Agency - We all make choices.

Ruth Tringham (Cal professor/Feminist Arch.) - said "Past people are not robots or faceless blobs!" Focus of Post-processual archaeology (critique of systems theory)

a) Etic - outsider's perspective was more the focus of Processual archaeology - Code word "Behavior".

b) Emic - describes culture from the inside, as if you are participating within it. You try to understand why people are performing certain cultural tasks and how past cultural meanings were constructed. - Code word "Actions".

Challenge - You can't interview past people.

Critique - Smacks of Paleo-psychology, as you can't get into the minds of long dead people. 

Arbitrary levels - randomly selected criteria for levels. example: every 10 cm I'm going to call a level.

Natural (cultural) levels - stratified levels with clear delineation, such as a color change in soil indicating a new cultural layer.

Assemblage:  A gross grouping of all subassemblages assumed to represent the sum of human activities carried out within an ancient community (see archaeological culture - Ch 5).

Subassemblage: A grouping of artifact classes based on form and function that is assumed to represent a single occupational group within an ancient community (see assemblage and archaeological culture - Ch 5).

The Paleo-Indian points were the first evidence for ice age people in the Americas. Evidence of big game hunting sites & routes over land bridge. Maritime route, similar time line (or older, about 13,000yrs).

Ex: Eel Point Site, San Clemente Island

Folsom Point: (1926) Were found associated with Bison Antiquus. Dates over 10,000 to 10,900.

Clovis Point: Were found associated with Mammoths & Camels that were both locally extinct for over 10k years. Dated 10,900 to 11,500 years. 4-5 inches in length. 

Culture history (1920's to 1960's) - Reconstructs the past using a "normative model of culture" (holds that a culture is a set of rules or norms that govern behavior in a particular society.) Attempts to emphasize differences between cultures. When similarities existed they explained by "diffusion".

Basically the study of "Historic Particularism" - All human cultures are unique and must be understood on their own terms. Each culture is shaped by it's own unique history or past.

Benefits: 1) Good descriptions of sites & artifacts.

2) Improved field & lab techniques.

3) Developed standardized ways of defining color, shape & texture.

4) Considerable work in chronology (arrangement of events in time).

Critiques: 1) Too much emphasis on artifact classification, too little on behavior of past people and how they used these artifacts. Lost site of people behind the artifacts.

2) Description vs. explanation. Explained all change through diffusion. Didn't ask; "What did these people do and why did they change over time?"

3) Growing disenchantment - too descriptive & too boring.

Cultural Resource Management (CRM) - is a process by which the protection and management of the multitudinous but scarce elements of cultural heritage are given some consideration in a modern world with an expanding population and changing needs.

National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) - 1966 - made this a large part of Arch.

- To do this type of work you perform a "Scope of work" (what needs to be done).

- Followed by submitting a "Research Design" if you want to bid on work.

Duncan Village Project - Was Kent Lightfoots first funded project. 

Location: Just outside Duncan, Arizona

Reason: Town was flooding, funding to move town to Duncan Village site (2 pithouse villages in right-of-way).

Pithouses dates to 300-500AD.

Budgetary issues (time & money) - Funding reduced from $250,000 to $20,000 (only 1 1/2 months to complete). 

Possible Field Strategies: David Wilcox - would have focused on Formation Processes (excavated 1 pithouse completely).

Prof. Lightfoot - Rise of sedentary life, spatial organization of villages (sample pithouses)

Staffing/Field crew: Division of Emergency Services provided 20 convicts.

Field program: i) Surface investigation (Grid, topography, surface collection). ii) Test surface depressions (2x2 m units). iii) Scrape right-of-way (w/front end loader). iv) Excavate 7 pithouses (use backhoe to excavate above floor level, then hand excavation). v) Obtain information on spatial organization.

Excavation Steps:

a) Grid system - Site Datum, Transit, Total station.

b) Surface Investigations - Map overlays: topographic maps, surface collection--artifact density maps, geophysical maps.

c) Penetrating Excavation - Subsurface testing phase, placement of test units (judgemental or sampling).

d) Clearing Excavation - Expose large blocks, define matrix, stratigraphy; provenience, association; balks (record stratigraphy).

Note: Downside of excavation - High-impact archaeology. Destroys spacial context.

Manuel Gamio - Father of anthropology in Mexico. Utilized cultural relativism (Each culture is unique & different in it's own right). He devised a well known system for classifying hunter gatherers. Helped Mexico to recognize its diverse cultural heritage, which included to a large degree native indians.

