Anthro 1010 Midterm
Relative Dating
Dating methods where phases or objects can be put into a sequence relative to each other, but which are not tied to calendrically measured time. It is the sequencing of events or materials relative to another but without linkage to ages in years bp (before present) or calendar years. A relative date is a date which can be said to be earlier than, later than, or contemporary with an event but which (unlike an absolute date) cannot be measured in calendar years. When archaeologists say that event A occurred before or after event B, they have a relative date for A. Before the advent of chronometric dating techniques, all dating was relative except where links with historical events could be proved. Some of these techniques, mainly stratigraphy and seriation, are still useful where chronometric dates cannot be obtained. Theoretically, floating chronologies which cannot be tied to an absolute date (e.g. certain dendrochronological sequences) are relative chronologies even though the techniques are essentially chronometric.
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
Geographical Information Systems; linked maps and databases.
Homo habilis
Handy man, the oldest species of the genus Homo. It was small-built but had a larger brain than the Australopithecines and was a toolmaker. Its fossils have been found in East and South African dating to 2.2-1.6 million years ago at the famous sites of Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge. Dr. Louis Leakey, who found fossils at Olduvai Gorge, said that the habilis skeletons showed certain features (e.g. greater brain size, opposable thumb, shape of skull) which distinguished them from those of other Australopithecus forms, and which placed them closer to the line of descent leading to Homo erectus and the advanced forms of man. Homo habilis is regarded as a possible ancestor of Homo erectus or Homo sapiens; others believe it should be included in the species Australopithecus africanus or Homo erectus, or be regarded as transitional from one to the other.
Acheulian
Lower Paleolithic: stone tool manufacture characterized by bifacial removal; hand axes are typical of the Acheulian style
Lithics
Pertaining to or describing a stone tool or artifact. The capitalized term describes the first developmental period in New World chronology, preceding the Archaic period and characterized by the use of flaked stone tools and hunting and gathering subsistence. The combining form means relating to or characteristic of a (specified) stage in humankind\'s use of stone as a cultural tool and to form the names of cultural phases, e.g. Neolithic, Mesolithic. Lithics is the process or industry of making stone tools and artifacts.
Harris Matrix
The abstract representation of unequivocal stratigraphic relationships between layers, interfaces, and features in a lattice similar to a flow diagram.
Sampling Strategy
The plan for selecting a sample, including the type of sample element, the sampling frame, sample size, and method of selection.
Cropmarks
a means through which sub-surface archaeological, natural and recent features may be visible from the air or a vantage point on higher ground or a temporary platform
Bulb of Percussion
a swelling or bulb on the surface of a blade or flake directly below the point of impact on the striking platform
Blade
cutting tool; long narrow sharp edged thin flake of stone made by striking from a prepared core, often with a hammer
Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)
A dating method using the residual effects of electrons' changing energy levels under natural irradiation of alpha, beta, and gamma rays. The technique enables trapped electrons within bone and shell to be measured without the heating that thermoluminescence requires; the number of trapped electrons indicates the age of the specimen. There are a number of factors that may cause errors with the method. Precision is difficult to estimate and varies with the type of sample.
Index fossils
A fossil with widespread geographical range but which is restricted in time to a brief existence. In archaeology, it is a theory that proposes that strata containing similar fossil assemblages will tend to be of similar age. This concept enables archaeologists to characterize and date strata within archaeological sites using diagnostic artifact forms, making an animal species the basis for dating by faunal association. Artifacts that share the attributes of index fossils are useful in the cross-dating and correlation of deposits that contain them and in the construction of chronologies.
Random/Probabilistic Sampling
A sample drawn at random from a population, each member of it having an equal or other specified chance of inclusion. This sampling technique is based on a totally random selection of sample units to be investigated, which each unit having an equal chance of being selected. simple random sampling
Global Positioning System (GPS)
A satellite-based system used in determining the location of archaeological sites by triangulation from orbiting satellites. The Global Positioning System has 18 satellites, six in each of three orbital planes spaced 120? apart. The GPS is designed to provide fixes anywhere on Earth to an accuracy of 20 meters and a relative accuracy 10 times greater.
