Midterm (Arch) Flashcards by Lydia M.

Oldowan

Earliest stone tools
Approx. 2.6 MYA (Lower Paleolithic)
Associated with H. habilis
Pebble tools, choppers, and flakes
Uniform across space and time

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Acheulean

Approx. 1.8 MYA - 200 KYA (Lower Paleolithic)
Associated with H. erectus
Handaxes (Symmetrical and bifacially worked)

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Mousterian

Approx. 200 KYA-30 KYA (Middle Paleolithic)
Associated with H. neanderthalis
Levallois cores and flakes, side scrapers, backed knives

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Flake attributes

Platform

Bulb of percussion

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Core attributes

Flake scar

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Upper Paleolithic tools

Approx. 50 KYA-10 KYA
Associated with H. sapiens
Blades, blade cores, points and scrapers
Composite tools
Bone tools

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Ohallo II

Paleolithic era (20 KYA) settlement in Israel
Semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers
Shows that sedentism could precede agriculture

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Natufians

Near East culture (15-11 KYA)
Focus on wild grasses
Halfted crescent-shaped blades and grinding stones
Semi-or-full-sedentism
Controlled burns
Gazelle hunting
Circular houses
Sub-floor burials
Storage of grain

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Göbekli Tepe

Western Turkey site (19-11.5 KYA)
Built by people living off wild plants and animals
Gathering locations for lineages / Lineage-owned houses
Variety in the Natufian landscape

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Linear Band Keramic (LBK)

Early Central European farming culture (7200 - 6500 YA)
Known for pottery with linear lines
Farming with plants and animals brought from the Middle East
Rectangular longhouses
Settled on floodplains
Conflict between farmers over land near the end (Talheim massacre)

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Talianky

Cucuteni-Trypillia culture (another Central European farming culture)
Large farming settlement in the Ukraine of 10K+ people (5850-5700 YA)
Known for distinctive pottery/wall art
Burned to the ground and built anew somewhere else every 60-80 years
Example of semi-sedentism

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

First pottery

China, 20 KYA

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Metallurgy

Begins in the Eurasian-steppe (5000 KYA+) with the Sintashta culture
Brought into China and Europe from there
Bronze pots made in China for ritual purposes (“boiling culture”), facilitates connection to the gods and thereby social hierarchy

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Sintashta culture

First culture to work with bronze (metallurgy) and domesticate horses (horse and chariot travel)
Used bronze without social inequality

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Peopling of Australia

50-60 KYA (Late Pleistocene)
Likely arrived via marine travel
Time of Sahul supercontinent

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Landscape management

Controlled burns for creating patchwork landscapes, cultivating habitats, and reducing bushfires
Fish weirs
Mound building

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Peopling of the Americas

Clovis-first hypothesis: Civilizations that made fluted points called clovises for hunting big game are first peoples in Americas (13 KYA), arrived through ice-free corridor in the Bering land bridge
Monte Verde: Site in Chile that predates Clovis (14.5 KYA)
Coastal migration hypothesis: Coastally adapted people arrived via boat, facilitated by kelp highway and glacial refugia

Maize domestication

First domesticated in Highland Mexico (Oaxaca) at least 6 KYA, genetics suggest maybe even 8-9 KYA
Tougher rachis, softer glume, more rows of corn, developed husk (compared to Teosinte)
Spreads into South America in semi-domesticated form 8 KYA

Olmec

First Mesoamerican culture (3 KYA)
Settlement hierarchy emerges with regal-ritual centres where resources are controlled and traded
“Mother culture” of Mesoamerica

Poverty Point

Southern Louisiana (3600 YA)
Brought together people from across the region to build and maintain
Unclear in its purpose–likely multipurpose

Chaco Canyon

Urban centre in New Mexico (1050 AD)
Construction of great houses; giant buildings for storage
Housed elite families
Had plazas for rituals and feasts
Mexican influence

Cahokia

Urban centre in Ohio of 10-15K people (1050 AD)
Established colonies/missions
Centre of Mississippian world

Mesopotamia

The first ever cities, emerged around the Tigris and Euphrates
Process of urbanization begins 7 KYA with the construction of temple centres showing region-wide belief system
No real settlement hierarchy until city states emerge 6 KYA, the first being Uruk

Indus Valley

Civilization in Pakistan (2600-1900 BC)
Trading partner to Mesopotamia via the Indian Ocean
Different political organization, however:
Elites with no kingship

Great Zimbabwe

Major city in Sub-Saharan Africa (1000 AD) Trading with China and Persia via Indian Ocean Walled complexes/compounds, possibly houses of successive rulers Lineage-based society Built by Shona Indigenous people but the narrative that it was built by Middle Easterners was pushed in the early 20th century until 1979 (colonial archeology)

Urbanism in West Africa

Long process beginning over 3 KYA Bassey Andah: rejected colonial archeology, argued that urbanization happened differently in Africa than elsewhere Enormous variability in people and geography = variability in urbanization Density of villages both large and small No kings like in Mesopotamia for a while

Ahnenerbe

Research organization established by the Nazis promoting the idea that Germany is the centre/originator of Europeans civilization Example of archeology used as a tool for nationalism

Dolni Vestonice

Mammoth hunting site in Czechoslovakia (25 KYA) Used by Czechoslovakia to legitimize its own existence Evidence of clay working (figurines, flutes, etc.) Excavations taken over by Nazis in 1939, wanted to trace "Nordic" past to Paleolithic: "This cite is German and the Germans conquered the neanderthals"

Relative dating methods

Evidence dating based on association with other things of a known age or just in relation to other things (i.e. older or younger)

Absolute dating methods

Evidence dating based on scientifically determining actual age (ex. Radiocarbon dating, potassium-argon dating)

Provenience

"Place of origin" based on location using X Y Z coordinates, stratigraphic deposits, and/or associations Helps to provide context

Types of archeological surveys:

1. Aerial 2. Pedestrian/ground truthing 3. Geophysical

Fieldwork methods:

Survey and excavation

Is stratigraphy and example of absolute dating?

Oldowan technology produced what kind of tools?

Choppers (from cores) and flakes

Which technology is associated with neanderthals?

Mousterian

In the European Paleolithic, examples of portable art are usually found at hunting sites–were these figures thought to influence the outcome of hunts?

What is archeology?

The study of the past through its material remains

Material remains are:

Anything that humans make

While domesticated wheat and other grasses seem to have spread from the Near and Middle East to North Africa, does pottery appear to have diffused the same way 7000 years ago?

No, it appears to have diffused the opposite way

Archeological evidence suggests Aboriginal Australians have been living in Australia for approximately:

50,000-60,000 years

Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Midterm (Arch) Flashcards

Brainscape's Knowledge Genome^TM