Term
| What does archaeologists do? |
|
Definition
They use
the scientific
method to answer
the questions of the
humanities. |
|
|
Term
| What is the most important thing in your tool kit? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Archaeology is the study of human
behavior through the analysis of residues |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
tangible byproducts
of behavior.
Examples:
*Technology
*Subsistence
*Settlement Patterns
*Social Organization
*Trade and Exchange
*Ideology, Beliefs |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| owe their shape to human activity |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| something that owes its shape by nature |
|
|
Term
The Process of
Archaeological Research (5) |
|
Definition
1. Identify a Problem
2. Research Design
3. Survey and Excavation
4. Analysis and Interpretation
5. Publication |
|
|
Term
| what kind of Archaeologist is the prof? |
|
Definition
| “Paleolithic” Archaeologist |
|
|
Term
Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826) |
|
Definition
Jefferson conducted
the first scientific
excavation of Native
American sites on his
property in Monticello,
Virginia. |
|
|
Term
Thomas Edward Lawrence
(1888-1933) |
|
Definition
Archaeologist -wrote
his undergraduate
honors thesis at
Oxford on Crusader
castles. |
|
|
Term
Louis S.B.
Leakey
(1903-1972) |
|
Definition
Archaeologist,
paleoanthropologist |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
An interest in
ancient material
culture for its
aesthetic or
monetary value. |
|
|
Term
| Nabonidus of Babylon, ca. 550 BC |
|
Definition
Cuneiform tablet recording Nabonidusʼ reign as king
This is close to archaeology, but
Nabonidusʼ work was for political,
rather than scientific purposes |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
became a key to reading Egyptian
hierogylphs
*Hieratic Egyptian
*Demotic Egyptian
*Greek |
|
|
Term
| Why was antiquarianism a bad thing? |
|
Definition
It was a bad thing because
its focus on objects, art
mostly, caused irreparable
damage to archaeological
sites. |
|
|
Term
| Who owns the archaeological record? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
1. Matrix
2. Provenience
3. Association |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
the sediments enclosing the
archaeological record. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
is the spatial relationship
between residues in an archaeological site |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
point from
which all
measurements
originate. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
What is found together in
the same deposit?
ex.
Electrical Battery + Ancient Egyptian ushabti(mortuary furniture) |
|
|
Term
Christiaan Thomsen
(1788-1865) in Denmark -
the Three
Ages. |
|
Definition
*Stone tools
*Bronze tools
*Iron tools |
|
|
Term
Jacques Boucher de Perthes
(1788-1868)in France -Stone tools
and Extinct Mammals |
|
Definition
proved both the fossils and
stone tools were deposited
at the same time. |
|
|
Term
archaeologists found
remains of Ice Age humans themselves,
both modern people and extinct humans,
like the Neandertals. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Roman City destroyed in
AD 79 by the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius. |
|
|
Term
Antiquarians
*Small, individual houses
*Art & treasure
*Private art collections |
|
Definition
Fiorelli
*Large,whole city blocks & public
buildings
*All material culture
*Published, museum exhibits |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Top floors: Poor,Slaves
Middle-class: free citizens, foreigners
Ground floor: Wealthy Romans |
|
|
Term
| Fiorelliʼs large-scale excavations cleared all rooms, down to street level, without risk of cave-ins. |
|
Definition
Result: remains of rich and poor
both recovered. |
|
|
Term
| Impact on Archaeological Theory: |
|
Definition
| New focus on lives of “common people” in Classical Civilization. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
-the
principle that one has to prefer
explanations that are based on forces
observable in the world today |
|
|
Term
| uniformitarianism is “catastrophism”, |
|
Definition
an argument that historically unique forces (mostly supernatural intervention) shaped the
record of the past. |
|
|
Term
| Failure to publication finds is considred __________ |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| What is the root of archoology? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| What are the 2 Big Anthropological Questions that Richard MacNeish asked? |
|
Definition
•How are we different from other animals?
