Archaeology Comp
Kennewick Man
(Chatters) A 40 year old seal hunter who had been speared in the pelvis with a cordilleran point. Dated to the holocene using carbon dating. His skin was still intact and had a 90% marine diet. Found in 1996 in East Washington. Is one of the most popular archaeological individuals due to the NAGPRA controversy surrounding him.
Teotihuacan
A holy city located southeast of Mexico City, built and occupied between the first and seventh centuries AD. Characterized by its vast size of monuments that are laid out on geometric and symbolic principles. This city is considered a model of urbanization because of its layout and use of natural environment and has influenced future societies. Became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
Poverty Point
A site in northern Louisiana with a group of late Archaic sites, c 1300-400 BC in the Woodland stage. The site consisted of six concentric octagons that seem to have been used as dwelling areas. Artifacts found include numerous clay balls used for cooking in lieu of heated stones, microliths, stone smoking pipes and vessels, clay figurines, and fiber-tempered pottery sherds. A high level of social organization is indicated by the presence of earthworks, but there is very little evidence of agricultural practices. Projectile points found in the site are narrow stem-body junctures. The site is significant due to the earthworks found being the oldest large aboriginal constructions known in mainland North America.
Ranked Societies
A society that ranks individuals based on genealogical descendance of a chief. Their social status is determined by their place in the line of descent. Social systems in which a hierarchy of social status has been established, with a restricted number of valued positions available. In a ranked society, not everyone has the same access to the critical resources of life. A chiefdom is an example of a ranked society, and chiefdoms were common during the Mississippian period.
Ecological fallacy
The assumption that data operates similarly regardless of scale within ecological studies. this is a processual term that pretty much generalises the way people behave it does not focus on the individual like post processualism does
Food
animals, plants, fungus. Doesn't include ice, clay, salt, spices or seasonings.
Specialized foragers
people who specialized in the subsistence strategy of hunting, big-game hunters, Clovis people were thought to be specialized in hunting big-game (e.g.mammoths and mastodons)
Chiefdoms
redistribution based on localization of natural resources, chiefs may be a positive function and/or exploitative. -DW sociopolitical organization characterized by increased complexity of organization, productivity, and population density, possess institutionalized offices of leadership, rank/status can be based on kinship
National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) 1969
-"cultural environment" is to be considered along with "natural environment"
United Nations Environmental, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1970
-100 countries signed -Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer to Ownership of Cultural Property" -regulate import/export of cultural objects -forbid national museums from acquiring illegally exported objects -inform other nations when illegally exported objects are found within a country's borders -return or provide restitution of cultural objects stolen from public institutions -establish a register of art dealers and require art dealers to register
Society of Professional Archaeologists (SOPA) 1976
-Baseline to evaluate archaeological recommendations and research. -Define professionalism in archaeology -Ability for individuals to challenge other archaeologists' recommendations and research methods -Transferred responsibility, authority, and assets to the RPA in 1998
National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) 1966
-Mitigate adverse impacts of modern development (urban, highway) paid for with federal funds and/or require federal permit -Creates National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)
-created by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 -a listing of districts, sites, buildings, structures, objects -significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture -over 70,000 properties
Major themes in Historical Archaeology
1. Study historically disenfranchised groups -African Americans -Asian Americans -Hispanic Americans -Native Americans in the historic period -Women and children 2. Looks at question of historical interest that are often answered unsatisfactorily by history books. Why are these questions not adequately covered in history books? 3. Nature of European colonialism and its effects on indigenous peoples = critical analysis of our history.
Catchment area
A geographical area where people obtained their resources. Often extending a certain distance from a primary camp site. Smaller camps, stations, and caches can indicate the extent of a catchment area and the distance from the central main camp site. Example: Binford 1980: Willow Smoke and Dogs Tails.
Moundville
A large Mississippian site occupied around AD 1000-1450 on the Black Warrior River in central Alabama. The town was roughly square and protected on three sides with a wooden palisade. Earthen mounds served as platforms for noble homes and civic and ceremonial structures. The reason for the rise and decline of this site is not known but around 1350 the use seems to shift from residential to more ceremonial and political functions.
