Test 2 Flashcards
1
Q
What is an artifact?
A
Objects (belongings) used, modified, or made by people - ex: clay pots, metal scraps
2
Q
What are ecofacts?
A
Organic and environmental remains of cultural relevance - what makes it relevant is how we can link it to human activity
3
Q
What are features?
A
Non-portable (cannot move) artifacts - ex: houses, temples, granaries, and pools
4
Q
What is a site?
A
Any place where artifacts, ecofacts, features, or structures are found - ex: houses with prominent features or structures
5
Q
Do archaeologists remove 100% of the site?
A
No, they don’t
6
Q
What is a trench?
A
An area of excavation
7
Q
What is a tell?
A
A mounded site formed by successive layers of human occupational activity and debris
8
Q
What is a step trench?
A
An excavation method for tell sites, in which excavation proceeds in a series of steps down the side of the tell - helps to make a timeline for how long the space was occupied
9
Q
What does a pit look like?
A
Different soil color, different soil texture, layered soils, distinct pit “cuts”, patterns of artifacts confined to the pit’s dimensions
10
Q
What is an association?
A
An artifact’s relationship with other artifacts
11
Q
What is a provenience?
A
The horizontal and vertical location of an artifact found during excavation - geolocating the pit (finding the coordinates)
12
Q
What is primary context?
A
An undisturbed archaeological context, an artifact that is found in its original discard location
13
Q
What is “in situ”?
A
“On-site” in Latin, the artifact is undisturbed since its discard
14
Q
What is secondary context?
A
A disturbed archaeological context, the artifact is found outside of its original discard location
15
Q
What is “ex situ”?
A
“Off-site” in Latin, the artifact is disturbed since its discard - ex: looting and plowing
16
Q
What is bioturbation?
A
The movement of soils and sediments by plants or animals - ex: rodent tunneling, insects, moving seeds, tree roots sprouting up
17
Q
What are formation processes?
A
Processes affecting how archaeological materials came to be buried, and their history after burial (in situ and ex situ)
18
Q
What is a chain operatorie?
A
An ordered chain of actions that explain an artifact’s production, use, and discard - one of the ways that archaeologists think about formation processes
19
Q
What is use life?
A
The history of an artifact’s use by humans
20
Q
What is experimental archaeology?
A
Experimental reconstruction to understand how artifacts were made and used - ex: setting something on fire to see how its remains would would look like
21
Q
What is taphonomy?
A
The study of what happens to organic remains after death - ex: bone, wood, seeds, animal skins, textiles, woven baskets, mats, ropes, etc.
22
Q
What are waterlogged environments?
A
Water submersion creates oxygen-less (anoxic) conditions that slow down or block organic decay
23
Q
What are arid environments?
A
Extreme dryness (it can be hot or cold) prevents decay
24
Q
What are cold environments?
A
Natural refrigeration freezes the decay process
25
What is a homespace?
Where one could freely confront the issue of humanization where one could resist for enslaved people
26
What are activity areas?
Places where a person or people participated in a specific type of activity
27
What is the archaeological challenge?
Having to use objects as proxies for human practices
28
What is the goal of an archaeological survey?
To detect individual sites for mapping, recording, and archaeological excavation
29
What are the 3 methods of archaeological survey?
Surface, above surface, and below surface
30
What are the types of surface survey?
Field walking, vehicular reconnaissance, grid survey, ground-penetrating survey
31
What is field walking?
Survey done by walking in transects, finding scatters of building remains and artifacts, with the naked eye
32
What are transects?
Straight strips of land
33
What is vehicular reconnaissance?
Finding conspicuous (easy to spot) sites on the landscape by vehicle - ex: stone-based artifacts, flat-level surfaces
34
What is a grid survey?
A grid drawn over the survey area, and then several units are selected (randomly or systematically) for an intensive ground survey - randomly selecting squares to excavate
35
What is remote survey/sensing?
Survey methods using technologies that detect surface and subsurface archaeological remains from a distance
36
What is aerial survey?
Above ground: drone photography is now the most common form or aerial survey, LiDAR
37
What is photogrammetry?
The use of photography in surveying and mapping to measure distances between objects
38
What is satellite imagery?
Archaeologists now have access to high-resolution satellite images, from both the past and present, to help identify archaeological sites
39
What is LiDAR?
Light detection and ranging, uses a pulsated laser beam to create 3D digital models of the landscape
40
What are LiDAR's features?
