Archaeology Final
Multiregional Hypothesis
Anatomically modern humans evolved in place all over Africa, Europe and Asia from populations of archaics who already lived on those continents - this argument is referred to as the "Multiregional Hypothesis".
Why do we need to preserve the archeological record and learn about past environments:
Learn about the human past Linking people to their own heritage: Many modern people who trace their ancestry to the ancient people who created the archaeological record of a particular place want to preserve that record because they feel that it provides knowledge of their own past or a link to their own past. Tourism : Archaeology can provide a source of income for people through tourism, especially in places with lots of fancy stuff (e.g., Egypt and Central America, where people in ancient societies built pyramids, temples, etc. that people today like to go look at). So, there are many people around the world who have an economic interest in preserving the archaeological record.
How Did Food Procurement Strategies Change at the Beginning of the Holocene?
Change in diet: Increased procurement of high cost resources in diet (e.g. small game, plants). More food extracted from the same amount of land. Wider range of food with greater efficiency. Storage. New tools, bows and aarows - 9000 B.C. Old world, 2000 B.C. New world People work harder May entail increasing diversity of tool types (technological innovation) More sedentary More intensive technology for hunting, fishing, gathering (foraging) Development of social ranking and complex structure
Domestication:
Changes in the psychical characteristics of a plant or animal species caused by human manipulation (co-evolutionary).
Uniface:
Core worked on only one side.
Hard Hammer Percussion:
Earliest and most basic flintknapping technique. Produce flakes by striking another stone, the hammerstone against a core. It can produce simple lithic tools like a handaxe.
How to know if one is a complex society
Evidence of Social Complexity and Labor Specilization: • How do you know hierarchy or social rank from archaeological record? Grave goods, elaborated grave—exotic pottery, jewelry buried with human remains Different size in houses in village site. • How about division of labor? Elaborated artifact—may required long times to create infer the existence of pottery specialist. The same pottery design distributed to wide areawhen people made pottery in each household, detail about the pottery, e.g., design, particular shape, the receipt may vary, but once one group of potter make pottery as craft specialist, we may see more standardized pottery across the village, or even larger region. Human remains. Grave goods. Economic Independence: o Existence of materials, not indigenes to the region. e.g., shell ornament found in inland American Southwest (may from California coast) Centralized Leadership: Large monumental architecture
To Procurement Strategies:
Extensification and Intensification.
Soft Hammer Percussion
Produces flakes by striking the unfinished tool with a soft hammer, (usually a piece of antler, bone or wood.) This differs from a hard hammer flake because it tends to be thin and flat with a small platform.
Shard:
pieces of ceramic vessels found in archaeological sites.
Agricultural Revolution
shift form hunting /foraging to harming 10,000-5,000 BP
Ardipithecus Ramidus
• Found in east Africa: Ethiopia • Found in heavily forested, flood plain environment • 5-4 MYA • Ape like traits: - Molars_smallàvegetarian, fruit - Brain __chimps size - Unclear if bipedal but stood upright - Thin enamel on teeth
Holocene Environmental Change:
• The Holocene (post-glacial time) - after 10,000 BP continue to the present day • 15,000 BP, earth started to warm up and came out of the Ice Age • Sea level rose—up to 90 m àchange geological feature, less land • Vegetation change • Large Game hunting declined. • Extinction of some animal species
Intensification:
Additional investment of time/energy in the existing fields.
What is the impact of agriculture on human health?
Drought, frost or pest may cause the agricultural failure that lead population starvation. Long hours -delayed production. Risk management strategies associated to early agriculture Storage Trading Dual economy supplemented by wild resources.
Extensification:
Expand space _ mobility (no more)
Dated Event
The date that is investigated by the technique. EX. When a pot was last burned. Death of corn/seed. Death of Tree.
