(France) 400,000 YA

• Ancient shelter discovered by Henri de Lumley.
• Scientists found post holes and other evidence of multiple shelters at this site.
• Provided protection for an early human family or social group.

(Spain) ca. 350,000 YA

• Site
• Mammoths trapped accidentally in marshy ground, remains found scavenged by early humans.
• Stone implements found.
• Pieces of charcoal show that fire was known and used.

(Spain)

• Site of caves known for the abundant amount of human remains discovered.
• Contained earliest evidence of humans in W. Europe (1.1-1.2 MYA)

A theory on the rise of Homo sapiens.

• Homo erectus in Africa, branch out to other continents, then Homo sapiens.

A theory on the rise of Homo sapiens.

• Homo erectus in Africa, Homo sapiens in Africa, then branch out to other continents.

Evidence of beginnings of behaviors similar to modern humans.

• An arm bone had evidence of a healed amputation, showing that this person was being cared for by others.
• Flower burials were evidence that those that passed were missed/ceremonial burials.

• Neanderthals were running around Europe.
• Higher populations.

An explosion of behaviors indicative toward culture.

1. regular social gatherings
2. higher population densities
3. stylistic material & art
4. working of bone and antler
5. hunting herd animals
6. personal adornment
7. longer range of trade goods

• Homo habilis
• 8 cm of cutting surface

• Homo erectus
• 30 cm of cutting surface
• improvement from Olduwan tool

• More than 200 found in different areas
• Oldest known representations of the female form
• Possibly a fertility symbol
  • Willandorf figurine
  • Hohle Fels figurine (Germany)
    • made of mammoth ivory

1. Violence
   • broken bones
   • dislocations
   • amputations
2. Infections and Diseases
   • bone infections
   • peridontal
3. Diet issues
   • iron deficiency
   • rickets
   • hypoplasia
4. Tumors
5. Genetic Issues

(France) 17,000 YA

• paleolithic cave paintings, primarily of animals
• believe cave was used as a center for hunting and religions rites

(France) 32,000 YA

• huge network of galleries and rooms with cave paintings
• entire cave remained untouched since paleolithic times due to a landslide that blocked the entrance

(Russia) 25,000 YA

• complex burials, people wrapped in beads

1. origins of domestication
2. origins of complex civilization
3. peopling of the new world
4. archaeology and global politics

• integrity
• significance

1. sometimes determined by research
2. sometimes salvage (contract)

What are the three principles of archaeological study?

1. excavation
2. analysis
3. interpretation

determining an age on a specified chronology; a fixed date

1. Invention of new ideas
2. Diffusion: movement of ideas
3. Migration: movement of people and with the people comes ideas

• cradle of civilization
• biodiversity and rich soils
• wild precursors for wheat, barley, flax, lentils, etc
• cow, sheep, pigs, and goats

1. Oasis Theory
2. Hilly Flanks
3. Demographic/ Population pressure
4. Reliability of food model
5. Feasting (social)

• popularized by Childe
• shift in environment led to congregation around water, symbiotic relationship between humans and animals
  • critique: focuses on animals, not plants, and didn't fully have environmental data
  • neolithic revolution
• Childe: argues that animal domestication arose as people, plants & animals congregated around water sources during the arid years that followed the Pleistocene
• people started farming because they had to

• Braidwood- 1940's
• first theory really based on fieldwork
• suggests that agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the Taurus and Zagros mountains, where the climate was not drier as Childe had believed, and fertile land supported a variety of plants and animals amenable to domestication.,
• Robert Braidwood's hypothesis that people were "ready" for agriculture.
• assumption of drive to domesticate
• intimate familiarity with region and plants, result of specialized knowledge

• Lewis Binford- 1960's
• Environmental change and sedentism compelled people to abandon hunter-gathering
  
• postulate that the increase in human population is hampered by the carrying capacity of the natural environment in supplying food. With further increase in population, the food that the wild naturally supplies became too insignificant

• Kent Flannery, worked in Mexico
• developed agriculture not to increase yield but to make food more reliable

• Hayden, Bender
• gifts and trade create social bonds
• Those wishing to achieve rank and status in societies did so by throwing feasts that create lasting dependencies between themselves and other members of the community who are unable to reciprocate on the same scale
• h/g would not have provided opportunities for this kind of social emulation, the adoption of cultivation did

• MtDNA evidence suggests early split from wolves 100,000 YA
• all modern dogs came from 3 females in China around 15,000 YA

• hunting and protection
• meat
• labor
• secondary products (wool, eggs, etc)
• bodily functions
  • pee is acidic and cleans
  • poop as fertilizer

• not too territorial
• gregarious/curious
• short inter-animal distances (tend to herd)
• social

• morphological selection
  • difference in body size and shape between an archaeological assemblage and animals found in the wild
• population make up
  • differences in the range of genders and ages between a domesticated group of animals and those found in the wild. Farmers like keeping many female cows around and few if any males. 
• presence of new species
• size of the critter (morphological selection)
• species spectrum shift (array of species)

What are the five problems of agriculture?

1. It is hard work
2. Ag diets aren't as balanced as h/g diets
   • h/g rely on wider array of food sources, with plenty of calories and protein
   • skeletal evidence shows more anemia and reduced stature with ag diets
3. Cultures more prone to death due to famine
   • rely on food crops, if they fail then you don't have food
   • evidence is dental hypoplasia
   • reduced life expecancy
   • overall reduced health
4. Disease
5. Violence
   • more people together leads to more violence

• Mesopotamia
• Egypt
• China
• Mesoamerica
• Peru
• Indus River Valley

• west bank Israel
• oldest continuously occupied settlement
• first settled ca. 9000 BC, permanent by 8-7000 BC
• Kathleen Kenyon excavated there 1952-1958

• female archaeological pioneer
• introduced strati-graphic excavations
• part of founding of Institute of Archaeology in London

• one of the first cities
• located in Turkey
• 7500 BC

• permanent architecture
• storage facilities
• new tool kits
• social complexity

Characteristics of Urbanism?

• large and dense population
• economic complexity and interdependance
• bureaucracies
• diversity of services
• non-agricultural activities
• monumental architecture and infrastructure

(building of pyramids in Egypt required all of this)

• indus river valley 3300-1300 BC
• elaborate bureaucracy 
• weight stones and coins
• extensive and standardized systems of weights and measures
• public works and town planning
• health and sanitation management

• domestication of maize around 5000 BC
• pottery around 3000 BC
• regional chronology/ major cultural affiliation:
  • Olmecs
  • Maya
  • Aztecs

• northern Mexico around AD 1200
• Tenochtitlan was the center (today Mexico city)
• population estimated at 125,000

• polytheistic: many gods
  • hierarchy of gods
  • cyclical understanding of the world
  • goal was to mitigate the destructive side of nature/gods
• offerings to deities was standard, as well as blood sacrifice
  • sacrifice was a regular ritual
  • cutting out heart on alter most well known
• life is cyclical, need death for there to be life

• archaeological evidence
  • by land: Bering land bridge
• genetic evidence: MtDNA sequencing suggests multiple populations 15-30,000 YA

• foragers, big-game hunting
• started small and then up scaled hunting
  • ex: olsen-chubbuck

• late paleo site
• 190 bison
• indians led bison stampedes off of cliffs, made an easy kill of a large amount of meat
  • stampeded them across an arroyo (dry creek)

• environmental stress
• Blitzkrieg model: humans hunted them to extinction
• disease
• a combination of things