Olduvai Gorge
A site in northern Tanzania which is one of the most important sites for the understanding of both human evolution and the development of the earliest tools. The gorge is 30 miles long, located on the volcanic belt of the Great Rift Valley. Louis and Mary Leakey uncovered numerous Hominid remains, animal bones, and stone artifacts from c 1.9 million years to less than 10,000 years ago. Living floors and camp sites with pebble tools, choppers, and a few artifacts made on flakes go back to the earliest date as do the bones of two primitive forms of hominid, Homo habilis and Australopithecus robustus (Zinjanthropus). Crude handaxes have been dated to c 1.2-0.5 million years ago and are accompanied by several hominid fossils of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Acheulian tools are found with Neanderthal remains and later beds contained a Kenya Capsian industry. No site in the world has produced a longer sequence of stone tool assemblages and of hominid fossils.
Flakes
A thin broad piece of stone detached from a larger mass for use as a tool; a piece of stone removed from a larger piece (core or nucleus) during knapping (percussion or pressure) and used in prehistoric times as a cutting instrument. Flakes often served as blanks" from which more complex artifacts -- burins scrapers gravers arrowheads etc. -- could be made. Waste flakes (débitage) are those discarded during the manufacture of a tool. Flakes may be retouched to make a flake tool or used unmodified. The process leaves characteristic marks on both the core and flake. This makes it comparatively easy to distinguish human workmanship from natural accident."
Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
A three-dimensional representation of the landscape within a defined area.
Cortex
A tough covering or crust on an unmodified stone cobble or newly exposed flint nodules and tabular flint. It is formed either by weathering and is usually discarded during the knapping process
Dendrochronology
An absolute chronometric dating technique for measuring time intervals and dating events and environmental changes by reading and dating the pattern (number and condition) of annual rings formed in the trunks of trees.
Targeted Sampling
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Surface scatter
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"Pompeii Premise"
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Magnetometry
detecting buried remains through magnetic variations between them and the surrounding soil.
Australopithecines
early Hominids; adapted to bipedal locomotion, high brachial index, dentally similar to humans
Biface
prehistoric stone tool with flaking on both faces of the stone; technique typical of the hand axe traditions
Core / Flake Technology
procedure by which early stone tools were produced
Archaeology
the systematic study of the human past through material remains; how is it done: form question -> build hypothesis -> collect data -? analyze data -> evaluate results
Context
the time and space setting of an artifact, feature, or culture
Debitage
the waste by-products -- chips or debris -- resulting from the manufacture of stone tools, found in large quantities in a tool-making area. Study of debitage can reveal a good deal about techniques used by knappers. Certain waste flakes have a characteristic appearance and indicate the tools that were made or prepared at a site even when the tools themselves are absent
Occam's Razor / Parsimony
when two hypotheses give the same result, the correct one is often the simplest one
Pacal's Tomb
A Maya center in Chiapas, Mexico, which reached its height during the Late Classic, coming into power when Teotihuacán declined. There are inscribed monuments erected between 630-810 AD, after which the site was abandoned. The buildings have fine relief decoration modeled in stucco or carved on limestone panels and they are know for unusual features (pillar and lintel doorways, mansard roofing). A richly furnished tomb of the Classic period was found underneath the pyramid of the Temple of the Inscriptions, equally important to Tutankhamun's in Egypt (jade ornaments, a number of sacrificed retainers, and a massive, elaborately carved sarcophagus). A subterranean vaulted aqueduct joins the central palace complex, with its unique four-story tower, to the eastern terraces where the Temples of the Foliated Cross, the Cross, and the Sun are situated. Palenque was the westernmost of the great Classic Maya sites. Palenque was among the first major centers to suffer in the general Mayan collapse; it was abandoned in 810. Pacal's tomb seemed to depict a man sitting in a spaceship, which some took to mean that the Mayans were astronauts / the tomb belonged to an extraterrestrial being.
Palimpsest
A collection of archaeological artifacts, ecofacts, and material that may not be related -- that are together through accident or natural forces rather than human activity. Also used to describe a site with a mass of intercut features of different periods.