Bi face:
core worked on both sides
Obsidian Hydration Dating
A chemical dating technique of obsidian artifact based on the cumulative hydration, or adsorption of water. 1960: Friedman and Smith recognized that water penetrating into obsidian creates a band that is visible in cross section under a microscope. Since the hydration layer penetrates deeper into the surface through time, the thickness of this layer can be used to determine the amount of time the surface has been exposeddetermine how old the obsidian artifact is (NOT the age of obsidian as rock!!) - Obsidian tool/flake (artifact): We can determine when the artifacts were created by obsidian hydration dating. - Obsidian rock: We can determine when the rock was formed (not obtained by human) by potassium-argon dating.
Essay Question one: Precision and Accuracy Dating
Dating Precision and Accuracy Dating Precision: The width of the range of time to which you are able to determine the age of something with a given technique. - E.g., 11,500 to 10,800 BP, A.D. 250±50 years (radiocarbon dating) - E.g., A.D.800±0 (dendrochronology) Dating Accuracy: How close a date that you are interested in your question is to the true age of the thing that is being dated based on particular technique. Dated Event vs. Target Event (when was the pueblo burnt and abandoned?) Case 1: - Method: Radiocarbon dating (ASM) of burnt log used for the pueblo building found on the house floor. - Dated event: Death of the tree. Case 2: - Method: Luminescence dating of pot sherds found on the house floor - Dated event: The last time when the pot was fired. Case 3: • Method: Radiocarbon dating (ASM) on carbonized corn/seeds found on the house floor. • Dated event: Death of the corn/seed. Case 2 is more accurate than Case 1. Why? Case 3 is more accurate than Case 1. Why?
Relative Dating
A time scale developed by the law of superposition or artifact ordering. - how old is it relative to other things? - put things in order relative to one another. - Which one is older than the other? EX. SERIATION
Dating Case Methods (Essay)
Dated Event vs. Target Event (when was the pueblo burnt and abandoned?) Case 1: - Method: Radiocarbon dating (ASM) of burnt log used for the pueblo building found on the house floor. - Dated event: Death of the tree. Case 2: - Method: Luminescence dating of pot sherds found on the house floor - Dated event: The last time when the pot was fired. Case 3: • Method: Radiocarbon dating (ASM) on carbonized corn/seeds found on the house floor. • Dated event: Death of the corn/seed. Case 2 is more accurate than Case 1. Why? Case 3 is more accurate than Case 1. Why?
Dating Accuracy
How close a date that you are interested in your question is to the true age of the thing that is being dated based on particular technique.
Chopped Stone tools
Made of rocks that are composed of Silica. Hard Hammer Percussion, Soft Hammer Percussion and Pressure Flaking.
Agriculture:
Obtain food from the intense use of previously domesticated plants and animals.
When was the beginning of agriculture and domestication of Animals?
Sheep and goats—ca. 10,000 BP Dogs—ca. 14,000 or 12,000 BP
Law of Superposition
The relationship between two objects, structures, or layers in the vertical plane.
Flake:
What comes off of the core.
Hominids
our ancestor, members of Hominidae, the biological family we belong to. Habitually bipedal.
Debitage:
unwanted flakes
Core:
what the hammerstone or item is hitting the core to create tools from the core.
Mesopotamia Civilization:
• Around 7000 B.C., farmers relied on seasonal rains and later developed simple irrigation methods. • Around 6000 B.C., painted pots production (Halafian cultural tradition) • Extended trading network with pots traded to 600 miles. • Origin of complexity o Environmental change o 7000 B.C.~5500 B.C. greater reliable rainfall in southern Mesopotamia. o As climate became drier and floodplain expanded, some people turned simple irrigation agriculture. o More population more competition over land aggregation of villages better social organization with complexity.
Potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating example
Another isotopic dating technique. Magma: potassium but no argon (argon is a gas) Materials : Volcanic rock solidifies (no argon initially) à good to date early hominids (but no direct dating of fossils!! dating volcanic rock / layer under and above the fossil and estimate) Span of time 1,000 through 100,000,000+ Potassium-40 decays to argon-40: - 40K + e → 40Ar - Half life = 1.26 billion years
Luminescence Dating (TL/OSL dating)
Dated materials: heated materials such as ceramics, and burned lithics, and buried sediment (not surface sediment). Span of Time : 100 - 500,000~1,000,000 years Direct dating of ceramics and burnt lithics Principle: - Crystalline materials such as quartz and feldspar in ceramics, glass trap electrons released by the natural radiation in the material. - These trapped electrons accumulate through time. - When the substance is heated above a critical temperature (400-500°C for ceramics) or intense lights, accumulated electrons are to be released as light energy (luminescence). - Energy emitted by heat: Thermoluminescence (TL) - Energy emitted by light: Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) Date event: Last time when ceramic were fired, or buried sediments were exposed to the sun. Procedure for luminescence dating - Original heating of pottery released all previously stored energy (luminescence) = setting the clock at zero. - Investigator heats or use apply intense lights to the sample (pottery/sediments) and measure the amount of energy that has accumulated. - Convert released energy to an age measurement by comparing a table of energy accumulation rates.
Isotopic/Radiometric dating
Isotopic / Radiometric Dating Method Based on the principle of radioactive decay. Includes Radiocarbon (14C) dating, Uranium (U) series dating, potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating Principle: - Nuclear model of the atom: • Atoms consist of small, positively charged nucleus, where most of the mass resides. • Surrounding the nucleus is empty space with electrons, which occupy fixed, stable energy states. • Negative charge of electrons just balances the positive charge of the protons in the nucleus. • But atoms of the same charge (Z) sometimes come in several different weights (A) which means that nuclei must also hold other, non- charged particles (neutrons). • Atoms with the same nuclear charge but different weights are called isotopes of the same element. - Isotope • Isotope : atoms of a chemical element that differ in the number of neutrons • For example, Carbon (C) 6 proton 6 neutron = the isotope 12C (98%) = stable 7 neutron = the isotope 13C = stable 8 neutron = the isotope 14C = radioactive • Radioactive decay ( braking down of radioactive isotope to stable isotope) occurs at a constant rate of each radioactive isotope. - Radiocarbon Dating Method based on radioactive decay • Half-life: the amount of time that it takes for half of the atoms of an isotope in a piece of material to decay. e.g., the half-life of 14C is 5730 years • Measure the amount of 14C in archaeological sample and compared to modern sample = how much decay? • Example: a piece of charcoal is found to have 75% (0.75x) of the modern amount of C-14. 25% break down to 14N 14C 14N + ß- The age is calculated by decay rate based on half life. Age (t) = [ ln (0.75) / (-0.693) ] x 5,700 years • Calibration required (explain later) after this calculation.
Clovis Culture
- C.13,500-13,350 years ago. - Clovis people camped on the plains near water sources where megafauna came to drink. They also likely hunted smaller game an exploited a range of vegetal resources - Earliest group of Paleo-Indians - Characterized by Clovis point. - Attached to the split end of wooden spear shafts: Clovis points. - Often found with mammoth bones. - Travel to obtain raw materials up to 300 miles. - Clovis kill and camp sites were most often located near water. - Clovis culture: only a few hundred years. - Why did Clovis users disappear around 13k years ago? o Around the same time the megafauna disappeared. o Overkill hypothesis Wasting hunting methods o Climate change Ice and sea cores, tree-rings, pollen study, better dating technique. Rapid temperature rise and drought. o The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis Clovis comet hypothesis The climate was cooled by the impact or air burst of one or more comets. Change in animal and human life: due to the disrupted ecological relationships.
Dendrochronology Dating Example:
- Dated Event : the death of tree - Targeted Event : e.g., construction of building (can be anything based on your question) - Dated Event ≠ Targeted Event • Old tree that died long time before construction of the building may have been used. • Recycling woods from old structure.
