Archeology Mid Term

Science is self correcting

as more facts about the world become known, science is wiling to reject flawed explanations in favor of better ones

Science does not....

aways provide the right answer to a question!

Who is an archaeologist?

"think from things" documents everything works with notebooks, calipers, and state of the arts technologies, extracts residue from stone tools, and date remains, reconstruct ancient social and political organizations analyze skeletal remains to determine diet

Cultural Disturbance Process

A farmer plowing over an archaeological site and changing the context of the artifacts is an example.

"Gumshoe survey"

A good way to find rare or spectacular sites. Getting advice from locals about interesting places, a fortunate combination of happenstance, hard work, and luck.

Stratigraphy

A site's physical structure produced by the deposition of geological and/or cultural sediments into layers in known as...

Absolute Dating

A technique used to determine the actual age of a fossil, helped to shape archaeology into the science it is today.

What is culture?

An integrated system of beliefs, traditions, and customs that govern or influence a person's behavior. Archaeology is concerned with how culture changes over time.

Artifact

Ancient objects retrieved from sites that are the primary source of information for archaeologists.

Antiquarian

Someone who is interested in ancient objects strictly for their artistic value, rather than for the information they provide about people or culture that produced them.

What limits surface survey? What are the basic remote sensing techniques and their benefits?

Surface archaeology documents only what lies on or near the ground surface.

Stratified Random Sample

Takes the sample universe and divides it into sub-universes. - A sample was drawn from a statistical population such that every member of the population has an equal chance of being included in that population

The extent of human antiquity in the Americas

The Folsom site is important in the history of American archaeology because it proved the extent of human antiquity in the Americas. It proved that humans lived in North America for 10,000 years at least

Classical Anthropology

The branch of archaeology that studies the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean, such as Greece, and Rome, and the Near East

Americanist Archaeology

The brand of archaeology that evolved in close association with anthropology in the Americas is known as Americanist archaeology.

Dendeochronology

The dating technique attempts to date the age of the last outermost ring of a tree, can date back to 10,000 years but It depends on the trees in the area. useful in relatively small regions

Larger Field of Anthropology

The key elements of modern archaeology are that it is linked to the larger field of anthropology, interested in the people behind the artifacts.

Culture History

The kind of archaeology practiced during the early to mid-20th century, in which changes in artifact frequencies through time were explained by diffusion of ideas or migration of people

Low - level theories

The observations and interpretations that emerge from hands-on archaeological field and lab work are known as...

Low-Level Theory

The observations and interpretations that emerge from hands-on archeological field and lab work Behind with archaeological objects and generates relevant facts or data about those objects Data depends on theory much as theory depends on data Archaeologists don't excavate data but objects, data are observations made on these objects

Statistical sampling

The principles that underlie sampling strategies that provide accurate measures of a statistical population - The best way to ensure the unbiased resource is through the judicial use of statistical sampling. - Biased sampling methods can lead to archaeologists astray.

"Deep Time"

The recognition that the life was far more ancient than biblical scholars recognized and that human culture had evolved over time.

High level theories

Why did some societies evolve stratified social and political systems whereas others remained egalitarian? This type of question would be examined by...

water screening

a sieving process in which deposit is placed on a screen and the matrix washed away with hoses; essential where artifacts are expected to be small and/or difficult to find without washing

The index fossil concept

all of the following except it is expressed in specific units or scientific measurements that is not diagnostic of a particular period of time

reuse processes

human behaviors that recycle and reuse artifacts before they enter an archaeological context

Relative date

is a date expressed relative to another date, rather than in absolute terms

A persons culture

is not biologically controlled! It is learned, sharpen by members of a group, symbolic, based on the ability to think in terms of symbols.

The benefit of random sampling

is that it prevents sites from being overrepresented or underrepresented in the sample.

Old Wood Problem

old wood was scavenged and reused in a site

archaeological context

once an artifact enters the ground, they become a part of the archaeological context, where they can continue to be affected by human action, but are also affected by natural processes. reclamation processes are the transfer of materials from the archaeological to the systemic context.