•Why are we different from each other? |
|
|
Term
| What is Middle Range Theory? |
|
Definition
how we know what we think we know about
the past. |
|
|
Term
| What are the Clay balls (Pottery) @Catalhoyuk used for? |
|
Definition
-Food preparation / Food production
-Implications of food preparation |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
-Worship spaces
-Animal symbolism
-Art
-jewellery
-Burials |
|
|
Term
| Ethnographic / historical comparisons too |
|
Definition
-hunting weapon forms and functions
-variations
-recent stone age too |
|
|
Term
| How to tell hunting weapons apart? |
|
Definition
-Additional info on tool surfaces
-Geometrics
-Hafting
-Microscopy
-Ancient tools and modern experiments
-Variation |
|
|
Term
| The ramifications of complex hunting weaponry for our species |
|
Definition
-movements
-cognition
-success
-adaptation and change
-expansion |
|
|
Term
| Lake Turkana and changing environments |
|
Definition
-Livestock
-Nderit Pottery
-Pillar sites
-West and East Turkana
-Lothagam, Kalokol, Manemaya
-Beads, burials, stone tools, pits, pottery, human remains
-Difference in site characteristics: function, location, people? |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Artifacts that share
the same design features. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Groups of artifacts
from the same context. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Assemblages containing similar
kinds of artifact-types |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Stone, Bronze, Iron Age Artifacts (guy) |
|
|
Term
___________ helped
archaeologists to recognize
patterned variation through
time and space in artifact
designs and assemblage
contents. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Two Key Archaeological issues:
(The “Aryan” Debate) |
|
Definition
1. Were ancestral Aryans responsible for particular groups of Bronze Age cultures?
2. How did one explain similarities and
differences archaeological assemblage groups. |
|
|
Term
Gustav Kossinna
(German/Prussian):
variation = migration -
movements of people. |
|
Definition
*Variation reflects biological identity
(“race”).
• Races spread by migration, conquest.
• Long-term change = biological evolution, “survival of the
fittest”. |
|
|
Term
V. Gordon Childe
(Australian/UK):
variation = diffusion -
spread of ideas. |
|
Definition
• Variation reflects knowledge (“culture”).
• Knowledge spreads by diffusion.
• Long-term change = social evolution, “class struggle”. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
demonstrates independence of
culture and biology. Variation among cultures
reflects unique historical circumstance, not
scales of biological evolution |
|
|
Term
| What is historical archaeology? |
|
Definition
-archaeology of European contact
- globalization
-recent past
-synthesis of a wide range of information to reconstruct lives in the recent past |
|
|
Term
| What kinds of sites are historical archaeology sites? |
|
Definition
- domestic
- farms
- villages
- industrial
- military
- religious
- special purpose
- underwater
- etc... |
|
|
Term
| What types of evidence does Historical Archaeology use? |
|
Definition
-Architecture (other archaeological lines of evidence)
-Documents (i.e. letters, maps, photos, family records, oral history, etc...) |
|
|
Term
| 3 key concepts in culture-historical archaeology |
|
Definition
1.artifact types (design)
2.Assemblages (from same context)
3.Assemblage groups (assemblages that share types) |
|
|
Term
_______________ hypothesis that Germany
was the center from which superior
“Aryan” groups migrated was adopted
by the Nazis as party doctrine. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Willard Libby (1908-1980) |
|
Definition
won the 1960 Nobel
Prize for Physics for his
work on radiocarbon
dating |
|
|
Term
Carnivore toothmarks
are _ shaped
in cross-section with
smooth edges and
no internal striations |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Stone tool cutmarks
are _ or _
shaped in crosssection
with sharp
edges with internal
striations |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
_____ ________ argued that culturehistorical archaeology
suffered from a lack of
explicit middle-range theory |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| “Processual” archaeology, because it refocused on what? |
|
Definition
| attention on the processes of cultural and behavioral change. |
|
|
Term
Culture-Historical Archaeology:
(nature of the archaeological record
and research goals) |
|
Definition
the record
is incomplete, we need to build sequences
of cultures for the whole world.