Levallois
A distinctive method of stone tool-making in which flakes are removed by percussion from a preshaped core, with little other modification. This prepared-core knapping technique allows the removal of large flakes of predetermined size and shape. The face of the core is trimmed to shape in order to control the form and size of the intended flake. Characteristically the preparatory flaking is directed from the periphery of the core towards the center. The residual core is shaped rather like a tortoise, with one face plane and the other domed, while the flake shows the scars of the preparatory work on one face and is plane on the other. It is named for Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris, where such artifacts were first discovered. The Levallois technique was known from the Acheulian period and employed by certain late Lower Palaeolithic handax makers, and throughout the Middle Palaeolithic by some Mousterian communities. It lasted into the Upper Palaeolithic of the Levant, and in the Epi-Levalloisian industries of Egypt.
Pleistocene
A geochronological division of geological time, an epoch of the Quaternary period following the Pliocene. During the Pleistocene, large areas of the northern hemisphere were covered with ice and there were successive glacial advances and retreats. The Lower Pleistocene began c 1.8 million years ago, the Middle Pleistocene c 730,000 years ago, and the Upper Pleistocene c 127,000 years ago; it ended about 10,000 years ago. Most present-day mammals appeared during the Pleistocene. The onset of the Pleistocene was marked by an increasingly cold climate, by the appearance of Calabrian mollusca and Villafranchian fauna with elephant, ox, and horse species, and by changes in foraminifera. The oldest form of man had evolved by the Early Pleistocene (Australopithecus), and in archaeological terms the cultures classed as Palaeolithic all fall within this period. By the mid-Pleistocene, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and Europe. Homo sapiens spread to Asia and the Americas before the end of the epoch. There were mass extinctions of large and small fauna during the Pleistocene. In North America more than 30 genera of large mammals became extinct within a span of roughly 2,000 years during the late Pleistocene. Of the many causes that have been proposed by scientists for these faunal extinctions, the two most likely are changing environment with changing climate, and the disruption of the ecological pattern by early humans. The Pleistocene was succeeded by the Holocene or present epoch.
Handaxe
A large bifacially worked core tool, normally oval, pointed, or pear-shaped, and one of the most typical stone tools of the Lower Palaeolithic. It is the diagnostic implement of certain Lower Palaeolithic industries (Abbevillian, Chellean, Acheulian), and one variety of the Mousterian. In spite of the name it was not an ax at all and probably served as an all-purpose tool. The oldest and crudest hand axes have been found in Africa; the finer, Acheulian, tools are known from most of Africa, Europe, southwest Asia and India. It was used for chopping, chipping, flaking, cutting, digging, and scraping. Hand axes first appear between one and two million years ago and they were common in assemblages for about a million years.
Tell / Tepe / Höyük
A large mound formed by superimposed habitation layers, particularly in the Middle East (Near East). Tells are the result of continuous habitation over a long time span, and are important ancient settlement sites. Tells are normally found only in regions where buildings were of mud-brick, a material of limited life and too plentiful to be worth salvaging when it collapses. This, coupled with the accumulation of domestic refuse, can build up vast mounds 100 feet/30 meters +. The tells of the Middle East offer valuable stratigraphic evidence. Such mounds incorporate other settlement refuse, graves, and many other materials. [Site names beginning with Tell" in this dictionary are alphabetized under the second part of the name.]"
Satellite Imagery
A method of recording sites from the air using infrared radiation that is beyond the practical spectral response of photographic film. The method is useful for tracing prehistoric agricultural system.
Calibration
A method used to obtain the most accurate dating, especially with radiocarbon dating. The term refers to the adjustment of dates in radiocarbon years by means of the dendrochronological data so that a date in calendar years is achieved
Features
A nonmoveable/nonportable element of an archaeological site. It is any separate archaeological unit that is not recorded as a structure, a layer, or an isolated artifact; a wall, hearth, storage pit, or burial area are examples of features. A feature carries evidence of human activity and it is any constituent of an archaeological site which is not classed as a find, layer, or structure.
Stratified Sampling
A probabilistic sampling technique used to cluster and isolate sample units when regular spacing is inappropriate for cultural reasons. The region or site is divided into natural zones or strata, such as cultivated land and forest, and units are then chosen by a random-number procedure to give each zone a number of squares proportional to its area, thus overcoming the inherent bias in simple random sampling. In stratified sampling, the population is divided into classes and simple random samples are drawn from each class.