Flotation
A method of screening in which minute pieces of flora are separated from the soil by agitation with water. The technique works on the principle that organic material such as carbonized seeds, snail-shells, and beetle wing-cases have a lower specific gravity than inorganic materials such as soil and stone, and will float on the top of a suitable liquid medium while the rest will sink. It's a technique developed to assist in the recovery of plant, insect, and molluscan remains from archaeological deposits. Water is commonly used for flotation, but other media such as carbon tetrachloride solution or zinc chloride solution is also used.
Diet
A person's or group's pattern of consumption over a long period of time. An example is the paleodiet. This is the diet of past humans of what they actually ate rather than what was available to be eaten.
Theory
A plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena. An explanation for observed empirical phenomena.
Bayesian analysis/modeling
A probability approach that compares the uncertainty of any parameter before and after observing new data. In other words, it's a paradigm that answers research questions about unknown parameters using probability statements.
Type-variety
A taxonomic classification of pottery based on stylistic attributes that defines a hierarchy of modes and varieties (minimal units), types, groups, complexes, and spheres (maximal units).
Direct Historical Approach
A technique that is typically used in historical archaeology that works backwards in time, from present to past. It involves working with historical documents, contemporary artifacts, and materials found in archaeological excavations. This method was developed in the United States in the 1930s by William Duncan Strong. Cyrus Thomas will use this method to determine that the people that built the earthen mounds are ancestors to present day Native Americans, which goes against the moundbuilder theory.
Heterarchy
A way of organizing a community where the individuals are unranked. This is archaeologists attempt at getting away from clear cut social divisions, which is not the case within every culture. An example of this would be Native American bands, which is a (small) egalitarian grouping of people. (BB) an example culture of a possible egalitarian culture would be the clovis culture who would be hunter gatherer culture
Gender (Gender Studies)
A way to study past culture by looking at how gender and identity relationships are constructed socially. Based on the premise that most individuals are born into male or female sex but gender is a taught social construct that's a part of culture that changes through time and various across culture through time and space. Gender archaeology: is not just adding women and stir, you have to take into account the ethnographic and historical context. One group is not like another (i.e. Apalachee is different from Cherokee).
Stratigraphic excavation
Also known as excavating in natural levels. The vertical subdivision of an excavation square that is based on natural breaks in the sediments (in terms of colore, grain size, texture, hardness, or other characteristics). The opposite of excavating in arbitrary levels. Archaeologists prefer to excavate in natural levels whenever possible.
Hopewell
An agricultural subculture of the Woodland Stage Complex settling in Ohio and Illinois around 100 BS and lasting to 500 AD. It was one of the most advanced Indian cultures of North America, with conical or dome shaped burial mounds, large enclosures with earthen walls, and fine pottery with corded or stamped decoration. Hopewell is noted for its minor art objects, such as carved platform pipes, ornaments cut out of sheet copper or mica, Yellowstone obsidian, and ceremonial obsidian knives. In this culture, farming was practiced and trade brought exotic raw materials from many parts of the continent. This culture also introduced the Hopewell point; distinctive broad-bladed points.
Built environment
An environment that is altered or created by humans for their use and/or benefit. There are plenty of examples ranging from parks and towns to plantations and agricultural practices. Each of these would alter the natural species found in that area.
San Luis de Talimali
Apalachee Indian village that became a Spanish mission in 1656 in present day Tallahassee. This site was initially excavated in the 1980s and excavations are still on going. This could be an example of historical archaeology looking at the disenfranchised/marginalized groups and using historical record and archaeology. Everyday life is also emphasized at this site.
Culture history
Beginning of American archaeology. Describing material remains with detail was the main focus. The theory was that since the people who interacted and created these materials had passed it wasn't possible to understand the actual of these people for once they were separated from their material remains, the cultural aspect was gone. Strategies for field work were based of stratigraphic excavations and materials were dated through seriation. A lot of Cultural History was about establishing a chronology of 'cultural time periods'. Nels Nelson is a prominent figure. An example on the use of this approach is the analysis of puebloan pottery based on classification on type, ware, and series. The findings of black-on-white pottery in the Salt River Valley is also found in excavations in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico and the Mojave Desert. Since the same type of pottery is found in different locations, it can indicate a widespread distribution and traffic of this pottery type. This paradigm aimed to determine migration and human dispersal by analyzing these seriations and styles, linking them to modern peoples. One main shortfall of the paradigm was the use of inductive rather than deductive reasoning, information was used to postulate theories, rather than testing theories to render conclusions.