AMS Radio Carbon Dating
Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) allows the dating of objects as tiny as a fleck of charcoal inside a tool socket or an individual seed from an early farming village. Thanks to AMS we know that farming first began in southwestern Asia. Benefits: can use extremely small samples and background radiation is not a problem.
Out-of-Africa Hypothesis
Anatomically modern humans appear to have originated in Africa by 160 kya and then to have spread across Europe and Asia between about 90 kya (or a little earlier) and 30 kya or so. Also by about 40 kya, humans began to colonize the rest of the world (up until this time, all hominids had lived in Africa, Asia and Europe). The first new part of the world to be colonized was a landmass that encompassed what is today New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania.
Archaic Human
By 300 or 200 kya, hominid fossils have begun to look more like modern humans, but they also still share some characteristics with H. erectus. These new hominids are similar enough to us that most researchers place them within our own species, Homo sapiens - i.e., humans. However, they are still different enough from us that they are referred to as "premodern" or "archaic" humans, as opposed to "anatomically modern humans" These hominids have brain sizes that are well within the range seen among modern humans, but they still have large brow ridges like H. erectus. The Neanderthals - Archaic human lived in Europe and the Middle East. - Anatomically very robust—adapted to cold climate. - As large as or larger than our brain size. - Burying their dead and placing items in the grave with them, and making and wearing jewelry. - Hunter and ate lots of meat. "Archaic" Human Technology • Mousterian tools - The Neanderthal and early archaic human stone-tool tradition. - Shift from the production of core tools to production of flake tools. - Levallois technique—prepare cores to produce flakes for producing consistently shaped flakes. • Tools found at early archaic H. sapiens sites are very similar to those found at H. erectus sites - hand axes remain the most common kind of tool. By 200 kya, however, a new way of making stone tools appears, which is referred to as Levallois technology. • Levallois technology—The core is prepared by removing flakes all the way around, and a large "Levallois flake" is then removed from the top of the core - this flake is what is used as a tool (projectile point, scraper, etc.). This technique makes it easy to create tools with a variety of shapes.
Absolute dating
Dating in calendar years before the present; chronometric dating. - how old is it? (e.g., A.D. 300, 10,000 B.P). - assign absolute ages to things. Assigns an age to specific artifacts or archaeological contexts Provides dates for major developments. e.g., origins of agriculture Indicates duration for periods, phases, and other chronological units Kinds of Absolute Dating Tree-rings (dendrochronology) Geochronological absolute dating technique: - Archaeomagnetic Chemical absolute dating technique: - Obsidian hydration Radiogenic/isotopic absolute dating technique - Radiocarbon (14C) - Potassiium-argon (K-Ar) - Luminescence dating (OSL/TL) Besides learning the principle of each technique, you need to know; - Kinds of materials to be dated • e.g., radiocarbon dating : only organic materials, not ceramics - Span of time • e.g., radiocarbon dating : up to 10,000 years old - Precision and accuracy
Stratigraphic Dating
Observation of the superimposed layers in an archaeological site. Stratigraphic dating involves using layers in the earth (strata) to tell time based on principles of stratigraphy. Stratigraphic dating is one of the most important dating methods that archaeologists (and geologists) use. - Stratum (plural = Strata): A layer of material in the earth that is distinguishable in some way from other layers. - Stratigraphy: The layering of strata within a site or a region; also the study of strata, which is important in archaeology and geology for telling time and for lots of other reasons, such as understanding site formation processes and learning about past environments. - Principles of stratigraphy • Law of Superposition: In any pile of undisturbed strata, the youngest stratum is at the top and the oldest is at the bottom; this principle can be used to place things within a site (kinds of artifacts, etc.) into chronological order. • Principle of Strata Identified by Fossils: If strata in different sites contain the same kinds of fossils, then those strata are of the same age (this principle was originally developed in geology - for archaeology, substitute "particular type of artifacts" for "fossils"); this principle can be used to "correlate" strata between sites, allowing the construction of regional chronologies. - Need to be cautious about possible disturbance of the law of superposition. e.g., animal burrowing - History of Stratigraphic Dating • Prior to the early 1900s, most archaeologists in the U.S. did not excavate sites "stratigraphically". • Stratigraphic excavations had become fairly common in Europe before this time, and a few had been conducted in the U.S. (e.g., by Thomas Jefferson), but it wasn't until the 1910s and 1920s that they really caught on here. They caught on because a few archaeologists working mostly in the southwestern U.S. showed that they could be extraordinarily useful. • These archaeologists showed how, by excavating stratigraphically, it was possible to work out how things like pottery designs (classified into "pottery types") changed over time. Once you worked out which design "type" came first, which came second, etc., at one site (using the principle of superposition), you could then go to a new site in the area, pick up or dig up some potsherds, and determine where the site fell in the regional chronology (using the principle of strata identified by fossils). • Stratigraphic excavation followed by stratigraphic dating became common in U.S. archaeology after 1920.