Emphasis on typology, time-space
systematics. |
|
|
Term
Processual Archaeology:
(nature of the archaeological record
and research goals) |
|
Definition
the record is as
complete as it needs to be in order to
formulate testable hypotheses. Emphasis
on reconstructing behavior through
actualistic research. |
|
|
Term
| Most caves have more then one occupation level |
|
Definition
| Bordes, Middle Paleolithic stone tools |
|
|
Term
| 5 types of Mousterian stone tool assemblages |
|
Definition
1. Typical
2. Denticulate
3. Quina
4. Ferrassie
5. Moustrian of Acheulean Tradition (MTA) |
|
|
Term
Lewis Binford thought two things
odd about Bordes explanation. |
|
Definition
1. Unlike modern human cultures, Bordes Mousterian cultures remained the same for extraordinarily long periods of time.
2. It is unlikely that five distinct Mousterian
cultures could live in a small area of
southern France for thousands of year
without influencing one another. |
|
|
Term
Binford concluded that the Mousterian
assemblage-groups were not cultures,
like those of the ___________ _________ |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
at recent hunter-gatherer camps, the same place might be used for different
purposes at different times of the year - variation the result of combined effects of
site occupation and stone tool function, NOT cultural identity |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Harold Dibble (stone tools) |
|
Definition
| resharpening of stone tools creates variation in shape |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
archaeologists study modern
material culture to guide their
interpretations of the past. |
|
|
Term
| we even conduct experiments to help us understand site formation processes. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Middle-Range Theory in a Nutshell... |
|
Definition
| what we think we know what we know |
|
|
Term
| Middle-Range Theory is very simailar to |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
__________-_____________ Archaeology: the record is incomplete, we need to build sequences of cultures for the whole world. Emphasis on typology, time-space
systematics. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| ___________ Archaeology: the record is as complete as it needs to be in order to formulate testable hypotheses. Emphasis on reconstructing behavior through actualistic research. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
processual archaeology
1. The meanings of symbols can be ambiguous, even to the people who
use them.
2. Interpretations of political behavior can be highly subjective (observerdependent).
for example- South, many whites and most African-Americans feel very strongly, and differently, about what this symbol means. Most white Northerners probably could care less
about it. |
|
|
Term
In kenya a example of ethnoarchaeological fieldwork is
(Hodders research) |
|
Definition
symbolic artifacts, that hold social and political relationships/meaning
ex. Weapons, pottery, and jewelry |
|
|
Term
| In the Baringo Basin Spears vary with... |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Possible theorys about the context of some "Neolithic Female Figurines" are... |
|
Definition
Mother Goddess?
Fertility Figure?
Pornography?
Childʼs toy?
but... How to tell and whoʼs to say? |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
• Artifacts
• Ecofacts
• Features
• Structures |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
= the description in
terms of discrete categories. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
-Types of tools
- " of animal bones
- " of features (pits, hearths etc)
- " of structures (walls, houses, roads etc) |
|
|
Term
| Dichotomies are for Dummies |
|
Definition
they provide the least amount of
detail about any phenomenon |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
artifacts, ecofacts,
features and structures associated
with each other the same
archaeological context. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| “archaeological cultures” |
|
|
Term
| Dichotomies are for Dummies |
|
Definition
they provide the least amount of
detail about any phenomenon |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
artifacts, ecofacts,
features and structures associated
with each other the same
archaeological context. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| “archaeological cultures” |
|
|
Term
| Principle of Association: |
|
Definition
Objects enclosed in the same sedimentary deposit were buried at the “same time”.
but...
Same time ≠ Simultaneously |
|
|
Term
(Same time ≠ Simultaneously)
Time-Averaging |
|
Definition
error of assuming all
contents of a deposit were deposited at
the same time. |
|
|
Term
Main points of the Lecture (5.1)
-Archaeological data described in terms
of types, measurements.
-Variation in types, measurements
correlated with variation in behavior.
-Link between archaeological
assemblage-groups and ethnographic
societies varies.