Systematic Sampling
A probabilistic sampling technique which uses a grid of equally spaced sample units, for example, selecting every other square. It is a refinement of random sampling in which one unit is chosen, then others at regular intervals from the first. The sample incorporates randomness and determinacy by specifying that the random selection of a case example has to occur within a certain group of cases.
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)
A remote sensing device used in subsurface detection that transmits a radar pulse into the soil and records differential reflection of the pulses from buried strata and features. When a discontinuity is encountered, an echo returns to the radar receiving unit, where it is recorded.
Electrical Resistivity
A remote sensing technique that monitors the degree of electrical resistance in soils -- which often depends on moisture content -- near the surface. Buried features are usually detected by a differential retention of groundwater.
Anatomically Modern Humans
AMH characterized by smaller faces with prominent chins; rounded skulls; oldest fossils = Omo remains, 195,000 years ago; remains from Skhul in Israel ca 90,000 years ago
Oldowan
An Earlier Stone Age industry and complex seen at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and other African sites, dating from c 2.5 million to about 1.6 million years ago (and later). It is comprised of the earliest toolkits, flake and pebble tools, used by hominids (Homo habilis). Robust australopithecines were present at the same time and at the same sites, however. These simple stone tools were flaked in one or two directions and is characterized by the production of small flakes removed from alternate faces along the edge of a cobble. In its pure form, hand axes are absent. Oldowan tools were made for nearly 1 million years before gradual improvement in technique resulted in a standardized industry known as the Acheulian.
Radiocarbon Dating
An absolute radiometric dating technique for determining the age of carbon-bearing minerals, including wood and plant remains, charcoal, bone, peat, and calcium carbonate shell back to about 50,000 bp. The technique is based on measuring the loss of radiocarbon (carbon-14) that begins disintegration at death at a known rate. It is one of the best-known chronometric dating techniques and the most important in archaeology presently. It can be used for the dating organic material up to 75,000 years old.
Transect
An arbitrary sample unit which is a linear corridor of uniform specified width; a linear. A straight line or narrow sections through an archaeological site or feature, along which a series of observations or measurements is made.
Neanderthal
An early form of Homo sapiens that inhabited much of Europe and the Mediterranean area during the late Pleistocene Epoch, about 100,000 to 35,000 years ago. Neanderthal remains have also been found in the Middle East, North Africa, and western Central Asia. This type of fossil human that is a subspecies of Homo sapiens and is distinguished by a low broad braincase, continuous arched brow ridges, projecting occipital region, short limbs, and large joints; his brain was as large as modern man's.
Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) dating
An isotopic method of dating the age of a rock or mineral by measuring the rate at which potassium-40, a radioactive form of this element, decays into argon. It is used primarily on lava flows and tuffs and for ocean floor basalts. Potassium, which is present in most rocks and minerals, has a single radioactive isotope, K 40. This decays by two different processes into Calcium 40 and Argon 40. Though 89% decays to Calcium 40, it is not suitable for measurement since most rocks contain Calcium 40 as a primary element, and the amount caused by the decay of K 40 cannot be determined. The remaining 11% decays into the gas Argon 40, and this can be measured, along with the amount of potassium in the sample, to get a date. Dates produced by using this technique have been checked by fission track dating. The technique is best used on material more than 100,000 years old -- such as the dating of layers associated with the earliest remains of hominids, notably in the Olduvai Gorge. Lava flows embedded with the deposits containing archaeological material have been dated.
Ecofacts
Any flora or fauna material found at an archaeological site; nonartifactual evidence that has not been technologically altered but that has cultural relevance, such as a shell carried from the ocean to an inland settlement.
Fieldwalking / Pedestrian Survey
Archaeological reconnaissance on foot; the direct observation of a surface by walking over it. It is often carried out with a set interval between members of the survey team and surface features and artifacts are plotted on a site map. Excavation is determined from this primary information.
B.C. vs B.P.
BC = Before Christ BP = Before Present, meaning years before 1950
Ötzi the Iceman
Chalcolithic man's skeleton found in the Similaun Pass of the Tirolean Alps, Italy. The well-preserved corpse, clothing, and appointments were probably covered by a glacier c 5000-5500 years ago (radiocarbon 3300 BC). It was the oldest mummified body found intact.