Chiefdom Society
Reciprocity relationships based on kin tie (clans and lineages). Big Men—powerful kin leader (eventually hereditary). Maintain political, economic and social control within local area. All society categorized as chiefdom slightly different. Example: Midwest and southeastern US • Moundbuilder culture • Midwest and southeastern US • Adena culture 500BC-AD400 • Hopewell tradition 200BC-AD400 • Mississippian tradition AD400~ o Earth monument o Cahokia, economic and political center o Elaborated trading systesms Example : Chaco Canyon Case Chaco was a center of economic and political network between 900 and 1150 A.D. near Four Corners regain in the American Southwest. A government that regulated religious affairs through both individual like chiefs and kin groups that across kin lines.
Seriation
Sequence dating, a technique for ordering artifacts by their structure and design. The unidimensional ordering of artifacts based on similarity. - Two Seriation techniques : Stylistic and Frequency Seriation. Frequency Seriation - A relative age determination technique in which artifacts or other archaeological data are chronologically ordered by ranking their relative frequencies to confirm with battleship-shaped curves. - This is based on the assumption that the popularity of a type gradually increases to a peak, then decreases until the type disappears (battleship-shaped curve). - Seriation must be cross-checked against stratigraphy and absolute dates whenever possible and requires additional information to indicate which end is "early" and which is late. Stylistic Seriation - A relative age determination technique in which artifacts or other data are ordered chronologically according to stylistic similarities. - Based on assumption of gradual change in style. - Change is NOT always simple to complex.
Sumerian Period:
Sumerian Period • Sumerian period/culture (3100-2350 BC) • This is called the Early Dynastic or Early Bronze Age • Sumeria is regarded by many archaeologists as the first so-called "civilization", and in our terms Sumeria is a complex, functionally differentiated society • But we see the details of this form much earlier... • During the Sumerian period we see the growth of "city states" founded in the earlier Uruk period - each with its own temple or complex of temples and its own territory. • Temples regarded as some sort of ceremonial or religious structure and often associated with stepped towers called ziggurats • These were public buildings in the Ubaid period but by the Uruk period, they became much larger and more elaborate, and the use of ziggurats is thought in part to serve the purpose of elevating the religious or political elite above any crowd of commoners. • Sumerian - Ur • Site of Ur.___Very large city with lots of public architecture.
Carrying Capacity
The ability of the land/environment that can support the number of the people.
Target Event
The date you want to know to answer your research question. EX. When a pueblo was burned and abandoned?
Dendrochronology
The dating of past events (climate change) through the study of tree ring growth. The Climate changes or patterns in specific geographic areas can be traced by dendrochronology. Counting of annual growth rings.
