Theory Flashcards
Radiocarbon dating
measures decay of C14. Organic material only. Sites younger than 40,000.
Argon Dating
K-Ar dating for volcanic based materials. Argon “resets” and begins accumulating after lava crystallizes. Often for stone tools.
Paleomagnetic
Measures the actual bullshit that is Earth’s magnetic polarity changing on our fucking asses, which is reflected in the composition in sediments deposited.
Thermoluminescence
Measures light emitted from energy stored in certain minerals after they’ve been heated/tHROW INTO A FUCKING FIRE ty neanderthals.
Context
Specific details in the stratigraphic level the artifact was found in, which give it meaning and importance because otherwise it’s literally a pointy shaped rock. CAN’T BE REPRODUCED AFTER EXCAVATION so record everything you piece of shit
Provenience
(think convenience) tHE PRECISE context of the artifact
Goal of survey
To find shit basically. It’s about finding and cataloging remains of human activity.
Sampling strategy
Carefully selecting small sections/samples of a survey area to represent the larger area. Hopefully the ones you pick actually have stuff.
Horizontal excavation
Focuses on a particular slice of time. Breadth.
Vertical excavation
Overview of different time periods and the events that occurred during them in a specific site. Depth.
Law of Superposition
YOU KNOW THIS SHIT. THE HOT YOUNG THING GETS TOP.
Typology VS Attribute Analysis
List of artifacts for aparticular arch. context, looks at how objects may change over time VS looking at artifacts down to their individual characteristics ie attributes
MNI
Minimum Number of Individuals. Counting what’s actually there, basically. You account for the individual bodies, which more accurately accounts for the population.
NISP
Number of Identifiable Species. Every bone is basically an individual. Accounts for how many of a type of species we can find.
CRM archaeology. and key legislations
Cultural Resource Management - deals with material culture of arch. remains. Think ethics. Enforced by the Nation Historic Preservation Act (USA) and the Ontario Heritage Act (On., CA).
Boucher de Perthes
The Legolas of our time. Along with Charles Lyell, took one look at history and thought people were “old…. old as balls.” Discovered stone tools alongside bones of extinct animals.
Three Age System
Divided up artifacts into their material used to manufacture them - Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.
Gordon Childe
Further classified Stone Age into Paleiolithic (hunter-gatherer with emergence of increasingly modern humans and stone tool) and Neolithic (agriculture). Arch record to him was a series of “revolutions” based on shifts in production rather than materials. Ie changes in material culture were related or the cause of changes in society.
New Archaeology/Processual Archaeology
LEWIS BINFORD FLIPPING THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL COMMUNITY AND TELLING THEM THAT THEY’RE WRONG. Argued that arch should be viewed as a science, where interpretation of artifacts and societies should be made through inductive reasoning, and culture was an adaption to the environment.
Post-Processual Archaeology
IAN HODDER LOOKED AS PROCESS. ARCH. AND WAS LIKE, HOLD UP. Arch is a historical science that should be approached using hermeneutics - looking at the context and content to make interpretations. Post-process. arch. is a critique on the white-bread dom. view narrative of arch. that doesn’t account for social elements like politics, gender and equities that would have shaped individual thought, experiences and reality. INTERSECTIONALITY HAS COME TO ARCH.
Historical Archaeology
Understand the past where written records exist. Combines his. and arch. sources to further contextualise what we know of the past and our understanding of it.
Manhattan Burial Ground project
Rediscovered 1991. Cemetery displays evid. of African burial rituals being performed when possible.
Hominin dispersal
Expand range - spatial
Hominin radiation
Variation within a single lineage, leading to multiple species within a genus/derivatives - spatial and temporal