Thermoluminescence (TL) dating
Chronometric method of dating ceramic materials by measuring the stored energy created when they were first fired. It is based on the principle that ceramic material, like other crystalline non-conducting solids, contains small amounts of radioactive impurities such as potassium, uranium, and thorium, which emit alpha and beta particles and gamma rays causing ionizing radiation. This produces electrons and other charge-carriers (holes) which become caught in traps in the crystal lattice. Heating of the pottery causes the electrons and holes to be released from the traps, and they recombine in the form of thermoluminescence. The amount of thermoluminescence from a heated sample is used to determine the number of trapped electrons resulting from the absorption of alpha radiation. The quantity of light emitted will depend on three factors -- the number of flaws in the crystal, the strength of the radioactivity to which it has been exposed, and the duration of exposure. An age determination technique in which the amount of light energy released in a pottery sample during heating gives a measure of the time elapsed since the material was last heated to a critical temperature. The older a piece of pottery, the more light produced. Accuracy for the technique is generally claimed at ?10%. It overlaps with radiocarbon in the time period for which it is useful, spanning 50,000-300,000 years ago, but also has the potential for dating earlier periods. It has much in common with electron spin resonance (ESR).
Radiometric Dating
Dating by measuring processes which involve the decay of radioactive isotopes and yielding absolute age estimations. Radiocarbon, potassium/argon, and uranium series dating employ the known rate of decay, expressed by their half-lives. Fission track dating similarly employs spontaneous nuclear fission, which also occurs at a known rate.
Terminus Post Quem (TPQ)
Latin phrase meaning 'the end after which' -- the date after which a stratum, feature, or artifact must have been deposited. The term is used either to define a relative chronological date for artifacts or provide fixed points in a site's stratigraphy. If a deposit contains dateable coins or pottery, then deposits stratigraphically later must be of a later date than that given by such material; the dated layer gives a terminus post quem for the undated deposit. In some circumstances, if combined with a terminus ante quem, the deposit may be dated securely between the two.
Terminus Ante Quem (TAQ)
Latin phrase meaning 'the end before which' -- the date before which a stratum, feature, or artifact must have been deposited. The term is used either to define a relative chronological date for artifacts or provide fixed points in a site's stratigraphy. If a deposit can be securely dated by material found in it -- for example, coins dating to the 2nd century AD found above a layer would provide that deposit with a terminus ante quem of the 2nd century AD. In some circumstances, such a 'date' may be combined with a terminus post quem from an earlier phase to produce a date range for the intervening deposit. This type of dating is used to show that something cannot be later than, or earlier than, something else.
Technology
One of the three basic components of culture; the systematic study of techniques for making and doing things. It is the means by which humans have developed things to help them adapt to and exploit their environment. By virtue of his nature as a toolmaker, man has been a technologist from the beginning, and the history of technology encompasses the whole evolution of man.
Law of Association
The co-occurrence of two or more objects sharing the same general location and stratigraphic level and that are thought to have been deposited at approximately the same time (being in or on the same matrix). Objects are said to be in association with each other when they are found together in a context which suggests simultaneous deposition.
Stratum
The definable layers of archaeological matrix or features revealed by excavation; units of sedimentation greater than one centimeter thick. A layer in which archaeological material -- as artifacts, skeletons, and dwelling remains -- is found during excavation. It is the more or less homogeneous or gradational material, visually separable from other levels by a discrete change in the character of the material being deposited or a sharp break in deposition (or both).
Lower Paleolithic
The earliest part of the Palaeolithic period, beginning about 2.5 million years ago and lasting to about 100,000 years ago. It was characterized by the first use of crude stone tools, the practice of hunting and gathering; and the development of social units, settlements, and structures. It was the era of the earliest forms of humans. The phases of the Palaeolithic have been subdivided based on artifact typology; the Lower Palaeolithic is the period of early hominid pebble tool and core tool manufacture. In China, the Early Palaeolithic ran from 1,000,000-73,000 BC.
Hominin
The family to which humans (Homo) and Australopithecines belong; the family which includes both extinct and modern forms of man. Humanlike ancestors are split into four main groups: Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. In most modern classifications, the Great Apes are included in the family. Hominids reached their greatest diversity about 2 million years ago with as many as five species present, including the oldest species of Homo, Homo habilis.
Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
The geological period dating between 25,000-14,000 bp, during which global temperatures reached the lowest levels of the Upper Pleistocene (127,000-10,000 bp). Massive continental ice sheets formed in the northern hemisphere and sea levels fell worldwide. The people were anatomically modern and conducted industries of the Upper Palaeolithic in unglaciated parts of the Old World.
Modern Behavior
The group of humans who had the capabilities and showed the range of behavior of modern humans, including the ability to use symbolic behavior.
Homo sapiens
The modern human species, possibly evolving out of Neanderthal Man, with the archaic Homo sapiens dating to between c 100,000-33,000 years ago (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and the oldest-known anatomically modern Homo sapiens fossils dating between 130,000-80,000 years ago. Modern man -- a large, erect, omnivorous terrestrial biped -- first appears in the fossil record during the late Upper Pleistocene around 35,000 BC. It is still controversial how Neanderthals were replaced by the modern Homo sapiens. The oldest fossils come from sites in Africa and the Near East. In Eurasia the oldest flint industries associated with Homo sapiens are always of Upper Palaeolithic blade-and-burin type. Modern man's technology replaced that of the Mousterian period.
Remote Sensing (Active/Passive)
The nondestructive techniques used in geophysical prospecting and to generate archaeological data without excavation. It is a general term for reconnaissance and surface survey techniques that leave subsurface archaeological deposits undisturbed. Reconnaissance and site survey methods use such devices as aerial photography and pedestrian survey to detect subsurface features and sites. It includes the detection of hidden archaeological features such as walls, pits, or roads by means of sound or radar impulses passed through the ground. active: Any geophysical sensing method that passes energy through the soil and measures the response in order to read what lies below the surface. passive: Any geophysical sensing method which measures physical properties such as magentism and gravity without the need to inject energy to obtain a response.
Microwear
The patterns of edge damage on a stone tool providing archaeological evidence of the ways in which that tool was used. Microscopic scratches and polish on the surface of stone tools or hominid teeth might reveal how various tools were used or what types of food certain hominids ate.
Neolithic
The period of prehistory when people began to use ground stone tools, cultivate plants, and domesticate livestock but before the use of metal for tools. It is the technical name for the New Stone Age in the Old World following the Mesolithic. In the Neolithic, villages were established, pottery and weaving appeared, and farming began. The Neolithic began about 8000-7000 BC in the Middle East and about 4000-3000 BC in Europe. It was followed by the Bronze Age, which began about 3500-3000 BC in the Middle East and about 2000-1500 BC in Europe. The criteria for defining" the Neolithic has become progressively more difficult to apply as both food production and metalworking took a long time to develop.
Law of Superposition
The principle that states that in any pile of sedimentary rocks that have not been disturbed by folding or overturning, the strata on the bottom will have been deposited first. This is the principle that the sequence of observable strata, from bottom to top, reflects the order of deposition, from earliest to latest. Older beds or strata are overlain and buried by progressively younger beds or strata.
Refitting
The reassembling of stone debitage and cores to reconstruct ancient lithic technologies. It is any attempt to put stone tools and flakes back together again, which provides important information on the processes involved in the knapper's craft. The refitting or conjoining of artifact or ecofact fragments, especially those of struck stone flakes to recreate the original core, allows definition of cumulative features, such as the lithic artifact and debitage scatters. The technique allow may allow reconstruction of ancient manufacture and use behavior.
Matrix
The soil or physical material in which an excavation is conducted, or within which artifacts or fossils are embedded or supported. The term also refers to the surrounding deposit in which archaeological finds are situated. Originally the term described the grains in sediments or rocks that are finer than the coarsest material in the sediment or rock. Matrix is the material within which cultural debris is contained.
Provenience / Provenance
The source, origin, or location of an artifact or feature and the recording of same. It is the position of an archaeological find in time and space, recorded three-dimensionally. The horizontal reference system is usually some form of grid tied to a reference datum; the vertical dimension is reference to a vertical datum. I.e., the three-dimensional position of an archaeological find in time and space and recorded from a known datum point at an archaeological site.