Sumerian Writing
The earliest writing ever (this is why I can give you a date of as precise as 2350 BC) • The earliest evidence of writing comes in the form of small baked clay counters which apparently represent parts of some sort of early record keeping system for goods and services. • Tokens were made in 16 basic shapes and the meanings of these figured out from later writing that had the same symbols. • Writing initially appears for accounting - keep track of stuff. • Tokens in balls. Used for shipping. • Over time, the tokens became more complex, with standardized designs incised into the clay. • They were stored in hollow clay balls called bullae or envelopes with incised designs. • Tokens and Clay Balls • By the beginning of the Sumerian/Early Dynastic (3000 bc) people were not only incising clay balls but were putting these same symbols on clay tablets in the form of pictograms - pictures that represent other things - the earliest clay tablets with pictograms are found in Uruk. • The first inscriptions were placed in vertical lines on the tablets but within about 50 years tablets are found in which the pictographs are oriented horizontally. • By about 2000 BC - the pictographs on clay tablets evolved into a series of standardized impressions made with reeds on clay tablets called cuneiform (from Latin cuneus "wedge" and forma or "shape" ) There were 6-700 original characters - and they were oriented horizontally on the tablets. Cuneiform • Unlike other early forms of writing (like Egyptian hieroglyphs, cuneiform developed and was used for more practical purposes - as administrative economic records - or to keep track of people • One example is the "Standard Professions List" - names of people and their professions in order of power and prestige.
Homo Halibis
The other major branch that began at this "fork of the road" is apparently the one that leads to us. Shortly after 2.5 mya, we see the first fossils of another new group of hominids. Fossils of these hominids look enough like us that researchers place them in our own genus: Homo. The earliest species of this genus is called Homo habilis. The main difference between this hominin and earlier ones is that it had a larger average brain size - bigger than any ape, and about half as big as the average brain size of modern humans. Dates?: after 2.5 mya First (stone ) tool maker Physical characteristics: Larger average brain size (bigger than any ape, and about half as big as the average brain size of modern humans) Tool technology : Oldowan choppers Where was it found? : Olduvai Gorge in East Africa Diet: change from vegetarian to scavenging Homo • An absolute brain size of 600 cc • The possession of language, identified from casts of the brain patterns on the inside of the braincase. • The possession of a modern, humanlike precision grip and an opposable thumb. • The ability to manufacture stone tools. The First Stone Tools • Oldowan choppers - 2.5 mya - Simple stone tools—a hand sized cobble - Both these "choppers" and the flakes that were produced when the choppers were made were used for cutting, scraping, chopping, etc. We know this because archaeologists have studied the edges of these tools under microscopes in order to look at "use-wear" on them. - Fist found in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. - Made by Homo habilis. - Other possible tool?— it is quite possible that they Why Homo habilis made first? -many people think that it was the larger brain of H. habilis that allowed them to do this since making stone tools requires a fair amount of intelligence. - actually began to use tools (such as wooden tool) much earlier than this and that we simply don't have any evidence of that today.
Dating Precision
The width of the range of time to which you are able to determine the age of something with a given technique. - E.g., 11,500 to 10,800 BP, A.D. 250±50 years (radiocarbon dating) - E.g., A.D.800±0 (dendrochronology)
Evidence for Control of Fire
They probably were able to control fire. The H. erectus group in Europe and Asia did live in environments that were much colder than the African tropics.they may have used fire. Animal bones were found in a site called Swartkrans in South Africa about 1.3 mya that have been burned at a temperature of perhaps 800 °C. This is far hotter than most natural fires, but temperatures this high can be achieved in a campfire.
Ground Stone tools:
a storm formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally.
Radiocarbon Dating
is a way of determining the age of certain archaeological artifacts of a biological origin up to about 50,000 years old. Used for bones, cloth, wood and plant fibers. Radiocarbon dating (C14 dating) • Most common and least expensive • About $300 per sample • Samples of up to 75,000 years old • Discovered that C14 has known decay rate of about 40 years Can understand how much C14 is inside your body's cells as you decay • This carbon filters through the environment • Anything that formerly was alive and preserved in some form can be analyzed • For organic materials
Characteristics of a Complex Society
o Highly stratified, rather than egalitarian. o Centralized leadership. o Labor specialization. It may be more efficient to have division of labors to maximize production. o Economic interdependence. E.g., trading network, more scheduled trading.
