition (obtaining the stuff through production or collection raw materials); manufacture (processing of raw materials into something usable); use (action of employing the resultant tool or material); deposition (stuff becoming part of the archaeological)
- Natural Processes: involved creation and disturbance of sites via natural occurrences (eg. gravity, wind, hurricanes, earthquakes)
Taphonomy
study of processes that affect the decay and deposition of archaeological materials
Depositional Contexts
primary (artifact has not been disturbed since its original deposition), secondary (matrix, provenience, and/or association have been altered by transformational processes after the original deposition)
Palimpsests
example of an archaeological anomaly; process of reusing, adding to, and/or destroying the archaeological record
Research Design + Steps/Considerations
plan of operations that guide an archaeologist’s work; created in order to justify the need for research, fulfill ethical obligations, involve the public and community, and make decisions about field methods
STEPS: 1. Formulation (define research question and select a study area); 2. Implementation (research team, budget, permits, funding sources); 3. Data Gathering (what kind of data will best answer our questions and how will you acquire this data?)→ affected by preservation, taphonomy, environment, and/or human activity); 4. Data Processing; 5. Analysis ; 6. Interpretation; 7. Publication
Salvage archaeology + CRM + On-Campus Examples
archaeological investigations are one because a site is likely to be disturbed or destroyed by upcoming human activity or development
Cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology: type of salvage archaeology; archaeology that is conducted to comply with federal and state laws that protect archaeological sites
Eg. Bottle Bit of 1920s under Archaeological Research Facility; university plan observatory under Asian Studies Library; Cheney House
Gage House case study
professor interests (daily life of Gage household, any material beliefs, any conflict over gender roles/norms of Victorian periods) and Gage foundations interests (find locations of outbuildings for museum reconstruction; satisfy state and federal historic preservation laws in order to get clearance for construction of a new visitor’s center); worked together to fulfill the research interests of both while conducting the research in an open, accessible, and collaborative manner that involves the local community; Gage household was a typical middle class household but what they did with their material culture was non-normative because they practiced feminist theories and beliefs
Finding & recording sites
Archival research (maps, ethnographic accounts); Survey methods (way to systematically detect sites, features, and artifacts; can be invasive or non-invasive)
Non-invasive Survey Methods
most helpful when trying to find features in a already defined area; PRO → non-destructive and image resolution is constantly improving vs. CON → labor intensive and slow; special equipment and training needed; often only functions under particular conditions
Types of Non-Invasive Survey Methods
- Pedestrian survey: walking along the ground to see any obvious artifacts
- Remote imagery: aerial and satellite imagery; used to identify features that are not obvious to the naked eye
- Geophysical Techniques: can be passive or active; sensitive to metal anything and does not give depth of anomaly – Passive: measures effects of a buried feature on surrounding magnetic fields; magnetometer measures and registers differences in a magnetic field – Active: sends signals into ground and measures response of soil resistance (uses electricity to detect differences in soil moisture); uses ground penetrating radar
Invasive Survey Methods
PRO → probing, coring, and augering are very easy and cheap to do and serve as “windows” onto subsurface deposits vs. CON → shovel test pitting is labor intensive and slow; probing, coring, and augering only works in areas without naturally occurring stones
Types of Invasive Survey Methods
- Probing: length of wire that is pushed into the ground to locate features
- Augering/Coring: removing a column of the stratigraphy; augering tube has a larger diameter than the coring tube; both are examples of survey and excavation methods
- Shovel Test Pitting: most invasive but most informative
Sampling
process of selecting a subset of a collection for a study; helps choose where and how much to study because excavating an entire site is unfeasible and unethical
Three major decisions of sampling
- Shape and Size of Sample Units: survey area or “data universe” is subdivided into manageable sample units
- Sample size: number of sample units chosen from a data universe – sample fraction: number of samples chosen over total number of samples in the data universe
