archaeology - exam 1

Ethnographic v. archaeological methods

Archaeology focuses on materials!!!! Material culture to reconstruct the past!! Your garbage!!! All your junk!!

What is culture?

How to be/act/interact in a society. "Rules", norms, attitudes that guide behavior!

Subfields of Anthropology

Linguistics, Archaeology, Cultural, Biological

what are "clovis points"?

Stone spear tips, one of the oldest and wide-spread technologies in North America.

what is "calibration" in relation to radiocarbon dating?

The amount of C14 in the atmosphere has changed over time based on dating of tree rings, and radiocarbon dates slightly underestimate the actual age of samples. so, radiocarbon years have to be corrected, "calibrated", to calendar years using a graph, formula, or computer program.

anthropology

The study of humans. (Their culture! Origins, diversity, social transformations!)

what is "post-processual archaeology"?

Views archaeology as inherently political and is more concerned with interpreting the past. Does not seek universal patterns! Understands that people in the past could be dumb and make decisions that wouldn't make sense/benefit them. Interested in particulars (unique histories and trajectories). people as agents, uses the scientific method but not exclusively. assumes subjectivity, the bias of the researcher. --> does not aim for universal explanations. individual agents + specific histories account for change. subjective.

who was flinders petrie?

a british archaeologist who laid the groundwork the the seriation method of dating by studying egyptian tombs.

what is the "indirect punch method"?

a way of knapping using a second tool to chip stuff off. uses TWO tools instead of one, wow!

what's up with deir-el bahri, egypt?

an ancient site where a bunch of sarcophagi was found by this family, the el-rasuls, sold a bunch of stuff.

what is "seriation"? what is stylistic and frequency seriation?

an archaeological dating technique putting things into series! objects change through time! two different kinds: stylistic and frequency stylistic: observing changes in style :) frequency: ordering based on the relative abundance of types of artifacts. (usually done with ceramics) dates aren't known until you do more hardcore dating/research but you have them organized based on popularity! popularity appears, reaches a peak, declines, and then eventually disappears!

what is a "region"?

an area containing related sites. really depends on the scale of the question.

what is an artifact? what about an ecofact?

an object made or used by people in the past. ecofacts are organic materials resulting from human behaviors. (ash from a fire)

what's up with deir-el medina?

ancient site that's really well preserved, a bunch of cool stuff from the village there going back 400 years. a bunch of the workers for the burial sites lived here a long time ago.

antiquarianism vs archaeology

antiquarianism: snooty rich people who just collect things unscientifically, usually just to gain prestige and show it off. no applications of theory, context, or processes. archaeology: grew from antiquarianism, peoples' interest in old things. applies scientific methods of collecting and researching the stuff though.

what is a "site"?

any place where traces of human activity are found, contain features & artifacts.

what is "chronology"?

archaeologists must place artifacts and events in a framework of time and geographic space = that time framework is called a chronology. a dated sequence of events in the past.

reminder!!!

archaeology is not about "discovery", not about discovering objects. it's about reconstructing past behavior. we're not antiquarians! so this leads to some issues sadly: artifacts are mute & static and the record is fragmented so we can never truly know. theory provides a way to link our observations to interpretations!!!

who was charles lyell? and why is he important?

came up with "uniformitarianism", idea that the processes that modify the earth today were and still occur the exact same way as they did since forever basically. an earthquake happens the same way as it did a million years ago. this idea indicated that the earth was actually super old! (think about how the grand canyon was formed, had the be the same processes over a long ass time, also this means that we can study what happens now and use that info to study the past since there is no erosion 2.0!)

what is "culture history"?

categorizing cultures based on styles of artifacts. (who, where, and when?) "pots as people". kinda racist eek. precedes processualism.

What is radiopotassium dating?

counting the decay of potassium over time! determines age! crucial importance for determining the age of our earliest human remains. can date most of the earth's history and has been used to measure the age of the oldest rocks on our planet and even moon rocks. this dates ROCKS not ORGANICS. can date things MUCH OLDER.

what is "radiocarbon and radiopotassium dating"?

dating method that determines the age of something by determining the half-life of certain elements present (potassium or carbon) and how long its been decaying. how much time has passed since the material began to decay. radiocarbon: organic materials, 100-40K years radiopotassium: rocks or minerals, older than 500K years

what is the best, most reliable dating method?

dendrochronology!

what is "relative dating"?

determines whether an object or layer is older or younger than another. seriation, stratigraphy, law of superposition, use of ancient calendars sometimes. can only say whether something is older or younger than something else.