Ubaid Culture:
• 5300-3600 BC • Emerges out of Neolithic - villages, pottery and domesticated plants/animals • Ubaid culture is distinctive because - wide distribution of a beautiful hand crafted pottery style made in large quantities with great standarization. - The ceramics of this style are found into central Turkey, into the northern Arabian Plateau and into Highland Iran - A very wide distribution - lots of trade and exchange over a large area. - The Ubaid ceramics appear to be made on a slow turning potter's wheel. Ubaid Pottery • Ubaid Pottery Production • Some areas that appear to be for production of pottery - production centers -- from which pottery was distributed to nearby settlements • Specialization! Ubaid - Irrigation • Ubaid period is marked by an increasing reliance on canal irrigation Ubaid - Public Architecture • Public buildings in residential communities these called temples by most archaeologists although we do not know what they were used for exactly Also called "Ziggurats" in Mesopotamia The earliest evidence of this is in the early settlement called Eridu - which was established at the beginning of the Ubaid period and was inhabited for a long time -
Homo Erectus
• At about 1.8 mya, H. habilis appears to have evolved into a new form of hominid, which soon spread out of Africa into southern Europe and Asia. the H. erectus group. • The earliest African form sometimes called Homo ergaster. Early vs. late (early: older, farther from the present, late: younger, closer to the present) • H. erectus-group fossils show up in eastern Europe by 1.75 mya and in western Europe by 1 mya or 800 kya. There are a lot of problems with the dates on the earliest H. erectus fossils from east Asia, but they may be as old as 1.5 or 1.6 mya. • Another increase in brain size. With the H. erectus group, we see another increase in brain size - some individuals had brains almost as large as the brains of modern humans. Below the neck, these hominids were nearly indistinguishable from modern humans (earlier hominids had much been shorter). • Homo erectus tool: The tools found at the very earliest H. erectus-group sites are still those of the Oldowan tradition. By about 1.4 mya, however, these tools developed into something much more sophisticated: the Acheulean hand axe, the tool most commonly associated with H. erectus. Acheulean hand axe—general purpose tool for piecing, scraping, chopping, etc. • Homo erectus and fire They probably were able to control fire. The H. erectus group in Europe and Asia did live in environments that were much colder than the African tropics.they may have used fire. Animal bones were found in a site called Swartkrans in South Africa about 1.3 mya that have been burned at a temperature of perhaps 800 °C. This is far hotter than most natural fires, but temperatures this high can be achieved in a campfire.
Uruk Period:
• Establishment of urban settlements, considered by many to be the earliest "states" in Sumer region • The Uruk site itself is the earliest of these big urban settlements. • It is estimated that by 3800 BC as many as 10,000 people lived at Uruk. • Uruk • Many of the smaller farming communities are abandoned and their populations consolidated into urban settlements by this time. • We see small sites decrease in frequency or disappear altogether and bigger centers become more populated. • This trend continued until by about 3,000 BC it is estimated that about 50,000 people lived in Uruk and at this time what is interpreted as a defensive wall is built around the city and all of its residents. • There is evidence of competition and possible inter-city warfare Uruk - Pottery • Marked decrease in the frequency of painted pottery during this time. • Pottery appears to be mass produced - • Increased evidence of craft specialization Uruk - Large Public Architecture • Like the previous Ubaid period, Uruk period sites had large public architecture - Ziggaurats or "temples" • Uruk Temple
Australopithecus afarensis
• Just before 4 mya, evidence of a new genus of hominins in Africa. • This is the species to which remarkable complete skeleton known as "Lucy" found in east Africa belongs. (~3 feet 6 inches, 62 lbs, Female, 19-21 years old, 3.18 mya) It is also probably the species that made the footprints found preserved in volcanic ash at Laetoli, Tanzania in east Africa. • Skeletons like "Lucy" show that these critters were fully bipedal, as do the Laetoli footprints. • What did the species eat? Vegetarian food (seeds, fruit, roots, so on) • What evidence indicates their diet? Teeth Australopithecus 3-2.5 mya • Australopithecus africanus_South Africa, 3 mya • Robust australopithecines_East and South Africa, 3-1 mya • Aistralopithecus garhi_East Africa, 2.5 mya A Fork in the Road of Hominid Evolution • Up until this time, australopithecines had lightly-built skulls, somewhat like those of modern chimps - these are called "gracile australopithecines" (which continue as A. africanus until about 2 mya). Between 3 and 2.5 mya, however, we start to see a new group of hominids with huge jaws and teeth, and with huge attachments for the jaw muscles on the skull. These hominids are called the "robust australopithecines" • Robust Australopithecines: The robust australopithecines are one major branch that began at the 3-2.5 mya "fork in the road". This branch of the tree apparently went extinct by 1 mya. Their robust skulls were probably an adaptation to eating hard foods like nuts and seeds (though they may also have eaten other things).
