ANTH-110-01: INTRO TO ARCHAEOLOGY MIDTERM

Franz Boas

"The Father of American Anthropology;" leader in the anthropological historicism movement; Gave modern anthropology its rigorous methodology following the scientific methods of the natural sciences; believed that theories could only be formulated through collection and examination of evidence

Structure

A building or other built object (ex: house, temple)

Site

A distinct spatial clustering of artifacts, features, structures, and organic and environmental remains - the residue of human activity.

Augustus Pitt-Rivers

A former general who brought militaristic order to archaeology; pioneer in the development of "total recording" the exact positions of artifacts when they are found; prior to analysis, no object is mundane

Alfred Maudslay

A former member of the British foreign service who surveyed and excavated ruins a Quirigua, Copan, Tikal, and Yachilan and is credited for laying the scientific foundations of Mayan archaeology

John Wesley Powell

A geologist who excavated and mapped thousands of mounds over a seven year period and proved that the mounds were constructed by the ancestors of the Native Americans; created the Bureau of American Ethnology

Assemblage

A group of artifacts recurring together at a particular time and place, and representing the sum of human activities

John Loyd Stephens

A lawyer that went on an expedition with artist Frederik Catherwood to the Yucatan Peninsula and theorized that the Mayan monuments predated Spanish Conquest

Systematic Survey

A modern, science-based technique that uses a grid search method

Feature

A non-portable artifact (ex: hearth, architectural elements)

Region

An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.

Artifact

Any portable object used, modified, or made by humans (ex: stone tools, pottery, metal weapons)

Test Pit

Basic unit of excavation; 1 meter by 1 meter square

Arthur Evans

British archaeologist who discovered the Minoan civilization at Knossos Crete and found Linear A and Linear B writing systems

Gordon Wiley

Carried out excavations in Viru Valley Peru and focused on changing ecology and geographical analysis instead of being artifact-focused.

Pompeii

City destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius; Pompeii was discovered in 1748 and excavations were first done under the patronage of the King and Queen of Naples. Giuseppe Fiorelli was put in charge of excavations in 1860 and findings were well-recorded. Findings included the Amphitheater, Temples to Jupiter, Apollo, Isis, Venus, Augustan Fortune, and Jupiter Meilichios, The Forum Baths, Gladitorial barraks, and a small and large theater

Infrared

Electromagnetic waves of frequencies lower than the red of visible light.

chorography

Geographical description of region

satellite imagery

Images generated at intervals from satellites orbiting the Earth. Can show visible, infrared, shortwave infrared or water vapor images.

LIDAR

Light Detection and Ranging; scans laser pulses to create an image, and can be used to create 3D maps of terrain

Tatiana Proskouriakoff

Mayanist scholar that contributed to the effort of disiphering Mayan hieroglyphs; worked prominently at Piedras Negras, Guatemala

Sir William Flinders Petrie

The first to hold the chair of Egyptology at University College London; Did away with foreman and worked directly with excavators and was a pioneer in the systemic methodology of preserving artifacts. Among the first to speculate how the pyramids of Giza were built. Discovered the Merneptah stele at Luxor

Taphonomy

The study of process which have affected organic materials such as bone after death; it also involves the microscopic analysis of tooth-marks or cut marks to assess the effects of butchery or scavenging activities

Rod and Cones

Types of photeoreceptor cells found in the retina

Cast

a solid copy of the shape of an organism

Spectral signature

a unique identifier for a particular item, generated by charting the percentage of reflected energy per wavelength against a value for that wavelength

Lewis Binford

american archeologist known as the leader of the "new archeology" movement to understand and explain the past

Unsystematic Survey

archaeologists randomly search an area on foot for artifacts or evidence of features

Geographic Information System

computer system that captures, stores, queries, analyzes, and displays geographic data

Planimetric

depicting objects or features in their true, plane position. Distances measured from planimetric maps are horizontal distances, not slope distances

Ultraviolet

high-frequency light waves beyond the violet frequency

Topography

the arrangement of the natural and artificial physical features of an area.

Provenience

the place of origin for archaeological materials, including location, association, and context

Electromagnetic spectrum

the range of wavelengths or frequencies over which electromagnetic radiation extends.