why is the Manhattan Project important for archaeology?

developed radiocarbon dating, nice.

who was willard libby?

developed radiocarbon dating, thanks dude.

what is "survey"?

discovery of artifacts on the ground surface. surface, surface, surface

what is data?

empirical observations. data is GENERATED, not COLLECTED. data are not self-evident, we choose what to observe! we are not empirical beings no matter how much we try to convince ourselves lmao

why is archaeological dating important?

essential in documenting changes in human behavior over time! it's necessary to be able to place things and events in a framework of time and geographic space to know what happened, when, and where, the order of things. putting things into a chronology is the backbone of archaeology!

what is a "battleship curve"?

graphed popularity flipped on its side. resembles a battleship when flipped. based on the idea that popularity appears (small), reaches a peak, (big) and then tapers off. (small again) traditionally laid out with strips of paper, with each strip representing a site. (and the amount of junk there.)

give some examples of archaeological features, contrast with artifacts.

gravestones, a midden, an ancient hearth, a house, a wall, a pathway etc. can't pick these up, aren't really objects.

who was james ussher? and why is he important?

guy who created the 6,000 year old earth theory. a wacko. thanks dude, this guy lived in the 1500s-1600s ireland and we still have people who believe him??? (young earth creationism) this made things a difficult uphill battle for archaeology at first because people didn't believe that all this stuff was this old because the earth is only supposed to be 6,000 years old so huhh??

who was a.e. douglass?

guy who developed dendrochronology

who was Pliny the Younger? why is he important in archaeology?

he observed the burying of pompeii and wrote about it to some other historian dude named Tacitus.

horizontal v vertical excavation

horizontal exposes layer by layer, can show an entire living space. vertical excavation digs straight down, usually in a chessboard type of organization, may be more difficult to visualize the stratigraphy. a bunch of squares. (why do we excavate in squares? so we don't miss anything and it's easier to draw!) survey is done in circles. a lot faster.

what does "in situ" mean?

in its original place. archaeological artifacts generally are studied in situ, shouldn't/can't be removed. (could break, unethical, best to be studied in context, etc.)

theory in archaeology

intellectual frameworks through which we interpret archaeological evidence & reconstruct the past. it shapes the questions we ask and ways we interpret and generate data!

why is classification important?

it divides time and space into smaller, more manageable units/categories. without it, archaeologists wouldn't be able to make sense of the past, the meaning of kinds of things.

why is fieldwork so important?

it's the main way to gather basic information!!!!

what is "strata"?

layers of rock. stratum is plural

contrast the old kingdom and new kingdom of egypt

old kingdom: time of the great pyramids, they were built in this period! first major period of unification. new kingdom: time of fragmentation. shift in ways of life, started hiding kings away and not in bigass pyramids.

how does radiocarbon dating work?

once something dies, we can determine the ratio between C12 and C14 to find out the age of the organism. the limit for radiocarbon dating is around 40K years! C14 survives longer... how do we determine the amount of C14 remaining? use an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer. (AMS) very expensive!!!!

what's up with phosphate analysis?

organic material, things that died or waste leave a higher concentration of phosphates. left by "organic debris". (poop, animal remains, dead people)

what are some excavation methods?

plain ol' excavation by digging. (vertical or horizontal. an extensive dig or nah) remote sensing: GPS, drones, a metal detector, anything that studies sites and features before or w/o excavating. you can use magnetic survey, certain human activities increase magnetism so if you survey a bunch of rocks and find some anomalies, you can then excavate them to see if they really were human induced. (there is also magnetobacteria which may be present in some wood, can be detected in postholes. rare though.)

what is the "Pompeii Premise"?

pompeii is a really exceptional archaeological site and we really shouldn't expect other places to be like this. it's very famous so people can have the misconception that discovering an entire city this well preserved isn't as rare as it actually is. also, it's an "erroneous notion that archaeological sites represents snapshots in time. deposits usually accumulate through time and are not simple records of the past."

what do archaeologists DO??? (what are some jobs?)

professors, cultural resource management (government or private sector jobs), forensic archaeology, museums.

what is "absolute dating"?

provides an age in calendar years (AC/BC, radiocarbon dating) can say that something is 3,000 years old. couldn't do this before because we didn't have the technology, could only really say, "yeah, this is older/younger than this thing." not until 1950!!! based on 4 major principles: accumulation of layers, radioactive decay, trapped charges, and magnetism.

what are some sampling strategies in archaeology?