The Holocene Environmental Change
• The Holocene (post-glacial time) - after 10,000 BP continue to the present day • 15,000 BP, earth started to warm up and came out of the Ice Age • Sea level rose—up to 90 m àchange geological feature, less land • Vegetation change • Large Game hunting declined. • Extinction of some animal species
Humans in North America
• The Paleoindian period can be considered to be the American equivalent of the Upper Paleolithic because of some broad similarities in technology with Europe and Asia during this period (bone tools, blades, etc.) • The origin of modern human may be from Siberia through Beringia around 15k years ago, also supported by biological and linguistic evidences. • Beringia_18k years ago, the sea levels were more than 300 feet lower than today. Human followed animals (mammoths, bison, wild horses, caribou) • How did early humans come to Americas? Earliest sites in the new world - Given Beringia, one might expect to find early archaeological deposits in the northern part of the continent (e.g., Alaska or Washington). - Earliest well dated site—14,050 and 13,600 years ago. in South America (Monte Verde). - Earliest in North America—13,700 years ago, The Broken Mammoth sites, Alaska. - So how/when did people get to Monte Verde? - Possible there were two migrations (at least). 1. Coastal route along the edge of the ice sheet straight down to South America. 2. A land route through the "Ice Free Corridor" - a break between the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice sheets
The Earliest Hominids
• The earliest fossil hominids from Africa, 6 or 7 mya. • Genetic analysis of modern humans and chimps also suggests that our lineage diverged from the chimp lineage between 7 and 5 mya. • Bipedal, ape-size brain. • Two earliest genera - Ardipethicus and australopithecus - These first hominins had ape-like skulls and ape-sized brains, but they all seem to have been able to walk much like modern humans. - So, our ancestors became bipedal by at least 6-7 mya, but the bigger brains didn't come until much later.
Pre Clovis
− Settlement before 15,000 and after 15,000 years ago. − Monte Verde, Chile o 13, 600-14,050 years ago o Plant remains and numerous wooden objects recovered, along with stone flakes and broken animal bones. o The timber and earthen foundations of 12 living structures found. o Two large hearths and a number of shallow clay basins provided fireplaces for the inhabitants of the huts. o Many artifacts were found inside the structures. o Relied on plants and large animals. − Meadowcroft Rockshelter o Eastern Pennsylvania o Many C14 dates made in different labs, spanning form 12K to 19K BP. o Flake knives, rectangular bifaces, gravers, and Mungai Knife (unifacial pointed flakes). o The association with Holocene fauna was considered problematic but there is no basis for not accepting the dates and faunal association. − Recent study at Buttermilk Creek in central Texas's hill country Looking along the coast may reveal the earliest sites... • The chunks of chert were under the layer of Clovis point and they might not be as elegant as a Clovis-style spear head, but they show some primitive markings of similar technology--and were made 15,500 to 13,200 years ago based on OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) dating some time before Clovis emerged. • Also see page 262 in the textbook.