Stratigraphy
The study and interpretation of the stratification of rocks, sediments, soils, or cultural debris, based on the principle that the lowest layer is the oldest and the uppermost in the youngest -- a major tool in establishing a relative dating sequence. The sequence of deposition can be assessed by a study of the relationships of different layers. Dateable artifacts found within layers, and layers or structures which are themselves dateable, can be used to date parts of stratigraphic sequences. An archaeologist has to master the skill to recognize it -- to distinguish one deposit from another by its color, texture, smell, or contents; to understand it -- to explain how each layer came to be added, whether by natural accumulation, deliberate fill, or collapse of higher-standing buildings; and to record it in measured drawings of the section. There can be problems where a feature filled with one type of material cuts into layers of the same material. Unless the later feature is recognized, objects of two different phases may appear to be stratified together. The underlying principles are: law of superposition, law of cross-cutting relationships, included fragments, and correlation by fossil inclusions. The stratigraphy principle was adopted from geology and is the basis of reconstructing the history of an archaeological site.
Ethnoarchaeology
The study of contemporary cultures with a view to understanding the behavioral relationships which underlie the production of material culture. It is the use of archaeological techniques and data to study these living cultures and the use of ethnographic data to inform the examination of the archaeological record.
Landscape Archaeology
The study of individual features including settlements seen as single components within the broader perspective of the patterning of human activity over a wide area. It is the recovery of the story of an area of countryside using all possible techniques -- surface scatters, field and other boundaries, standing buildings, as well as excavation. This approach within archaeology emphasizes examination of the complete landscape, focusing on dispersed features and on areas between and surrounding traditional sites as well as on the sites themselves.
Taphonomy
The study of the transformation of organic remains after death to form fossil and archaeological remains. The study includes the processes that disturb and damage bones before, during, and after burial -- burial, decay, and preservation. The term combines the Greek word for tomb or burial (taphos) with that for law (nomos). The focus is on an understanding of the processes resulting in the archaeological record.
Epistemology
The study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially by using scientific reasoning to evaluate its validity
Site Formation Processes
The total of the processes -- natural and cultural, individual and combined -- that affected the formation and development of the archaeological record. Natural formation processes refer to natural or environmental events which govern the burial and survival of the archaeological record. Cultural formation processes include the deliberate or accidental activities of humans. On a settlement site, for example, the nature of human occupation, the activities carried out, the pattern of breakage and loss of material, rubbish disposal, rebuilding, or re-use of the same area will all influence the surviving archaeological deposits. After the site's abandonment, it will be further affected by such factors as erosion, glaciation, later agriculture, the activities of plants and animals, as well as the natural processes of chemical action in the soil. Reconstruction of these processes helps to relate the observed evidence of an archaeological site to the human activity responsible for it.
Pseudoarchaeology
The use of selective archaeological evidence, real or imagined, to promulgate nonscientific, fictional accounts of the past.
Retouch
The working of a primary flake, usually by the removal of small fragments, to form a tool; to thin, sharpen, straighten, or otherwise refine an existing stone tool for further use. It is the work done to a flint implement after its preliminary roughing-out in order to make it into a functional tool. In the case of a core-tool, such as a hand-ax, retouch may consist of roughly trimming the edge by striking with a hammerstone, but on smaller, finer flake or blade tools it is usually carried out by pressure-flaking.
Homo erectus
Upright man, an extinct form of Homo sapiens who evolved one million years ago, just before Neanderthal Man. This species had a larger brain and was bigger than Homo habilis, with a muscular stocky body and heavy face with thick brow bones. It is thought that Homo erectus made Acheulian stone artifacts and spread out around Africa. He gradually evolved into archaic Homo sapiens about 500,000 years ago. The best known discoveries are from Far East (Java, Choukoutien, Yuanmou), but skeletal remains have been found in East Africa (Olduvai), in North Africa (Ternifine, Sidi Abderrahman) and in Europe (Mauer Jaw, Vértesszöllös). At Choukoutien there was proof that he knew the use of fire. This ancestor of modern humans evolved from Australopithecus, and his brain was about two-thirds the size of contemporary humans'.
Dendera Light bulb
a term used to describe a supposed ancient Egyptian electrical lighting technology depicted on three stone reliefs (one single and a double representation) in the Hathor temple at the Dendera Temple complex located in Egypt. The sculpture became notable among fringe historians because of the resemblance of the motifs to some modern electical lighting systems. Mainstream Egyptologists take the view that it is a typical set of symbolic images from Egyptian mythology.