Relative Dating Method

orders artifacts based on the assumption that one cultural style slowly replaces an earlier style over time is seriation.

paradigms

overarching framework for understanding how the world works - alot like culture, learned, shared and symbolic - are not open to direct open empirical verification, they are just useful or not.

deductive reasoning

reasoning from theory to account for specific observations of experimental results, the conclusion must be true.

How do archaeologists recover the smallest artifacts and ecofacts?

use sifters to find things that hand excavation misses. They use water screening, flotation. dirt doesn't float but carbonized plant remains do.

Inductive reasoning

working from a specific observations to more general hypothesis

Test Excavation

would be most appropriate when trying to determine a site's potential for answering a research question - a small initial excavation to determine a site's potential for answering a research question - designed to supply, as expediently as possible, a stratified sequence of artifacts and eco facts associated with with potentially datable material.

Science is reiterative (repetitive)

the scientific cycle does begin and end with facts

What is Science?

1) Science is empirical, or objective 2) Science is systematic or explicit 3) Science is logical 4) Science is explanatory and consequently predictive 5) Science is self-critical and based on testing 6) Science is public

Smithsonian site number

26CH798 - the number "26" stands for the number of the state (arranged alphabetically) in which the site is located.

New Archaeology

A approach in the 1960's that emphasized the understanding of underlying cultural processes and the use of the scientific method.

Preservation of organic remains

A bog is ideal for the preservation of organic remains because conditions remain permanently wet and depleted of oxygen

What is the difference between relative and absolute dating?

A date expressed in specific units of scientific measurement such as days years centuries, millennia, absolute determinations attempting to pinpoint a discrete, known interval in time Relative Dates are dates expressed relative to one another (for instance, earlier, later, more recent) instead of absolute terms.

What is an anthropological approach

Anthropologists believe the best understanding of the human condition arises from a global, comparative, and holistic approach. Anthropology insists that every aspect of every human society, extant or extinct counts Archaeologists are anthropologists who specialize in ancient societies, drawing upon each of the subfields of anthropology.

Archaeological Site

Any place where a concentration of material evidence exists about the human past - Many archaeological sites have been found by farmers, and cowboys, locals. - There is no single formula to finding archaeological sites

Shroud of Turin

Radiocarbon dating was able to determine that the Shroud of Turin dates dates to medieval times between AD 1260 and 1390.

Archaeology depends on public support

Archaeologists are often involved with the general public for its livelihood, and so consequently it owes something back to the public

How can Archaeology best be defined?

Archaeology can best be defined as the study of the past through the systematic recovery and analysis of material remains

Time Makers

Artifact forms that research shows to be diagnostic of a particular period of time

Artifacts Catalog Numbers

Assigning the ACN and carefully cataloging all the finds form each site Is important to archaeologists because the artifact's original provenience and context will not be lost.

How was the rise of Archaeology connected to the discovery of humanity's deep antiquity?

Challenged the understanding that the age of the ear was no more than about 6,000 years. Challenged the fact the world's creation didn't correlate with the Bible

Workhorse of archaeology

Dendrochronology provides the most precise date, but is not necessarily considered the workhorse of archaeology

Invasive Technique

Excavation

What determines preservation?

Excavation procedures depend on several factors, beginning with the kind of materials that have survived the passage of time. Some sites have wonderful preservation of of organic materials, including basketry, leather, and wood. In other sites, only ceramics, stones, and bones survive. and in the earliest archaeological sites, only stone tools remain.

Processual Paradigms

Explains social, economic, and cultural change as primarily the result of adaptation to material conditions. Adaptive survival, Archaeology explains evolutionary change of culture - external conditions (environment) are assumed to take causal priority over ideational factors in explaining change - culture viewed as a system - general systems theory

Ideational perspective

Focus on ideas, symbols, and mental structures as driving forces in shaping human behavior. According to the ideational view of culture, one cannot comprehend human behavior without understanding the symbolic code for that behavior. This perspective emphasizes, ideas, thoughts, and shared knowledge and sees symbols and their meaning as crucial to shaping human behavior.