Focused on chronology building; three-age system (stone, bronze, iron ages).

Geophysical Survey (search for anomalies)

a) Passive geophysical methods; magnetic surveys, magnetometer.

b) Active or Induced methods; soil resistivity or conductivity, radar - ground penetrating radar.

c) Summary: Pros - Increasingly sophisticated, low impact methods. Cons - Not practical for regional survey (ex: Drakes Bay Survey)

James Hill - did research at Broken K. Pueblo and concluded that different rooms were from different time periods and showed evidence of the culture moving from hunter gatherers to agricultural.

Michael Schiffer - "Mr. transformational processes" critiqued Hill, saying that it was all about transformational processes, more specifically depositional processes. Argued that the rooms were from the same time period & just used to dispose of different items.

Positivism - a set of beliefs about how we should conduct scientific enquiry.

Hypothetico-deductive nomological model (HDN) - suggests that one proceeds as a scientist by taking a specific hypothesis and testing it. The deductions one makes from the result of the test should then be used to produce generalizing explanations.

(nomological = generalizing)

2nd definition of Positivism - The belief that the social sciences, indluding archaeology, should try to follow the historical path of development of the natural sciences.

Pg. 182 of reader / Arch. as a science - Johnson

Mark Leone - utilized "Critical Theory" (multiple truths), arguing That any scholar engaged in scientific discovery is going to be biased in their own way. Archaeology is conducted in the present (contemporary phenomena) & will reflect that modern culture.

2 points - 1) Self reflective - you need to understand the biases & perspectives you bring to the study.

2) Social politics of archaeology - may be appropriated by special interest groups & subject to those influences.

Pg. 25 & 44 of notebook.

True North (Latitude & Longitude)

Magnetic declination (Magnetism of the Earth)

- difference is 14.5 degrees east for Berkeley.

UTMs (the earth is broken into zones)

- we are in zone 10

- 1:24,000 ratio

Latitude is measured from the equator, with positive values going north & negative values going south, +90 to -90 degrees. 

Longitude is measured from the Prime Meridian (which is the longitude that runs through Greenwich, England), with positive values going east and negative values going west. 

Example; 65 degrees west longitude, 45 degrees north latitude is -65 degrees longitude, +45 degrees latitude.

Metini Village Site at Fort Ross, CA - 

- Kashaya Pomo indian / recognized sacred place.

- Collaborative team used even in developing research design, as well as public education program w/following participants:

a) Calif. Department of Parks & Rec.

b) Kashaya Pomo elders.

c) UC Berkeley staff & students.

Key Points: 1) Low impact archaeology.

2) Cultural outreach.

3) Collaborative approach working closely with local stakeholders & developing educational programs that reach the broader public.

Cyrus Thomas (pub. 1894) - studied "moundbuilders myth" in 1880's & determined that the moundbuilders were in fact native Americans, using holistic historical archaeology to examine the late prehistoric mounds of the midwest.

- compared material cultures of moundbuilders to ethnographic studies.

- Direct link with archaeology & ethnography.

- Platform mounds (ex: Cahokia mound complex).

The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA-Oct. 15, 1966) is legislation intended to preserve historical and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic Places, the list of National Historic Landmarks, and the 

State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO) - Our SHPO information center is at Sonoma State University and stores all archaeological data, including the gray literature, site record (has USGS map & site locations) and site numbers (trinomial) ex: CA-ALA-309 (is Emeryville shell mound state-county-site# in county).

Most far-reaching preservation legislation ever enacted in the United States. Several amendments have been made since. Among other things, the act requires Federal agencies to evaluate the impact of all Federally funded or permitted projects on historic properties (buildings, archaeological sites, etc.) through a process known as Section 106 Review.

Processual/New Archaeology (1960-1980) -

Hypothetical deductive approach - Out to prove!

 Cultural process approach - A deductive approach to archaeological research that is designed to study the changes and interactions in cultural systems and the processes by which human cultures change throughout time. Processual archaeologists use both descriptive and explanatory models.

Systems Theory - Culture is like an organism with different "body" parts.

Environment

Settlement patterns

Cultural ecology

Behavior/adaptation

5 New Developments:

1) New definition of culture (stress variation)

2) Focus on Context (Ian Hodder) - there are multiple narratives / no one truth! Drove things back to intimate micro-scale analysis, symbolic again.

Conjunctive approach (Walter Taylor), activity areas; spatial association of artifacts vs. modal types.

3) Scientific method.

4) Scale of analysis (macro-regional then micro-within site).

5) Expansion of field (CRM, job growth, women in the field).

