Topic 3: History of archaeology Flashcards
4 advances that led to modern archaeology
-The establishment of human antiquity (people before us, at a different time)
-The development of the theory of evolution
-The first excavations and the beginning of modern archaeology/development of early field techniques
-Shifts in the examination of culture change (developments in archaeological theory) and rise of new interpretive lenses (the “why” questions)
who was James Hutton?
-1700’s
- layers of rocks revealed lowest layer was the oldest.
- Established basic principles of archaeological excavation
- developed the Principle of uniformitarianism
Who was George Cuvier?
-17-1800’s
-Paleontologist
-developed concept of extinction
developed concept of catastrophism
Who was General Augustus Lane-fox pitt-rivers?
-1800-1900’s
- used military background to develop precise data collecting and recording
-contributed to modern excavation and the strategies behind it!
-developed typology- classification of things according to their physical characteristics
Who was sir william flinders petrie?
-18-1900’s
- well known for his meticulous excavations and data collection, made full descriptions for all recovered materials
- made the information public!
-developed seriation ( a dating method in which artifacts from numerous sites in the same culture are placed in chronological order.)
why is theory needed and relevant to archaeological practice?
- need to justify what we do and why it is worthwhile
- to evaluate interpretations of the past to determine which one is stronger
-to have credibility to distinguish us and uphold standards
justify our needs for grants
How do we explain change in archaeological record? why would an artifact change form in style?
- Internal invention (changes due to local needs)
- Migration of new people into the area
- diffusion of the idea from outside
why is the migration/diffusion explanation problematic?
- plays down internal change in culture, assumes indigenous cultures are not able to advance by themselves
-makes the assumption that a given archaeological assemblage always represents real ethnic groups
what is processual archaeology?
-intellectual movement of the 1960s, known then as the “new archaeology”, which advocated logical positivism as a guiding research philosophy, modeled on the scientific method
-focus on process and scientific methods
- excludes questions on culture and real life experiences of people, focuses heavily on the scientific ideology
-Lewis Binford key guide to this method
What is Post-processual Archaeology
- REACTION to processual archaeology, argued it was too sterile and focused too much on science and not the real people as humans with autonomy
- major part of this was Ian Hodder, collected different interpretive approaches to understand the past
- argued for the incorporation of local peoples and cultures
3 common traits of Postprocessual archaeology
- rejected the scientism of new archaeology
- wanted to focus on the individual and descriptive narratives of the past, lived experiences
- wanted to focus on how material culture influenced people, and not just how people influence material culture
What is public archaeology?
-Public archaeology is archaeology supported by public resources that should be shared with the public
-rise of CRM, material past should be managed and protected and damage should be mitigated
what is contemporary archaeology?
Includes approaches such as queer, inclusive, and decolonizing. New interpretive lens shifts questions
what is historical Particularism?
-rejects the cultural evolutionary model
-argues that each society is a collective representation of its unique historical past
-shows that societies could reach the same level of cultural development through different paths
What is diffusion?
the spread of a cultural item from its place of origin to other places