Postprocessual Paradigms

Focuses on humanistic approaches and rejects scientific objectivity, more connected w/ ideas Concerned with interpreting the past, more than testing hypothesis - change arises largely from interactions between individuals operating within a symbolic and/or competitive system Processual-Plus: middle road. All archaeologists view history as the combined result of the actions of individuals

The usefulness of satellite imagery

For archaeology lies in the fact that aerial photographs can show buried features even though they are indistinct from the ground

Reclamation Process

Human behaviors that result in moving artifacts from the archaeological context back to the systemic context, as in scavenging beams from an abandoned structure to use them in a new one.

In situ

If an artifact is said to be in situ, it is in place The place where an artifact, eco fact, or feature was found during excavation or survey. In situ refers to an artifact that has not been moved from its original place for deposition. An artifact being in situ is critical fo the interpretation of that artifact, and consequently of the culture which formed it.

Statistical Population

Is a defined set of observations, or date about which relevant inquiries are to be made. The principles that underline sampling strategies, and provide accurate measures of the statistical population. - A set of counts, measurements, or characteristics about which relevant inquiries are to be made. Scientists use the term 'statistical population" in a specialized way (different from "population" in the ordinary sense)

Important benefit of remote sensing techniques

Is that they can greatly reduce the need for destructive exploration techniques

Post-Processual Archaeology

Is the archaeological paradigm that takes an ideational rather than an adaptive view of culture.

Provenience

Is the location of the artifact relative to a system of spatial data collection. The key to maintaining information about an artifact's context is its location. - Once archaeologists excavate a site, nobody can ever dig it again, therefore compulsive field notes are necessary. ** An artifacts provenience is the most important thing about the artifact. ** Provenience is essential to recording an artifact's context - it's the relationship to other artifacts, features and geological strata in a site. location is hierarchical because of an artifacts provenience is simultaneously a particular country, a particular state in that country, etc.... location is relative because we measure an artifacts position relative to a spatial system,

A Sample Fraction

Is the percentage of the sample universe that is surveyed. Areas with a lot of variability in archaeological remains require larger sample fractions do areas of variability.

Adaptive perspective

Isolates technology, ecology, demography, and economics as the key factors defining human behavior An adaptive perspective privileges "culture as a system" Social and cultural differences are viewed as responses to the material parameters of life (food shelter and reproduction)

Field Notes

It is essential that archaeologists take abundant, accurate, and detailed field notes during the excavations because archaeology destroys data as it is gathered; Once a site is excavated it cannot be re-excavated.

What is the difference between arbitrary and natural levels?

Natural levels are the sites strata which are more or less homogeneous or gradational material, visually separable from other levels by change in texture, color, rock, or organic content or by a sharp break in depositional character. Excavation prefers to excavate by natural levels whenever possible. Where these natural levels are thicker than 10 cm or even 5 cm, they excavate in arbitrary levels no more than 10cm or even 5cm in thickness in the natural levels.

Middle-Level Theory

Necessary to infer human behavior and natural processes from archaeological data Hypothesis that links archaeological observations with the human behavior or natural processes that produced them. Moves past observable to invisible, or relevant, human behavior or natural processes in the past Situations that require - observations of ongoing human behavior or natural processes or - evidence of the material results of that behavior or those processes

Archaeology can be controversial

People and leaders have used the past to justify their actions in the present, such that accounts of the past conflict with one another

How Archaeological Inquiry Works

Processual paradigms: Paradigms provide specific guidelines for high level theory paradigms generate more specific claims about a regions pre-history Postprocessual paradigm; May look at other social and economic factors for changes within a past society

The abbreviation "AD"

Referring to age in an archaeological or historic context means "In the year of the Lord"

Midden

Refuse deposit resulting from human activities

What are basic remote sensing techniques and their benefits?