- Sample strategy: non-probabilistic/quantitative (based on prior knowledge or observations) vs. probabilistic (survey sample is representative of the total data universe)
Three types of probabilistic sampling methods of sampling
- Simple random: each sample unit within a population has equal chance of being chosen for survey
- Systematic random: first unit chosen at random, rest based on predetermined interval; avoids clumping or clustering
- Stratified: data universe is divided into distinct zones where each zone is sampled separately either randomly or systematically
Mapping + methods
provides frame of reference for recording all other context info; creates a simplified, representative version of what you see
Methods: hand-drawn, GPS, EDM (electronic distance meter; aka total station); method dependent on what scale you are trying to record
Excavation
systematic subsurface exploration of archaeological remains in order to understand the spatial arrangement of activities within sites, stratigraphy, and the actions that create the site; complements regional and macroscale surveys; takes a lot of time and money
Steps + Grid System Terminology of Excavation
Steps: Establish a grid system; conduct surface investigations
Grid system: provides a series of reference points for recording archaeological materials
Datum: point from which all measurements (both vertically and horizontally) are taken; anchor or origin point that relates the location of the site to the rest of the world
Surface investigations:
- Penetrating or vertical excavations: detailed information over localized area; shows change over time (diachronic)
- Clearing or horizontal excavations: detailed view of a single era (synchronic)
Lot vs. point provenience
Lot: all artifacts from a single excavation level are given the same provenience information
Point: 3D position of artifacts or ecofacts are individually recorded as they are exposed during excavation
Screening
aka flotation; wet vs dry; different mesh size; dependent on how much water is available and what you hope to recover
Relative dating techniques
Relative Dating Techniques: tells us whether something is older or younger than something else
- Stratigraphy, Superposition: layers on bottom are older than those on top
- Association: If Layer A is younger than Layer C, then the artifacts that Layer A contains are also younger (deposited later) than Layer C.
Absolute Dating Techniques
aka chromatic dating; provides a calendrical date for how old something is; determines an artifact’s’ age using a specific time scale; dates are represented using Before Present (BP) notation
- Direct: uses analyses of a thing itself to assign a date
- Indirect: uses associated things to find a date
- Dendrochronology: aka tree ring dating; calibrates a tree’s growth rings from wood fragments to create chronological sequence that other wood samples can be compared to; one of the oldest absolute dating methods and used by culture historians; developed by A. E. Douglas by applying the concept of cross dating to determine a sample’s age; great in areas where wood preserves well; old wood problem (wood can be scavenged and reused); tells you the date that the tree died via calendrical date; ring width indicates stress (bigger width, less stress)
- Radiocarbon dating: aka C14 dating; developed in 1940s by Willard F. Libby; example of radiometric dating technique and therefore measures radioactive decay; C14 has a half life of 5730 years and is used to date materials 60k years old; LIMITATIONS → changing presence of C14 in the biosphere pushed archaeologists to create a calibration curve that charts these fluctuations using dendrochronology + marine reservoir effect can make artifacts appear older because ocean water affects carbon exchange
- Potassium-Argon dating: based on half life of radioactive potassium into argon; used for older materials because the half life of P40 is 1.3 billion years; present in many volcanic rocks; tells time that has elapsed since volcanic events; useful for studies of very deep time (eg. human evolution), from 500k to 2 billion years ago
- Obsidian Hydration Dating: aka OH Dating; based on cumulative absorption of water of volcanic rim; measured with dating by association
- Thermoluminescence Dating: aka TL dating; measures naturally occurring background radiation that has been trapped in crystalline minerals; measures the radiation a material has accumulated since it was last heated by heating a sample and measuring the energy emitted; used on ceramics, fired lithics, and some sediments
Calculation of radiocarbon result data ranges
Baseline Date with Sigma/Standard Deviation (eg. 1040 +/- 60 if present date is 1950); the more sigmas, the broader the range, the more accurate the calculation (eg. 1 Sigma give you 68% accuracy; 2 Sigmas give you an 97% accuracy)
