Anthropology #2

Oldowan

(Basal Paleolithic: 2.6 - 1.6 mya) -Olduvai Gorge • Homo habilis • Flakes and choppers • Direct percussion • Little standardization or retouching • Mostly Unifacial

Acheulian

(Lower Paleolithic:1.6mya - 300kya) • Handaxe • Homo erectus • Swiss Army knife • Symmetry and standardization • Direct percussion • Soft hammer • Mostly bifacial

Mousterian

(Middle : Paleolithic: 300 - 40kya) • Flake tools instead of core tools • Retouched • Levallois technique • Variety of tools - Composite tools - Blades

Mousterian tool assemblage

(compared to Acheulian assemblage) Smaller proportion of large core tools such as hand axes and cleavers and bigger proportion of small flake tools such as scrapers.

Neolithic

- Domestication and Food Production - Ground Stone Tools - Composite tools for plant harvesting - Ceramic Pottery

Food Collection vs. Production

- Foragers • Hunting • Fishing • Gathering (also called "hunter-gatherers") - Horticulturalists - Pastoralists - Agriculturalists

Long-Distance Trade Theory

- Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, and later kingdoms of Africa - Organizational requirements of producing items for export, redistributing items imported, and defending trade parties would foster state formation - Sites include points of supply or exchange, such as crossroads of routes, and places such as river narrows situated to threaten or halt trade between centers

Atlatl, Harpoons, Woomeras

- Spear thrower - A grooved board which propels a spear with increased force - Earliest ones come from French cave sites • ~15,000 years ago - Greatly increases distance and power

Hydraulic Theory

...• Most primary states depend on irrigation • Irrigation construction required centralized government • Administrators controlled the vital water resource and soon controlled a dependent population

Transition to States

1. Agricultural innovation 2. Diversification of labor 3. Emergence of central government 4. Social stratification

Domestication

1. Notice a desirable trait in a species 2. Separate members of the species from nature 3. Selective breeding (artificial selection) 4. Exaggerate desirable trait(s) 5. Change on the biological level

Complex Societies

1. Stratified social system 2. Bureaucracy of officials 3. Specific territory/Army 4. Economic specialists

Burin

A chisel-like stone topple used for carving and for making such artifacts as bone and antler needles, awls, and projectile points.

Levalloisian method

A method that allowed flake tools of a predetermined size to be produced from a shaped core.

Microlith

A small, razor like blade fragment that was probably attached in a series to a wooden or bone handle to form a cutting edge.

Band

A small, usually nomadic local group that is politically autonomous

Egalitarian

A society where people people of a given age, sex category have the same amount of opportunity

Direct Percussion

A technique used in the manufacture of chipped-stone artifacts in which flakes are produced by striking a core with another stone, a hammerstone, or by striking the core against a fixed stone or anvil in order to dislodge a flake

Blade

A thin flake whose length is usually more than twice its width. In the blade technique of toolmaking, a core is prepared by shaping a piece of flint with hammer-stones into a pyramidal or cylindrical form. Blades are then struck off until the core is used up.

Indirect percussion

A toolmaking technique common in the Upper Paleolithic. After shaping a core into a pyramidal or cylindrical form, the toolmaker can put a punch of antler or wood or another hard material into position and strike it with a hammer. Using a hammer-struck punch enabled toolmakers to strike off consistently shaped blades.

Homo heidelbergensis

A transitional species between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens

Jared Diamond

Agriculture the "worst mistake in human history."-Advantages •Increase Productivity •New skills and technologies •Larger sedentary populations •Specialization •Political institutions --Costs•Increase Productivity •New skills and technologies •Larger sedentary populations •Specialization •Political institutions • Heavily dependent on certain foods •Malnutrition •Increased disease close contact with animals, humans, waste •Increase warfare •Social Inequality •Soil depletion

Cro-Magnons

Humans who lived in western Europe about 35,000 years ago, were once thought to be the earliest specimens of modern-looking humans. But it is now known that modern-looking humans appeared earlier outside of Europe; the earliest so far found lived in Africa.

Otzi

IceMan 3300BC/Approx. 45 years old (5' 2") Deer, wild goat, grains Copper debris = metal worker (?) Lyme Disease, lactose intolerant, internal parasites Death by injury

Boc Mo

In vietnam-after a few years the deceased is dug up, cleaned, and either kept with the family or buried again filial piety

Ethnographic analogy

Method of comparative cultural study that extrapolates to the past from recent or current societies.

Upper Paleolithic and Dates

Microliths, atlatls points, and harpoons - Use of New Techniques • IndirectPercussion • PressureFlaking-40,000-10,000

Use-Wear Analysis

Microscopic analysis of a tools edge for characteristic wear patterns • Experimental archaeology

Early Civilizations (6)

OLD WORLD: Mesopotamia (5,500 years ago) Egypt (5,100 years ago ) Indus River Valley (4,800 years ago) China (3,800 years ago) NEW WORLD: Peru (2,200 years ago) Mesoamerica

Relative vs. Absolute Dating

Older/younger not fixed years • Seriation • Stratigraphic • Bone Chemistry--actual age of the specimen is measured

Blombos Cave

South Africa--Pressure flaking 73,000 years ago - Bone tools (80,000 years ago) - Decorated pigment and shell beads (75,000 years ago) - Early evidence for shellfishing and possibly fishing (140,000 years ago)

Inorganic vs. Organic

Stone tools, pottery, metals • extremely good preservation/bad preservation

Monumental Architecture

Structures created to commemorate a person, group of people, deity, or event which has become important to a social group (i.e. iconic landmarks)--- Mortuary Structures - Temples - Megaliths - Mounds - Pyramids

Excavation

Systematicuncovering of artifacts and features

Floatation

Technique for the recovery of botanical remains

Neandertal

The common name for the species Homo neandertalensis

Paleolithic

The cultural period of the Stone Age that began about 2.5 to 2 million years ago, marked by the earliest use of tools made of chipped stone--old stone age

Remote Sensing

The nondestructive techniques used in geophysical prospecting and to generate archaeological data without excavation-- surface survey techniques that leave subsurface archaeological deposits undisturbed.