Old Copper Complex
Binford mentions in his 1962 article. He uses the complex to explain his theories of technomic, socio-technic, ideo-technic artifacts. The site was originally thought to be a case of 'devolution' from people working with copper material in the Archaic period and then regressed to stone materials during Woodland. The idea is that copper, in theory, would be the more efficient tool but it actually takes more energy to create and work with as opposed to working with stone. So copper became more of 'ceremonial' and prized mortuary items.
Classic modes of production
Communal organization: no classes, non stratified, domestic economy, small groups. Asiatic/oriental mode: community contains conditions of production and surplus within itself, similar to chiefdoms, mostly classless, some taxes to governing structure. Germanic mode: every household contains entire economy. Feudal mode: peasants and lords.
Conceptual metaphor theory
Draws on linguistic data to show that metaphor is a form of reasoning that helps determine our response to the world and can influence the form of religion. An example is the Christian concept of our bodies being a vessel for our souls or supernatural spirit.
Foodways
Foodway is an umbrella term that includes food, diet, dish, subsistence strategies, cuisine, etc. Dr. Peres' definition: the food and all of the activities, rules, contexts, and meanings that surround the production, harvesting, processing, cooking, serving, and consumption of those foods. A group's foodways are thus a complex of ideas and patterns of behavior. In the archaeological record, food and food production leaves behind material objects: plant and animal remains, dishes, cutting tools, human remains (bones and teeth), undigested stomach contents, coprolites. Also, residue in cooking tools, such as absorbed residues in unglazed ceramics, can reveal what was cooked or stored inside.
Hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that their imposed, ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm. Think of colonialism. You could also relate this to Mississippian societies, the ruling classes controlled the food supply and distribution, and religious systems (then through religion, the values and inclinations of lower class people)
Sexual division of labor
It is long assumed that women are the gatherers and men are the hunters within archaeological interpretations, especially prior to the feminist movements of the 1970s-1990s. Based on this "assumed fact" (which is derived from ethnographic records), the sexual division is applied to the archaeological materials and features, such as feminine and masculine tool kits as indicators of whether communities lived in nuclear households. Therefore it is the application of our perceived notions of what men and women are capable of and responsible for that influence our interpretation of the archaeological data. (
Domestication
It is the adaptation of an animal or plant through breeding in captivity for useful advantage to and by humans. The domestication of grains, cattle and sheep was the result of a long historical process of step-by-step innovations within a well-known framework of economic practice and experiment. It is argued in Terrell 2003 that any place can be considered domesticated when any known species knows how to harvest it. Domestication is anthropocentric. More examples: reducing horn size in goats and sheep, breeding more docile individuals, breeding smaller tusks/teeth (pigs), breeding of smaller more manageable individuals (sheep)
Cahokia
Located in Illinois with mounds that may have stretched as far as Missouri. French explorers discovered it in the 1600s and has been excavated ever since and was made a National Historic Land in 1964. It was once the largest indigenous urban center in what is now the United States, before the arrival of European explorers and settlers. The complex flourished between A.D. 1000 and 1350 and contained several mounds, homes, and farms that offer complex archaeological sites. Most if not all of the mounds fell to the development of cities such as St. Louis. The site contains the largest manmade structure north of Central Mexico, Monks Mound. Cahokia Mounds was the regional center for the American Indian Mississippian culture, resembling a modern metropolis with its complex social system and large, permanent, central towns.
MNI
Minimum number of individuals. The minimum number of individuals represented in a given faunal or human bone collection; determined from the number in the largest category of skeletal elements recovered. It is a method of assessing species abundance in faunal assemblages based on a calculation of the smallest number of animals necessary to account for all the identified bones. It is usually calculated from the most abundant one or tooth from either the left or right side of the animal.