TPQ/TAQ + Seriation
Terminus Post Quem (TPQ): time after which; date which indicates earliest possible starting date for an archaeological deposit
- For individual things: choose earliest production date
- For an entire strata: choose the youngest possible date
Terminus Anti Quem (TAQ): time before which; date which indicates the latest possible end date for an archaeological deposit
Seriation: variety of techniques that seek to order artifacts in a series so that adjacent members in a series are more similar than members farther apart; based on belief that objects slowly change over time; can be a stylistic change or a frequency change
- Stylistic: based on how things look; assumes small incremental changes over time
- Frequency: based on popularity; assumes that once something is introduced, it gradually becomes popular, peaks, and then decreases in popularity; if graphed, the popularity forms a lenticular or battleship curve
Deetz’s gravestone study
tested relative dating method theory of seriation by using gravestones because they had dates and distinct characteristics (death’s head, cherub, and willow gravehead styles); found that the grave heads changed as the social and cultural conceptions of religion and death did
- Death’s Head: earliest; repent for your sins; death is impending and inevitable
- Cherub: gentle prospect of death; emphasized a connection with God
- Willow: latest; more of a peaceful, live in the moment vibe
Artifact analyses
initial collection, basic sorting (based on provenience), cleaning, entering information into databases with photos
Attributes + Classification + Typology/Artifact types
Attributes: include form, function, and material; pretty much anything observable/measurable
Classification: process of sorting artifacts into types
Typology/Artifact types: organizational set that archaeologists use to classify artifacts; a particular typology is the result of whatever attributes the classification is focused on
Ford-Spaulding debate
questioned what typologies are and why they were created
FORD: typologies are a “device which is used to examine the most minute fragments of culture history through time and space but there is a natural variation; etic perspective
SPAULDING: statistically “real” types objectively exist and we can use statistical tools to create typologies that people in the past would have recognized; emic perspective
TODAY: typologies are useful “analytical tools drawn from sets of attributes that we choose to record and that we construct to be able to answer specific questions we have about past social behavior”; people in the past would likely recognize our types to some degree, especially for the recent past, when we make efforts to employ emic categories but even if not, that doesn’t mean the research is invalid; both emic and etic perspectives
Steward’s typology of types
morphological, historical-index, functional, cultural (not in use any longer)
Morphological: based on style or outward appearance
Historical-Index: possesses a characteristic that defines a time period
Functional: based on relationship between an artifact and its cultural use
Ceramic methods of analysis
- Compositional studies: what is made from and where did the components came from; clay sourcing (chemical and petrographic analyses)
- Process of manufacture: material preparation, forming, finishing, and firing
- Use: residual analysis
- Classification/Chronology: slipware
- Meanings: form/functio; trade/exchange; symbolic/ideological; symbolic/ideological; identity/style
Lithics
Terminology: core; hammer stone; tools; etc.
2 Major Technologies:
- Flaked stone: direct percussion (large; imprecise); pressure flaking (small; more precise)
- Ground stone: more rounded/smooth
Steve Shackley’s study of lithics and identity (Ishi)
aka “the last yeti”; lived at UC Museum of Anthropology (at SF) from 1911 to 1916 and produced stone tools for visitors at the museum; Steve Shackley is a UCB archaeologist who found similarities between the Yahi/Yana tribes and the Wintu/Nomlaki tribes between Ishi’s lithics, thereby providing evidence of creolization (mixing of cultural attributes and creation of new cultures)
Zooarchaeology + related terminology
developed out of processual archaeology; study of animal bones and how animals relate to human life; looks at field arrangements, barns, animal husbandry, etc.; looks at the kinds of animals were being raised/hunted/eaten by people (taking into consideration species, age, sex, and seasonality)
Goal of Quantifying: NISP (number of identified specimens); MNI (minimum number of individuals)
Process of analysis: identified elements using a comparative collection; calculation of NISP; calculation of MNI; determination of seasonality
Seasonality: when a site was being used during the year
Taxon: species, family, class
