Midterm (Arch) Flashcards
Oldowan
Earliest stone tools Approx. 2.6 MYA (Lower Paleolithic) Associated with H. habilis Pebble tools, choppers, and flakes Uniform across space and time
Acheulean
Approx. 1.8 MYA - 200 KYA (Lower Paleolithic)
Associated with H. erectus
Handaxes (Symmetrical and bifacially worked)
Mousterian
Approx. 200 KYA-30 KYA (Middle Paleolithic)
Associated with H. neanderthalis
Levallois cores and flakes, side scrapers, backed knives
Flake attributes
Platform
Bulb of percussion
Core attributes
Flake scar
Upper Paleolithic tools
Approx. 50 KYA-10 KYA Associated with H. sapiens Blades, blade cores, points and scrapers Composite tools Bone tools
Ohallo II
Paleolithic era (20 KYA) settlement in Israel
Semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers
Shows that sedentism could precede agriculture
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
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
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)
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
First pottery
China, 20 KYA
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
Sintashta culture
First culture to work with bronze (metallurgy) and domesticate horses (horse and chariot travel)
Used bronze without social inequality
Peopling of Australia
50-60 KYA (Late Pleistocene)
Likely arrived via marine travel
Time of Sahul supercontinent
Landscape management
Controlled burns for creating patchwork landscapes, cultivating habitats, and reducing bushfires
Fish weirs
Mound building