Equifinality (all things are equal) - is a concept used in processual arch. Ian Hodder (post-processual arch.) argued that you can't just make these laws for meaning of articles and expect them to always apply.

Ex: Potholes

We know that they exist on heavily travelled roads, but you can't just assume that because there are potholes the road is heavily travelled. Sinkholes or other sub-terrestrial conditions could be causing the potholes.

Radiocarbon dating - is the most important radiometric technique for archaeologists. The proportion of C-14 in a n organism remains constant until its death. At that point, no further C-14 is taken in, and the amount present begins to decrease. The half-life of C-14 is about 5700 years.

Willard F. Libby developed the original method in the late 1940s (amount of C-14 detected by Geiger counters over a period of 24 hrs).

Remote sensing - archaeological survey methods involving aerial or subsurface detection of archaeological data. (Ch 5)

Aerial survey - used to detect and record archaeological evidence present on or beneath the ground by airborne sensing methods (planes, balloons & kites).

a) Low-growing vegetation, such as grass, grain, and other ground covers, grows better where ancient canals, deposition of middens, or burials, has improved soil moisture & fertility. Solid features (walls or roads) just below the surface will impede growth.

b) Infrared film can detect patterns invisible to normal light-sensitive cameras.

c) Non-photographic aerial images such as radar and thermography are also used.

Research Design - a systematic plan to coordinate archaeological research to ensure the efficient use of resources and to guide the research according to the scientific method. 7 stages: (FIDDAIP)

1) Formulation: Problem/hypothesis definition, background research, feasibility studies

2) Implementation: Permits, funding, logistics.

3) Data gathering: Survey, Excavation.

4) Data processing: Cleaning and conservation, cataloging, initial classifications.

5) Analysis: Analytic classifications, temporal frameworks, spatial frameworks.

6) Interpretation: Application of culture history and/or cultural process theory, post-processual theory.

7) Publication: Research results used as foundation for new research.

Page 80 / figure 4.15 in textbook.

Sample size - is the total number of units you are going to study from the Data Universe (a defined area of arch. investigation, often region or site, bounded in time & space).

Sample fraction - % of Data Universe to be studied.

Ex: DU = 20, SS = 1, SF = 1/20 or 5%

Sample Units - the basic unit of archaeological investigation; a subdivision of the data universe, defined by arbitrary (ex: grid unit) or non-arbitrary (cultural relevance, ex: room or house) criteria.

Data Universe - (a defined area of arch. investigation, often region or site, bounded in time & space).

Sampling strategies:

Random - every sample unit within the data universe has an equal chance of being chosen.

Systematic - 1st # selected randomly, then remaining units selected at set intervals (say 3).

Stratified - DU is broken into types (ex: mountain, foothills & valley), & certain % or # of units for each type is determined (based on research question), then previous methods used.

Probabilistic (Quantitative) - simple random, systematic, & stratified sampling.

Non-Probabilistic (Judgement) - gathering of sample data based on informal criteria or personal judgement; it does not allow evaluation of how representative the sample is with respect to the population (ex: car & bar surveys! - tend to find big sites).

A settlement pattern - may be the physical expression of a number of systems of social relations, each of which can be studied at several scales.

Settlement pattern survey - might expose social systems, economic systems, political systems & religious systems.

Ex: Regional (macro scale) - some households may live permanently in one place, others may move seasonally. Diverse people of the region may still be governed from a political capital, not necessarily in the economic hub or ritual center.

State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) - Our SHPO information center is at Sonoma State University and stores all archaeological data, including the gray literature, 

Culture areas - A spatial unit defined by ethnographically observed cultural similarities within a given geographical area; used archaeologically to define spatial limits to archaeological cultures (time-space grids).

Time-space grids - A synthesis of temporal and spatial distributions of data used in the culture history approach based on period sequences within culture areas.

Emic - describes culture from the inside, as if you are participating within it. You try to understand why people are performing certain cultural tasks and how past cultural meanings were constructed. - Code word "Actions".

Etic - outsider's perspective was more the focus of Processual archaeology - Code word "Behavior".

Gender in Archaeology - How we define gender in the past; Meg Conkey, Ruth Tringham

What it is to be a social person extends to a variety of gender roles. We can't just utilize present culture as our model to define these roles.

Ian Hodder (Post-processual arch.) - but was trained as a proc. arch., then began to criticize proc. arch. Was all about context & drove things back to an intimate micro-scale analysis, symbolic archaeology again. Believed there are multiple narratives, no one truth. Collaborative & reflective.