Quiz #2 Flashcards
When and where did skeletally (anatomically) modern humans evolve?
AMH evolved between 300,000 and 120,000 years ago from populations originally established by Homo Erectus ancestors in Africa.
What physical traits are unique to Homo sapiens sapiens, as compared to other hominin species?
Globular-shaped heads, small faces, and small teeth, a vertical forehead, chins, linear body and long legs. VS Powerful hands, no chin, large brow ridges, occipital bun, barrel chest.
How do archaeologists define “modern” human behavior?
One key feature is the use of symbolism. Style, Expansion of diet to include new food resources, artistic representation, innovation of bone-shaped tools, and evidence for long distance transport of stone raw materials and possibly for styles of flaked stone artifacts.
What material evidence of modern human
behaviors do they look for in the archaeological record?
Usage of red ochre, diet expansion to include shellfish, ostrich eggs engraved to use as carrying containers, points.
Time period in Africa beginning before 50,000 cal BC; it is characterized by modern humans with modern behaviors including abundant evidence for symbolism.
Later Stone Age
Well-known Late Upper Paleolithic cave art site in France; most of the hundreds of images date to the Magdalenian period.
Lascaux
A single standing megalithic stone, put into place by Late Neolithic farming groups in Europe. Arrangements of several menhirs can be found marking avenues, as alignments, or circles, including henges.
Menhir
An archeological term used in some parts of the Old World, such as Europe and Asia, to describe later hunter-gatherer forage groups. The chronology associated with this term varies by region. (Europe 9600 and 5000 cal BC)
Mesolithic
An Epi-Gravettian (Late Upper Paleolithic) site in Ukraine that is a winter base camp; it contains four substantial dwellings built of mammoth bones and tusks, large storage and hearths.
Mezhirich
Late Epipaleolithic (Natufian Period) site in Israel. It dates between about 13,000 and 9600 cal BC and is an example of a small village in the Mediterranean region of the Levant.
‘Ain Mallaha
Early Mississippian period site in Illinois. Cahokia was one of the most important political and ritual centers of the Mississippian period. It’s “downtown” area contained Monk’s Mound, the Great Plaza, a Wood henge, sub-Mound 51, and a wooden palisade, as well as several over earthen mounds (such as Mound 72) and plazas. It was associated with the complexes at the East St. Louis Site and the Mound City site.
Cahokia
A category of political organization that is described as a ranked society in which rank is inherited. Elites in a chiefdom live at central places, control densely populated regions, and have greater access to prestige goods and other resources.
Chiefdom
An Eastern Gravettian (Mid-Upper Paleolithic) set of sites in the Czech Republic in Central Europe, dating between 30,000 and 27,000 cal BC. It contains evidence for early experiments in firing claylike sediment (making ceramics) and exceptional burials.
Donli Vestonice
Geographical region in the Middle East characterized by the Association of the Mediterranean forest, wild cereals, and wild sheep and goats. It was a feature used in the readiness theory to explain the origins of food-production.
Fertile Crescent
An archeological term most often used to refer to hunter-gatherer-forager groups living in the Middle East in the interval between 23,000 and 9,600 cal BC.
Epipaleolithic
An unusual Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B site in Turkey. It has structures that incorporate large T-shape pillars. Many of the T-shape pillars are decorated with motifs such as snakes, aurochs, gazelle, felines, and other images. It has been interpreted as a ritual center with each structure being a temple.
Gobekli Tepe
Late Natufian phase site of the Late Epipaleolithic period in the Levantine Middle East where evidence for an elaborate burial ritual associated with an elderly woman from a hunter-gatherer-forager group was found.
Hillazon Tachtit
A term mainly used to indicate the passageway between the Cordilleran and Laurentide glaciers that covered Canada during the Pleistocene; it is widely thought to be a route used during the peopling of the Americas after 11,500 cal BC.
Ice-Free Corridor
An explanation for the world-wide origins of food-production in the Holocene. It attributes this transition to the fact that climactic conditions during the Pleistocene were not conducive to dependable reliance on plant foods. With less extreme climactic fluctuations in the Holocene, hunter-gatherer-forager groups could manipulate plant foods more successfully, resulting in their abundance and domestication.
Hostile Pleistocene Theory
Large site in the West Bank in the Levantine Middle East, it has many different periods of occupation. During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, it was a moderate-size village of circular dwellings that were associated with a monumental stone wall, stone tower, and external ditch. These monumental features are unique for this time period.
Jericho
The rapid cooling and aridity of this late glacial period was used as an explanation for the origins of food production. It assumes that as climate worsened, hunter-gatherer-forager groups began to manipulate plants and animals to assure their availability and abundance.
Younger Dryas Theory
An archeological term widely used in the Old World (except for sub-Saharan Africa) to represent the period from 45,000 to 9,700 cal BC. In Europe all of the Upper Paleolithic cultures, except for the Chatelperronian, are associated with modern humans.
Upper Paleolithic
These female carvings are found throughout Europe during the Gravettian / Eastern Gravettian period of the Upper Paleolithic; the earliest known however, is from the Aurignacian period at Hohle Fels in Germany.
“Venus” Figugrines
A henge monument began in the Neolithic period that underwent several changes from an initial bank and ditch surrounding cremation pits to the addition of the bluestones from Wales, the larger local sarsen stones, and an avenue.
Stonehenge
The idea that humans actively change or manipulate features of the landscape around them and resources in those landscapes in ways that build a niche or habitat in which they can be successful over long periods of time. It incorporates evolutionary ideas form biology and applies them to humans.
Niche Construction Theory