NISP (number of identified specimens)
Number of identified specimens. A gross counting technique used in the quantification of animal bones. The method may produce misleading results in assessing the relative abundance of different species, since skeletal differences and differential rates of bone preservation mean that some species will be represented more than others. It is a largely outdated measure of sample size in archaeological fauna.
Topper
Paleoindian and Land Woodland site in South Carolina. This is one of the largest known Clovis sites in America. There is much controversy with regard to the pre-clovis dates and artifacts. Some of these artifacts have been dated to 50,000 years ago.
Macrobotanicals
Plant remains that are visible with the human eye. Includes wood, seeds, fruits, tubers, and nutshells, as well as fibers that have been woven into clothing, baskets, and mats. Recovery techniques involve hand collecting, screening, and or flotation. Can be used to make inferences about diet and subsistence strategies, which can be used to discuss social, political, and economic systems. Macros are the most studied of the botanicals. Macrobotanicals typically survive within the archaeological record when charred, especially with softer parenchymous material.
Positive feedbacks, negative feedbacks
Positive feedbacks and negative feedbacks are not directly tied to the idea that they are positive and negative factors or effects. A positive feedback is the positive response to an actions that allows that action to continue without impediment. A negative feedback is a rejection or undesirable consequence to an action that causes the action to be modified or abandoned.
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) 1990
Purpose: -protect N Am. Graves and associated burial/ceremonial items on federal and tribal lands -tribal authority over unmarked graves -prohibits commercial selling of N. Am. Dead bodies. · Mandates: -requires an inventory and repatriation of human remains and associated ceremonial objects held by federal govt. and federally-funded institutions -any native sacred objects that were inappropriate given have to be returned -and outlined a process to figure out who owned human remains found in federal and tribal property after Nov 16, 1990. · Skeletal remains · Three class of objects -funerary objects- items placed w/ a human burial as part of a funeral ceremony, or an object made to contain human remains during burial -sacred objects- those necessary for current practice of traditional Native American religions by present-day adherents. -objects of cultural patrimony- items that have ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance to a native American group or culture; communally held property and no one person had the right to give them away. Example are totem poles.
Archaeology of Religion
Researchers analyze the ceremonial contexts and materials that constitute the most abundant and direct evidence of religious expression. A method of conducting archaeology and a way of learning about the past through religious artifacts/concepts.
Ethics
Rules for behavior. Based on an individual's or group's ideas of what is morally right or wrong. Morals feed into the group ethic. Ethical behaviors are somewhat mandated by law in archaeology. No formal policy that carries punitive consequences. Ethical Behaviors: A major impetus for the archaeological ethics derives from Post-Processualism. •Other factors that result in codes of ethics •The image of archaeology internationally •Federal legislation requires that archaeologists have professional training and protection of archaeological resources •Unethical behavior on the part of archaeologists
Processualism
The approach focuses on context rather than artifact categorization in time and space. The approach stressed the scientific method and the systematic analysis of culture and the environment. Processual archaeology strove to show archaeology's relevance in the modern world by providing explicit research strategy and hard statistical data to further archaeological understanding of cultural systems. Stressed that cultural change came from outside influence and did not consider if such changes came from within the culture. The approach also views culture from a systemic perspective, deemphasizes the individual, is ethically neutral. The approach was spearheaded and popularized by Lewis Binford. An example would be the use of this approach in group burial sites. A focus in this site would be the positioning and exact coordinates of the burials to discern that their positioning showed a connection that centered with either the summer or winter solstice.
Personhood
The archaeology of personhood is concerned with identifying the forms of human identity, selfhood and embodiment that existed in the past. Recent debate over the archaeology of personhood focuses on the question of whether the category of the individual is indeed universal. The analytical term is used to indicate who, within any given culture, is considered to be either a fully functioning and accepted member of adult society, or, in the case of children, who is considered to being on the way to being a fully functioning and accepted member of adult society.
Domestic Mode of Production
The economic sphere of the household wherein domestic production is driven by the needs of the household unit. For example: self-subsistence in which individuals only grow food to satisfy the family, not for selling/ mass agriculture.