Remote sensing refers to an array of photographic and geophysical techniques that rely on some form of electromagnetic energy - it might be raw electricity, light, heat or radio waves - to detect and measure characteristics of an archaeological target. Noninvasive, can look below the surface without having to dig a large area - Proton Precession magnetometer - The theory behind this device is complicated, but the principle is simple. Magnetometers measure the strength of magnetism between the earth's magnetic core and a sensor the archaeologist's controls. The equivalent of an MRI, nowadays a new device is used, fluxgate gradiomonitor magnetism of buried deposits. Soil resistivity - monitors the electrical resistance of soils in a restricted volume near the surface of an archaeological site. It is inexpensive Ground Penetrating Radar - A remote sensing technique in which radar pulses directed into the ground reflect back to the surface when they strike features or interfaces within the ground, showing the presence and depth of possible buried features.

Science is not infallible

Science is subject to false starts, dead ends, preconceived notions, and cultural biases.

What do archaeological dates date?

Show the dated event contemporaneous with a behavioral event of interest. We can never date archaeological sites by simple equivalences. Dating techniques tell us nothing about cultural activities.

Why do the site formation processes matter?

Sites are complex and archaeologists must draw inferences about human behavior from sites by knowing how the site was formed over time The archaeological record is only the contemporary evidence left over from past behavior. Once a object enters an archaeological context, a host of natural and cultural formation processes take place. Natural processes determine not only weather organic material will be preserved, but also where objects will be found. There is no simple correspondence between the distribution of artifacts in a site and human behavior.

Why do Archaeologists survey?

So that they can single down where to look In a large area

Size of the screen mesh

The size of the screen mesh Is used to sift for archaeological remains is important because it affects what artifacts are recovered

landscape archaeology

The study of ancient human modifications of the environment Landscape archaeology adds a concern with how people use and modify their environment

The structure of archaeology inquiry

Theories answer the "why" questions

High Level Theory

Theory that seeks to answer large "why" questions Goes beyond the archaeology specifics to address the "big questions" of concern to many social and historical sciences.

What is the main principle of surveying?

To have unbiased data, in order to represent each region properly

Alternating Dark and Light Rings

Trees have alternating dark and light rings. The dark rings are years late summer/fall growth.

An ideational perspective

Uses ideas, symbols, and mental structures as driving forces in shaping human behavior. People are thinkers, they think and share big thoughts

tree-ring dating (dendrochronology)

Variable tree ring widths preserve information about past climatic change and can be fit into a long-term chronological sequence. This makes tree-ring dating possible.. Trees in temperate and arctic areas are dormant in the winter and burst into activity in the spring

How both Adaptive and Ideational perspectives are reflected in archaeology

We need both perspectives to understand human diversity and history Both fall within an overreaching scientific aproach

Tree-Ring Dating

When faced with a choice of wood to use, pine would yield the best results

"Before Present"

When reading dates expressed in radiocarbon years "Before Present" (BP), the "present" is defined as the year AD 1950.

Radiocarbon Dating

a chemical analysis used to determine the age of organic materials based on their content of the radioisotope carbon-14. Radiocarbon dating is useful for archaeological sites that are less than 45,000 years old

systematic context

a living behavioral system in which artifacts are part of an ongoing system of manufacture, use, reuse, and discard. These items are part of a living behavioral system.

4 types of anthropology

biological, archaeology, linguistic, cultural

Science is self-correcting

deductive reasoning (reasoning from theory to account for specific observations of experimental results) is required to uncover these logical outcomes. - The conclusions must be true, given the premises are true - Generally take the form of "if" "then"

What is context, why does it matter?

the artifacts relationship to other artifacts, features, and geologic strata in a site. This information is crucial to knowing what an artifact has to tell us.

testability

the degree to which one's observations and experiments can be reproduced