- Can go wherever light can go
- Can be done by plane or drone
- Sends out pulses that reflect multiple points and captures
- Able to detect features under vegetation
- Extremely useful in forested regions
- Able to detect and emphasize ancient features on the landscape
41
What is UAV?
Unmanned aerial vehicle (a drone)
42
What is sub-surface survey?
Collect site information below the ground, also referred to as geophysical archaeology
43
What is electrical resistivity?
Measures variations in the resistance of the ground to an electrical current (usually up to 3 meters below the surface)
44
Downfalls of electrical resistivity?
Stone foundation might hinder electrical flow
45
Upsides of electrical resistivity?
Organic deposits will conduct more flow
46
What is magnetometry?
Measures variations in magnetic fields under the ground surface (up to 2 meters below surface)
47
What is ground-penetrating radar?
Measures the strength and timing of radar waves (electromagnetic pulses) sent below the surface (up to 2.5 meters below surface)
48
Executive positions in the field?
Director, area supervisors, square supervisors, and local excavators
49
What are ceramicists?
Study ceramic artifacts, mainly women fill this role
50
What are archaeobotanists?
Study plant remains
51
What are zooarchaeologists?
Study animal remains
52
What are bioarchaeologists?
Study human remains
53
What are lithicists?
Study worked stone artifacts
54
What are conservators?
They stabilize, preserve, and restore artifacts
55
What are photographers?
They take high-quality photographs of field work and artifacts
56
What are illustrators?
They create high-quality drawings of artifacts for publication
57
What are epigraphers?
They study and translate inscriptions
58
What are registrars?
They document and catalog archaeological finds
59
What are specialists?
They regularly go on-site to consult and assist with special projects
60
What is total excavation?
100% excavation of site, methods reserved for sites under imminent threat
61
What is vertical excavation?
Used to establish stratigraphic (chronological) sequences and site boundaries
62
What is a step trench?
Excavation method used on very deep sites (tells) where excavation proceeds downwards in a series of steps that exposed stratigraphic layers
63
What is a test pit?
An excavation unit (for trench) used to sample or probe before large-scale excavation is done
64
What is coring?
A method of using an augur to collect stratigraphic soil samples for immediate information on archaeological deposits
65
What is horizontal excavation?
A method used to expose wide areas of the site - a grid system of standardized square trenches separated by baulks
66
What are baulks?
A roughly squared timber beam, allows us to walk carefully in horizontal excavation and gives a window into what is being dug up
67
What is stratigraphy?
The study of sediment layers and their sequence at an archaeological site
68
Uses of stratigraphy?
- Reconstruct the depositional history of the site of the trench
- Distinguish the chronology of the deposits
- Discern the formation processes that made the deposits
69
What is a locus/loci?
A discrete excavated unit or archaeological context, helps to delineate important changes in the stratigraphy
70
What is a Harris Matrix?
A way of illustrating the sequence of deposits in a stratigraphic profile, helps to order the loci chronologically
71
T or F: Everything excavated does not need to be labeled with context info
False, it does need
72
What are locus sheets?
Standardized data sheets for each context excavated
73
What is a daily journal?
The archaeologists' observations and interpretations in the field
74
What is a stratigraphic profile?
A drawing of the stratigraphy within a trench or site
75
What is a top plan?
A map of where artifacts and features are located, vertically, and horizontally, when looking down from above onto the trench
76
What is 3D photogrammetry?
Extracting 3D information from photographs
77
What is a sieve/sifter/screen?
To help recover smaller artifacts, excavated soil is sifted (aka sieved or screened)
78
What is a dumpy level?
Survey equipment used to measure the elevation of archaeological finds during excavation
79
What are field conditions?
Often, not always, conducted in remote areas: can be very hot, few amenities, wildlife encounters occur, excavation labor can be difficult, and hours can be long
80
What are assemblages?
Groups of material culture from a particular time and place
81
What is context?
The position of artifacts in time and space and their association with other artifacts
82
What are lithics?
Artifacts made of worked stone
83
What is a core?
Tools produced by removing flakes from the original block of stone (called a cobble)
84
What are flakes and blades?
Places of stone detached from a core from which flakes are struck off, tools made from the stone chipped off the original cobble
85
What is bulb of force?
Where the core was struck
86
What is an eraillure scar?
A tiny flake that is removed from the bulb of force during the strike
87
What is debitage (debris)?
Discarded flakes are regarded as trash (not used)
88
What are bifaces?