Section 106 of NHPA
The head of any Federal agency having direct or indirect jurisdiction over a proposed Federal or federally assisted undertaking in any State and the head of any Federal department or independent agency having authority to license any undertaking shall, prior to the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds on the undertaking or prior to the issuance of any license, as the case may be, take into account the effect of the undertaking on any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register. The head of any such Federal agency shall afford the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation established under Title II of this Act a reasonable opportunity to comment with regard to such undertaking.
Data
The information collected from archaeological investigations. Includes but not limited to provenience information, artifacts, faunal material, notes, photographs, forms, and soil samples. The data recovered is often considered more significant than the artifacts.
Association
The relationship of an object to others within the same context. For instance, when something is found in the same stratigraphy as another artifact with a known date or known cultural association.
Economy
The structure of economic life in a country, area, or period. The provisioning of human society with food, water, shelter, etc. Remnants of a past economy could be determined by analyzing the number of a certain artifact found in an excavation. Certain artifacts such as popular pottery styles, beads, and food sources could help determine what the economy was like in a past culture.
Zooarchaeology
The study of animal remains, especially bones, from archaeological contexts, including the identification and analysis of faunal species as an aid in reconstructing human diets, determining the impact of animals on past economies, and understand the environment at the time of deposition. In this field, archaeologists attempt to answer question such as how many species of domesticated animals there were, how far wild animals were exploited, and in what way bones were butchered. The analysis of remains from different parts of a site makes it possible to understand some of the internal organization of the settlement, while a comparison between sites within a region may show area of specialization.
Antiquarianism
The study of antiquities largely for the sake of the objects themselves, not to understand the people or the culture that produced them. C. B. Moore is an example of an antiquarian. He was an affluent man who puttered around the Southeast in his boat the Gopher excavating archaeological sites. His activities are considered a contribution to archaeology because he took detailed notes of his excavations.
Holism
The theoretical approach which sees change in human society as the product of large-scale environmental, economic, and social forces and discounting individual wishes, desires, beliefs, and will.
Context
The time and space setting of an artifact, feature, or culture. The context of a find is its position on a site, its relationship through association with other artifacts, and its chronological position as revealed through stratigraphy. Certain features or artifacts may be normally associated with particular contexts, for example a pottery type may be found in the context of certain burials. If such an artifact is found out of context, it may suggest the previous presence of a burial, the robbery of a burial, or a place of manufacture of the pot s that accompanied burials.
Equifinality
There are multiple ways to reach the same conclusion. An example is hypothesizing different ways/ reasons a shipwreck occurred. (BB) The argument presented by Service in 1968 supports Equifinality with the idea that there is no 'prime-mover' when it comes to understanding cultural evolutionism. There isn't one proper theory that can explain how cultures evolve over time, there are multiple factors to take into consideration.
Scales of Time
There are three scales of history according to Braudel. (This from the last quiz, I have what Claire said but I still don't understand). Individual, small scale: one event, one generation in a single family. Social, mid-range, broader that the pervious scale, an example could be diningware in Maryland during the Colonial Period. Geographical, long term, an example could be comparing diningware from the medieval period to Colonial.
Microbotanicals
These remains include flora remains that are smaller than what can be visualised with the naked eye. These include phytoliths, pollen, and diatoms. They are often used in determining environment reconstructions but also can be used for processual plus concepts interpreting politics, gender, religious practices, etc. Refer to Morehart and Morrell-Hart article for more information on how these can be used to infer social concepts.
Processual-Plus
This approach is difficult to pinpoint its exact development. However, processual plus consisted of using ideas from both processual and post-processual approaches. It combines the quantitative data that demonstrates the scientific spectrum of processualism, and the cultural context of the post-processual spectrum. An example of this paradigm is the use of neutron activation analysis on clays from Mesa Verde and data resulting in a transition of ceramics from Sand Canyon and Mesa Verde areas. The introduction of this approach allowed for widespread acceptance of a broader range of social theories in archaeology.