Bioturbation
alteration of a site by non human biological agents (animals)
Artifacts
an object made by a human being, typically of cultural or historical interest
Direct/Indirect Percussion
direct percussion: echnique 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. indirect percussion: A technique of stone-tool manufacture in which flakes are removed from a flint core in a way which causes less wasteful shatter of the material than direct percussion. The hammer or hammerstone does not strike the flint but rather a wood, antler, or bone punch, usually with a prepared edge, so that the manufacture of flakes is more controlled.
Environment vs. Landscape
environment: The complex of physical, chemical, and biological factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival. The pace of environmental change quickened dramatically with the introduction of agriculture from 7000 years ago onwards: forests were cut down and cultivation led to soil degradation and erosion. New species were introduced, both as crops and weeds, and the relentless growth of population ensured that man's activities made an ever-increasing impact on the landscape. landscape: An aggregate of landforms in a region; the collection of landforms particular to a region at a particular time.
Seriation (Frequency vs. Contextual)
frequency: A relative age determination technique in which artifacts or other archaeological data are chronologically ordered by ranking their relative frequencies of appearance. It is based on the idea that an artifact type first steadily grows in popularity and then steadily declines. contextual: A seriation technique, also called sequence dating, pioneered by Sir Flinders Petrie in the 19th century, in which artifacts are arranged according to the frequencies of their co-occurrence in specific contexts -- usually burials. This relative dating method, based on shared typological features, enabled Sir Flinders Petrie to establish the temporal order of a large number of Egyptian graves.
Absolute Dating
gives you numerical age of artifacts; radiometric methods of age estimation; radiometric dating questions: what does it date? what is the age range? what is the relationship of what i am dating to what i am interested in?; types of absolute dating: radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology (counting tree rings)
Excavation: Total / Selective; Vertical / Horizontal
horizontal: The excavation of a site to reveal its horizontal extent. Such an excavation is designed to uncover large areas of a site, especially settlement layouts. vertical : Excavation of a site to reveal its vertical extent, with relatively little breadth. This type of excavation is undertaken to establish a chronological sequence, normally covering a limited area. total: Complete excavation of an archaeological site, confined mainly to smaller sites, such as burial mounds or campsites. selective: The archaeological excavation of parts of a site using sampling methods or carefully placed trenches but which do not uncover the entire site.
Corona Images
images taken by the US's CORONA spy satellite in the 1960s-early 1970s span from Egypt to Iran; capture a time when the Middle East's ancient sites were less disturbed by modern development
Processualism
is a form of archaeological theory that had its genesis in 1958 with the work of Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips, Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" (Willey and Phillips, 1958:2), a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland's comment that "[m]y own belief is that by and by, anthropology will have the choice between being history and being nothing."[1] This idea implied that the goals of archaeology were, in fact, the goals of anthropology, which were to answer questions about humans and human society.
Post-processualism
is a movement in archaeological theory that emphasizes the subjectivity of archaeological interpretations. Despite having a vague series of similarities, post-processualism consists of "very diverse strands of thought coalesced into a loose cluster of traditions".[3] Within the post-processualist movement, a wide variety of theoretical viewpoints have been embraced, including structuralism and Neo-Marxism, as have a variety of different archaeological techniques, such as phenomenology.
Hollow Ways
is a road or track which is significantly lower than the land on either side, not formed by the (recent) engineering of a road cutting but possibly of much greater age.
Chopper
large, simple stone tool with a single transverse cutting edge; characteristic of the Middle Pleistocene, Pre Acheulian eras, present in the earliest levels of the Oldowan technologies
Battleship Curves
lens shaped seriation graph formed by plotted points representing artifact type frequencies; rise in artifact popularity, maximum artifact popularity, and artifact decline are also plotted
LIDAR
light detection and ranging- gives you image of the ground features through environmental features like trees, bushes, etc.
Chaîne Opératoire
methodological tool for analyzing the technical processes and social acts involved in the production, use, and eventual disposal of artifacts such as lithics or pottery
Anthropogenic
originating in human activity; can refer to artifacts found, impact on environment
Paleoclimate
paleoclimatology: study of past climates
Cores
piece of stone used as a blank for stone tool production; flakes are struck off the core either to shape the core into a tool or create tools from the flakes taken off