Two sides meet to form a single edge that circumscribes the entire artifact (often chopping or cutting tools)
89
What is hafting?
Attaching a stone tool to a handle or a shaft (can be used as arrows, spears, cutting tools)
90
What is flint knapping?
The process of making stone tools by chipping or flaking
91
What is sourcing?
Analyzing the constituent materials of artifacts to determine the origin of the resources used to make it
92
What is trace element analysis?
The use of chemical techniques to identify trace elements of rocks in stone tools
93
What are ceramics?
Materials made of fired clay
94
What is pottery?
Ceramic vessels and their remains
95
What are sherds?
Fragments of ceramic vessels
96
What are shards?
Fragments of glass
97
What is temper?
Fillers added to wet clay that alter the characteristics the vessel's fabric
98
What is grog?
Crushed fragments of pottery vessels
99
What do handmade vessels look like?
Symmetrical body, uniform thickness of vessel walls, uneven thickness of vessel walls, possible fingerprints in the clay from pinching and shaping the vessel
100
What do wheel-made vessels look like?
Symmetrical body, uniform thickness of vessel walls, parallel horizontal striations from shaping and trimming the vessel while spinning on the wheel
101
What is reduction?
Restricted access to oxygen
102
What is oxidation?
Unrestricted access to oxygen
103
What are kilns?
They create increased oxygen conditions
104
What is slip?
Mixture of clay and water applied to surface before firing
105
What is glaze?
Like a slip, but with more glass (silica) added for more gloss
106
What is stylistic analysis?
Analysis of non-utilitarian aspects of vessel design
107
What is ceramic petrography?
Microscopic analysis of the clay and temper in ceramic vessels to determine their point of origin
108
What is archaeometallurgy?
The study of metal artifacts and their manufacture
109
What is isotopic analysis?
Chemical analysis to identify lead isotope signatures in metal artifacts
110
What does BP stand for?
Before Present (1950 CE)
111
What do BC and BCE stand for?
Before Christ and Before Common Era
112
What do AD and CE stand for?
The year of our lord and Common Era
113
What does Ya stand for?
Years ago
114
What does kya stand for?
Thousand years ago
115
What does mya stand for?
Million years ago
116
What does C or Ca stand for?
Circa "around"
117
What does "c" stand for?
Century
118
Who are the world's oldest mummies?
The Chinchorro Culture of Peru and Chile practiced mummification thousands of years before the Egyptians (ca. 7000 BCE)
119
Who has the world's oldest tatoos?
"Otzi" has the world's oldest tattoos known to archaeologists
120
What is relative dating?
Determining chronological sequences without the use of fixed dates
121
What are typological sequences?
The systematic organization of artifacts with shared attributed into chronological sequences
122
What is stratigraphy?
The study of layers and their sequence at an archaeological site
123
What is the law of superposition?
Underlying layers are older (deposited first) than layers above
124
What is an attribute?
A characteristic of an artifact
125
What is seriation?
A chronological ordering of a group of artifacts or assemblages
126
What is typological seriation?
Founded by Sir Flinders Petrie, a chronological ordering of a group of artifacts or assemblages based on their typology
127
What are battleship curves?
Pattern plotted on a graph created when archaeologists assume that artifact types goes in and out of style
128
What is a type?
A class of artifacts defined by a consistent set of attributes
129
What is style?
Attributes of shape and decoration that are distinctive to a particular time and place
130
What is absolute dating?
The determination of age with reference to a specific time scale, able to provide fixed dates
131
What are historical records?
To achieve greater chronological accuracy, archaeologists compare multiple historical documents
132
What is cross-dating?
Principle that an artifact dated at one archaeological site will be one of the same approximate age when found elsewhere, allows archaeologists to extend chronological links using datable artifacts and associations
133
What is tree-ring dating/dendrochronology?
The study of tree-ring patterns to create an absolute chronology
134
What are the limitations of tree-ring dating?
Not applicable in tropical regions, where trees don't produce annual rings, have to rely on species that have a master sequence, tree species has to be used by people in the past, and a sample of that species must preserve a cross-section of tree
135
What is radiocarbon dating?
An absolute dating method that measures the decay of the radioactive isotope in carbon, C-14, in organic material
136
Limitations of radiocarbon dating?
Rates of decay are not constant and levels of atmospheric C14 have changed over time
137
What is Bayesian Analysis?
Includes the relative ages of several samplings and their groups, by stratigraphy
138
What is a midden?
Old dump for domestic waste