Post-processual
This approach reached recognition with the work from Ian Hodder and his students at Cambridge University. The focus of this approach is on the individual than generalizing culture change based on environmental changes. The approach encourages to link style with ideology and symbolism in human events and history. Post-processualism mainly criticizes processualism for its inability to answer archaeological questions and limitations in understanding past cultures (class, gender, agency, symbolism, meaning). Post-processualists believed processualism made archaeology devoid of cultural context due to its emphasis on stability rather than conflict, quantification, and environmental adaptation. An example of this approach is its use in observing gender roles in hunter-gatherer groups. It is assumed that the hunting of fauna and use of hunting tools is associated with the male gender. In contrast, female burials from the Archaic Indian Knoll site contained spear-thrower weights. This can indicate the role these women played in their culture's hunting strategy.
Biomass
This can refer to flora or fauna. It's the total weight of the plant and animal life (organic substances and organisms) existing at a give time in a given area. Can be determined via allometric scaling equations which uses linear regression formulas and bone weight and lengths to calculate animal biomass.
Radiocarbon dating
This dating method by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry permitted direct dating of small and valuable items including bone tools, wooden artifacts, papyri and human fossils. This is done by counting the Carbon 14 atoms that are released during the decay of an object. Dates can be presented in Radiocarbon years, but must be calibrated to a global carbon curve to be presented in actual Calendar years
Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
This is also known as salvage archaeology and is the survey and documentation of archaeological sites. Many times this archaeology is done before sites are going to be destroyed due to construction or natural disasters. As a result of Section 106 any project that receives federal funds is required to have survey work completed.
Antiquities Act 1906
This statute decrees Presidential authority to establish National Monuments and requires permits to be approved before archeological investigations can be undertaken on federal land. Permits for the examination of ruins, the excavation of archaeological sites, and the gathering of objects of antiquity upon the lands under their respective jurisdictions may be granted by the Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, and War to institutions which the may deem properly qualified to conduct such examination, excavation, or gathering, subject to such rules and regulation as they may prescribe: Provided, That the examinations, excavations, and gatherings are undertaken for the benefit of reputable museums, universities, colleges, or other recognized scientific or educational institutions, with a view to increasing the knowledge of such objects, and that the gatherings shall be made for permanent preservation in public museums.
Religion
Tylor defines this as "the belief in spiritual beings" that develops from otherwise inexplicable sensory and psychological phenomena. An example would be the Numic shamanism which involves the solicitation of the supernatural on behalf of community members and entails public accountability.
Household
a fundamental social unit with a material presence, not just defined by buildings, but also by remains of routine activities and habitual practices. Such as religious/ritual areas within a house like a kivas, which is a hole in the floor that represents access to their ancestral spirits.
Relative Dating
a means of establishing how monuments of artefacts are of different ages relative to each other. An example is when the English antiquarian William Stukeley observed that the great mound of Silbury Hill must be pre-Roman in date as a Roman road detoured around it. The foundation of relative dating is the principle of stratigraphy on specific sites. However, there are limitations to making simple stratigraphic observations such as an incomplete knowledge of the depth to age relationship from a stratigraphic core. Also, there is no consideration for shifts in the soil layers that may move the artefacts from its original position. This dating technique is also qualitative, and less specific than absolute dating.
Culture
activities, ideologies, traditions, customs, and practices that define groups of people. It's acquired by learning and is replicated across generations. This replication is affected by enculturation. Binford describes culture as the normative behavior of a society of other social units. While White defines culture as putting meaning upon a thing or act such as Holy water.
stable isotope analysis
analysis of the isotopic signatures in collagen from bone to determine an individual's diet and determining migration patterns. this technique has been developed and applied to studies of diet reconstruction; including focuses on resource seasonality, food sourcing within landscapes, and human migration. There exist isotopes of elements that do not degrade over time, these are stable isotopes. Stable isotopes appear in natural "standard" ratios of abundance to one another within the environment, but may appear in augmented (increased) ratios within the body of an animal or human due to environmental driven fractionation, as well as selective ingestion of different food resources which have their own varied stable isotope ratios. The few issues that persist with stable isotope analysis are that some isotopes may be affected by post-mortem processes, different tissues can vary in isotopic values, and marine resources can make results more difficult to interpret. While stable isotope analysis has been conducted and utilized by the scientific community for many decades, the application of it within the field of archaeology only began in the late 1970s, and did not gain speed until the 1980s.