Archaeology

The study of human past through material remains, involving themes of change and time.

Homo neandertalensis

The technical name for Neandertals, a group of robust and otherwise anatomically distinct hominin that are close relatives of modern humans.

Middle Paleolithic

The time period of the Mousterian stone tool tradition.

Evolution of Pyramid

Tomb-Mastaba-Stepped Pyramid-Bent Pyramid-True Pyramid

Pressure flaking

Toolmaking technique whereby small flakes are struck off ny pressing against the core with a bone, antler, or wooden tool.

Class

a category of people who have about the same opportunity to obtain economic resources, power, and prestige

Systematic Survey

archaeological technique of detailed examination of an area for the purpose of recording the location and significance of archaeological resources. It provides a regional perspective by gathering information on settlement patterns over a large area

Prehistory

before writing

Tucson Garbage Project

catagorizing trash to find out about the people that threw it away

Seriation

creating a sequence of artifact types and variability over time

Writing systems (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerican)

cuneiform--hieroglyphics

Subsistence

economy in which almost all able=bodied adults are largely engaged in getting food for themselves and their families

Supine vs Prone

face up-face down

Flexed vs Extended Burial

fetal position and lain out flat

Historical Archaeology

form of archaeology dealing with places, things, and issues from the past or present when written records and oral traditions can inform and contextualize cultural material

Coprolite

fossilized excrement

Agriculture

growing plants in place-part of sedentary lifestyle

Rosetta Stone

holds the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs—a script made up of small pictures that was used originally in ancient Egypt for religious texts. Hieroglyphic writing died out in Egypt in the fourth century C.E..

Grave Goods

items buried along with the body

Raised Fields

large artificial platforms of soil created to protect crops from flooding. They are generally found in areas of permanent high water table or seasonal flooding

China's Terracotta Army

made of stone, took 11 years to make, 8,000--100,000made them

Surplus

more than is needed

Cave Art vs. Portal Art

on a cave wall or on an entrance

Horizontal Excavation

opening a large area of a particular layer-spatial association between artifacts and features

Screening

passing soil through mesh to retain artifacts

Material Culture

physical evidence of a culture in the objects and architecture they make, or have made. The term tends to be relevant only in archeological and anthropological studies, but it specifically means all material evidence which can be attributed to culture, past or present.

Artifacts

portable object or material used, modified, or created by human activity

Phytolith

rigid, microstructure in plant cells (e.g., silica)

Worst Mistake

sedentism and agriculture

Sedentism

settled life

Environmental Preservation

strict setting aside of natural resources to prevent the use or contact by humans or by human intervention.

Megafauna

term used by archaeologists and paleontologist to refer to large-bodied mammals, that is, any mammal weighing more than 100 pounds

Fossils

the hardened remains or impressions of plants and animals that lived in the past

Zooarchaeology

the study of animal bones from archaeological sites

Archaeobotany

the study of remains of plants cultivated or used by man in ancient times

Half-life

the time it takes half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to decay into atoms of a different substance

Terraced Fields

type of landscaping-Graduated steps commonly used to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain--decrease both erosion and surface runoff, and may be used to support growing crops that require irrigation, such as rice.

Potassium-Argon Dating

used to date things 5,000 to 3 billion year old

Cuneiform

wedge-shaped writing invented by the Sumerians around 3.000 BC

Burial Orientation

what direction the body is buried-in the west facing the east for christianity

State

• Agricultural Innovations • Cities • Record keeping/Writing • Monumental architecture (public and private) • Warfare

Piltdown Fraud

• Exposed as a hoax in 1953 • Fluorine/Uranium dating indicated skull was only about 600 years old and jaw was from a modern orangutan

Ecofacts

• Non-artifactual remains that have archaeological relevance • Provide information on environment & subsistence

Circumscription Theory

• Populations concentrated in agricultural areas • Population grows, agricultural areas fill up, competition for land and resources increases • If agricultural areas are limited (circumscribed) by natural boundaries, stress leads to warfare • A state established to administer conquered lands, people and tribute

Stratigraphy

• Sequential layering of deposits (strata) • Superposition--dating

Silver Fox

• StartedintheUSSR1959 • Selectivebreedingofsilver foxes • Artificial selection for a single trait - friendliness towards humans • 35 generations over 40 years created a domesticated foxes of different colors that were more tame and dog-like

Dendrochronology

• Studyoftheannual growth rings of trees • Veryprecisedates • Requiresgoodwood preservation

Radiocarbon Dating

• WillardLibbyin1949, awarded Nobel Prize • Environmental14Cis absorbed by living organisms. When they die, no more is absorbed and decay rates can be measured. • Half-life of 5730 years makes method very useful for much of the archaeological record (to 50/100kya)

Sites

• concentrated traces of human activity • accumulations of artifacts or features

Features

• non-portable human-made object (recorded in-situ) • Cannot be moved without destroying • Must be studied (documented) in the field

Vertical Excavation

•Excavated to expose strata • Site formation and chronology