purposive sampling: the elements are chosen by the researcher. (i want to study these squares specifically. i have good evidence that this would be a good spot.) advantages: guarantees you'll study certain spots, your pre-knowledge may be really good idk. might make sense in certain cases. disadvantages: more biased, is less statistically reliable since it isn't random. simple-random sampling: sampling is completely random. advantages: statistically robust. disadvantages: the random generator may goof and all be clustered in one spot, that's awkward. and context is important. stratified random sampling: divide the area into zones and then random samples inside those zones. nice bits of both. Remember! All three approaches are applied depending on what the researcher believes is best! You can even combine elements of each!

scientific method

question, hypothesis, test expectations (IF....THEN... statements), generate data, support or refute hypothesis. (remember! can't prove!!!)

how is style and time related?

raw materials change, innovation creates improvements in tech and style as with fashion. function changes more slowly. arrowheads are sharpened pieces of stone intended to kill an animal. the function is specific. the shape of the arrowheads in various time periods and places varies enormously due to traditions and choices of the maker: style!

what is "processual archaeology"?

seeks universal patterns (laws), assumes the objectivity of the observer/researcher, applies the scientific method, and is concerned with processes. (duh) (how and why) (this came up in the '60s, is older) --> universal explanations of social change. general theory to explain the rise of stuff ex. the rise of states. objectivity is king.

how does an archaeological site become a site?

sites result from both cultural and natural processes through time! these can happen at different time scales! (rapidly: an avalanche, burial. or slowly by accumulation: a midden.) cultural: building, burying, cultivating, traveling (paths), abandonment, looting. natural: fire, sediment deposition, erosion, flooding, bioturbation (plants/roots, animals burrowing, worms.)

what is "obsidian hydration dating"?

so, obsidian is black volcanic glass used for making stone tools, and accumulates a layer of weathering, known as hydration, which becomes thicker over time. we can date it based on the assumption that the rate of accumulation is constant. range: 8,000 years.

who was jaques boucher de perthes?

some rich french dude who kinda was one of the first archaeologists before arachaeology was a thing. tried to prove that the old earth theory was wrong, found a ton of old artifacts especially in the Somme valley. found old animals like rhinoceros that shouldn't be in france right?? so they must have gone extinct but why would god make something go extinct that blows our peasant minds!! he called the artifacts "antediluvian" meaning they were before Noah's flood. got so crazy about trying to prove he was right (poor guy) that he kinda tried to pass off some weird looking rocks as artifacts which kind of undercut his cred.

survey v. excavation

survey is on the surface, excavation is all about diggin'

what is "instrumental survey"?

survey that produces a map. nice.

what is "style"?

the distinctive way that something is done. style can be individual, idiosyncratic, a result of personal behavior. it can also be shared among a group of people as a learned way of doing things.

what is "bioturbation"?

the disturbance of sedimentary deposits by living organisms. (roots of plants, animals burrowing, earthworms.)

what is the "law of superposition"?

the idea that, if the land was left undisturbed, that the stuff at the top is younger than the stuff at the bottom. (the deeper you dig, the older the junk gets.)

what is "reconnaissance survey"?

the initial physical exploration of an area, carried out by systematic field walking in order to look for artifacts and sites on the landscape.

what should your field notes include?

the location, site number/map number, what was found and the types and numbers of artifacts, and observations about the site like soil discoloration, nearby bodies of water, etc.

what is "stratigraphy"? in the archaeological sense?

the study of anthropogenic strata. (layers of human stuff)

Archaeology

the study of human societies through time using material culture, biological remains, and environmental data. primarily focuses on the past! explores long-term social change! (versus anthropology which may conduct an ethnography on a group here in the present, short time span)

What is ethnoarchaeology?

the study of living societies as a way of understanding and interpreting the archaeological record. Ex. maguey sap. People still drink this ancient beverage, how did they make it in the past? use metal knives now but they didn't before, look at what people are using now, the shape and technique to try and figure out what they did before.

what is "dendrochronology"?

tree ring dating! by counting the rings of a tree you can find out how old it is, and how old whatever is. (date the wood used in a building, a boat, etc.)

what are "balks"?

unexcavated areas. can let you see certain aspects of the excavation site better when in context. (maybe the lighting was weird earlier in the day? rain? you're tired?) you can see things in profile better. also, you may have made a mistake, this leaves parts untouched. future archaeologists may have better tools to excavate then you do now. can't go back in time and re-excavate!

reminder!

we can directly date artifacts and ecofacts but can only indirectly date human behaviors and events!