Typology
classification of material culture into types.
Corporate Strategies
community strategy that supports power sharing across groups and is socially inclusive, associated with communal ritual, large cooperative public works, and weak economic differentiation
Practice theory
explicitly rejects the top-down structural assumptions that have traditionally dominated discussion of religion. This theory emphasize how the practice of ritual and religion serves to create and alter more esoteric religious principles. According to Bell, an active components of practice is ritual activities. Habitus in practice- displaying our social norms, according to Bourdieu.
Individualism
focuses on the individual of a society usually found in post processualistic works. An approach to the study of societies which assumes that thoughts and decisions do have agency, and that actions and shared institutions can be interpreted as the products of the decisions and actions of individuals.
Feast
food consumption event often to commemorate seasonal harvest or ritual event, characterized by presence of rare taxa, diverse assortment of taxa, bulk cuts without butchering debris for presentation, and prime cuts, seldom associated with hunter gatherers, more often associated with agricultural groups, creates social solidarity and can be a rite of intensification. Example: Cahokia archaeofaunal assemblages, also the department pig roast
Mortuary Ritual
from Fogelin 2008, archaeologists can use burials and their associated objects to study the behavior of the individuals who buried their dead. Burial is a social event that marks a change in social organization (absence of a member), along with the practical issue of disposing of the dead. Mortuary ritual affects the positioning of the body and the grave, how the body is or isn't clothed, and objects associated with the grave, all of which may be present in the archaeological record. For example, in the double burial from Horn (Jodry and Owsley2014), underneath the man's head was a bundle of personal items, including bone and antler tools, turtle carapaces and a lithic biface. The context of these artifacts within the burial indicates that they belonged to the man, and may have been buried with him because they were his belongings and needed in the afterlife, could not be passed to others, or represented religious symbols (turtles) that would be significant in the culture's cosmology and perceptions of death.
Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) 1998
grievance procedure; not compulsory •Formed in 1998 by SOPA, SAA, SHA, AIA •Membership is by qualification •code of conduct and standards of research performance •Maintains a directory of RPA certified archaeologists •Voluntary (vs. compulsory) but many jobs require RPA Certification to qualify for employment •Main Goal: -Establish standards of professional archaeological practice that are universally accepted •allows for grievances to be filed against RPA members that do not follow the code
subsistence strategies
how a society gathers food, influenced by the environment and ecology can include hunter-gatherers or agriculturalists or combination
Middle Range Theory
introduced by Binford. Hypotheses that link archaeological observations with the human behavior or natural process that produced them (i.e. Calling a ceramic sherd a ceramic sherd). It links low-level theory (which begins with the archaeological objects) with high-level theory (which seeks to answer the "big questions" such as the plant domestication). Middle range theory research includes experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology.
optimal foraging theory
no human agency, doing the most logical and rational decision when foraging that takes less energy to obtain (low energy → high reward, sometimes can be high energy but must also be high reward). Humans don't always follow this rational pattern.
Agency
people are not uniformed, and people will not just make decisions based on external factors, but internal factors. Individuals have free will to make choices that are not always rational ones. Can be an individual but can also be a collective group. For example, individuals express agency in food choices by selecting food based on taste instead of environmental or logistical factors.
In situ
refers to an artifact that has not been moved from its original place of deposition. In other words, it is stationary, meaning "still." An artifact being in situ is critical to the interpretation of that artifact and, consequently, of the culture which formed
Ritual Density
refers to the degree or amount of ritual that a society engages in. In the archaeology of religion, Moyes examines the density of rituals within Chechem Ha Cave in Western Belize through examination of the frequency of charcoal deposits from torches and of ceramic offerings within the cave. This indicates that rituals were practiced at varying intensities in different periods of the cave's use.
Cuisine
regional, particular preparation methods, culturally tied, terroir (the landscape the cuisine took place).
Dogma
something held as an established opinion such as a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds. For example, the myth of the moundbuilders.
Maritime archaeology
studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains. These include vessels, shore-side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, and human remains.