-Assemblages are only as good as the
integrity of their sedimentary context. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Erosion (deflation)
Deposition (buries the site)
Wind
Flowing Water (can erode residues) |
|
|
Term
Worst conditions for
preservation |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Best conditions for
preservation |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Residues preserve best when
there is ________ variation in
humidity or temperature,
worst when these ______ ______. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Main points of this lecture (5.2)
1. Natural processes affect the
archaeological record.
2. archaeologists never recover
the full range of materials used by
ancient societies.
3. Archaeological record is
incomplete, but “complete
enough” to test hypotheses about
past human behavior. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
-Reuse
-Lateral Cycling
-Recycling
-Secondary Use |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
continued use
of the same artifact for
the same purpose for
which it was originally
designed without it
having entered the
archaeological record. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
recovery of artifacts
from the archaeological
record, no change in
form, re-use for same
purpose as originally
designed |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
recovery of
artifacts from the
archaeological record,
modification of form,
use for different
purpose than originally
designed. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
recovery
of artifacts from the
archaeological record, no
modification of form, use
for different purpose than
originally designed. |
|
|
Term
Main points of this lecture (5.3)
1. Human activities affect the
archaeological record long after
residues are deposited.
2. Some of these processes have
predictable consequences that we
must take into account in
reconstructing behavior.
3. Construction, vandalism, and
looting rob humanity of our heritage. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
•Iconic Models
•Analog Models
•Symbolic Models |
|
Definition
-appearance
-function
-structure |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
is the study of
fossil pollen. |
|
|
Term
Four Components of any
Technological Strategy |
|
Definition
1. Materials
2. Tools
3. Action
4. Technical knowledge |
|
|
Term
Stone tools Facts. . .
1. Probably not the first human
technology (wood tools made
earlier but not preserved?).
2. The most durable and
ubiquitous human technology.
3. The sole artifacts for more
than 90% of the time humans
have existed. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Main sources of information
about stone tools |
|
Definition
1. Mechanics
2. Ethnography
(ethnoarchaeology)
3. Experimentation
4. Wear Pattern Analysis
(Microwear) |
|
|
Term
Most stone tools were made by
controlled conchoidal fracture |
|
Definition
**Rocks that fracture conchoidally:
flint, chert, basalt, quartz, quartzite, obsidian, jasper, shale. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Native American stone tool production (aka “flintknapping”)
-we know most of what we know from Ishi, the last survivor of the California Yahi Tribe. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| replicating Paleolithic tools & experiments improved his stone tool typology |
|
|
Term
| Problems with wear pattern analysis |
|
Definition
1. Subjective interpretation.
Objective measurement of wear
traces is difficult, time-consuming.
2. Ambiguity. Not all tool uses leave
unambiguous wear traces.
3. Equifinality. Different tool uses
leave similar wear traces.
4. Preservation. Trampling can erase,
alter, and imitate some kinds of
microwear polishes. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
symbol stands for tangible object
ex. bathroom sign |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
symbol stands for sounds
ex. archaeology |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
-symbol stands for abstract concept
ex. peace sign |
|
|
Term
Food Processing
Activities & Tools
1. Acquiring food
2. Preparing food
3. Distributing food. |
|
Definition
1.(sickle blades/arrowheads)
2. (grinding stones/metates)
3. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| deep bodies and wide openings. They often exhibit thermal damage from frequent heating and cooling |
|
|
Term
| Serving vessels are typically |
|
Definition
| open and flat (to cool and display food). Some have handles to facilitate handling (especially for wine). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| feature elaborate and impractical designs |
|
|
Term
zooarchaeology &
paleoethnobotany |
|
Definition
The most common kinds of
food remains are animal bones and
carbonized plant macrofossils |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
the analysis of animal
bones from archaeological sites |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
the analysis of plant macrofossils from
archaeological sites. Most plant macrofossils are carbonized (burnt).
However, waterlogging and extreme aridity can also preserve uncarbonized plant remains. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
rachis holds the cereal
grain to the stalk |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
becomes more and
more concentrated at
higher tropic levels
(More 15N in bones of
carnivores than in
herbivores). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
reflects greater or lesser
consumption of grasses or
animals that eat grasses,
such as a horses and sheep. |
|
|