Ethnoarchaeology
teaches social relationships in the past since they are not physical entities. Focuses on behaviors that can be observed archaeologically. Uses observations of modern day groups to make inferences of past cultures. (example: Tuma 2008) looking at modern rural african american communities practices in butchery and food preparation to estimate antebellum African slave community foodways
Niche Construction Theory
the "modification of selective environments [called niches] by organisms". There are four key concepts in niche construction theory: 1) organisms modify environmental states in nonrandom ways, thereby imposing a systematic bias on the selection they generate, and allowing organisms to exert some influence over their own evolution; 2) ecological inheritance strongly affects evolutionary dynamics and contributes to parent-offspring similarity; 3) acquired characters and byproducts become evolutionarily significant by affecting selective environments in systematic ways; 4) the complementarity of organisms and their environments (adaptations) can be achieved through evolution and niche construction.
Social Archaeology
the application of ideas and concepts from social theory to archaeology which allow for the development of various sets of perspectives concerning social topics
Egalitarian societies
the belief that all people within a society should have equal rights regardless of their lineage, kinship, gender, or social status. This also included the area of politics where most adults could participate in societal governance. An example are the sixth and fifth-millennium Mesopotamian communities where all the members of the community were of the same status and tasks are evenly distributed.
Garden-hunting
the hunting of specific species that are attracted to agricultural modifications of the landscape. For example the hunting of deer that are attracted to maize production within agricultural communities. These species can also be used to interpret other values that are concurrent with the rise of agricultural methods, such as stable isotope analysis of deer populations to determine the establishment and extent of "exploitation of the landscape."
Overkill hypothesis
the idea that humans were solely responsible for the Pleistocene extinctions of megafauna in North and South America and northern Eurasia by excessive hunting of the first people to inhabit the continent. This hypothesis, also called a blitzkrieg, was proposed by Paleontologist Paul Martin who is a Clovis-First advocate. Does not include the effect of climate change or other factors.
Animism
the religious belief that objects, places and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence or that they have a life force. For instance, Moche sacrifice and iconography is best understood in light of the animistic core of Moche religion.
Provenience
the source, origin, or location of an artifact or feature and the recording of the same. It is the position of an archaeological find in time and space, recorded three-dimensionally.
Paleoethnobotany
the use of flora remains and microbotanicals as the base dataset for interpreting concepts related to social archaeology. This analysis method uses ethnohistoric data to add value to the qualification and distinction in diversity of various plant species within the archaeological assemblage. This is a method of the processual-plus methods.
Paradigm
theoretical overarching framework that defines a model or similar set of concepts pertaining to a methodology or science (how the world works).
absolute dating
this technique relies on the decay of radioactive matter from one state to another, and measuring the process of this delay. It provides a numeric age. The discovery of this came after World War II. This is a quantitative technique and helps determine the exact age. The major methods include radiometric dating, amino acid dating, dendrochronology and thermoluminescence ( determines the period during which an object was last subjected to heat). An example of absolute dating is dating a sample of an artefact, such as a bone from a cadaver through radiometric or radiocarbon dating to determine the exact age of the cadaver.
Resource Scheduling
timing of resource acquisition/procurement and alternation of gendered labor to accomodate for seasonal resource availability and efficient utilization of resources. Example- female individuals engage in agricultural and short range gathering activities while pregnant or raising small children, they may return to long range hunts or other activities when dependent children are a non-factor.
Disturbance taxa
when people clear an area and the species who like that area settle in it (successional species, secondary taxa, secondary species). This is a way to recognize when people were altering the environment for self-sustainability.
Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) 1979
•prohibits: (a)the excavation or removal of artifacts from federal property without a permit (b)the sale, exchange, or transport of artifacts acquired illegally from federal property (c)increased penalties for violations of the act over those of the Antiquities Act. •felony acts •penalty up to $250,000 and/or up to 5 years in prison •allows for looting equipment to be confiscated •judges can impose civil penalties •archaeological or commercial value of the artifacts •cost of restoration and repair of the site -example of violation is the Slack Farm in Uniontown, Kentucky in the 1980s where looters leased the land for $10,000.