Anthropology #2
Oldowan
(Basal Paleolithic: 2.6 - 1.6 mya) -Olduvai Gorge • Homo habilis • Flakes and choppers • Direct percussion • Little standardization or retouching • Mostly Unifacial
Acheulian
(Lower Paleolithic:1.6mya - 300kya) • Handaxe • Homo erectus • Swiss Army knife • Symmetry and standardization • Direct percussion • Soft hammer • Mostly bifacial
Mousterian
(Middle : Paleolithic: 300 - 40kya) • Flake tools instead of core tools • Retouched • Levallois technique • Variety of tools - Composite tools - Blades
Mousterian tool assemblage
(compared to Acheulian assemblage) Smaller proportion of large core tools such as hand axes and cleavers and bigger proportion of small flake tools such as scrapers.
Neolithic
- Domestication and Food Production - Ground Stone Tools - Composite tools for plant harvesting - Ceramic Pottery
Food Collection vs. Production
- Foragers • Hunting • Fishing • Gathering (also called "hunter-gatherers") - Horticulturalists - Pastoralists - Agriculturalists
Long-Distance Trade Theory
- Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, and later kingdoms of Africa - Organizational requirements of producing items for export, redistributing items imported, and defending trade parties would foster state formation - Sites include points of supply or exchange, such as crossroads of routes, and places such as river narrows situated to threaten or halt trade between centers
Atlatl, Harpoons, Woomeras
- Spear thrower - A grooved board which propels a spear with increased force - Earliest ones come from French cave sites • ~15,000 years ago - Greatly increases distance and power
Hydraulic Theory
...• Most primary states depend on irrigation • Irrigation construction required centralized government • Administrators controlled the vital water resource and soon controlled a dependent population
Transition to States
1. Agricultural innovation 2. Diversification of labor 3. Emergence of central government 4. Social stratification
Domestication
1. Notice a desirable trait in a species 2. Separate members of the species from nature 3. Selective breeding (artificial selection) 4. Exaggerate desirable trait(s) 5. Change on the biological level
Complex Societies
1. Stratified social system 2. Bureaucracy of officials 3. Specific territory/Army 4. Economic specialists
Burin
A chisel-like stone topple used for carving and for making such artifacts as bone and antler needles, awls, and projectile points.
Levalloisian method
A method that allowed flake tools of a predetermined size to be produced from a shaped core.
Microlith
A small, razor like blade fragment that was probably attached in a series to a wooden or bone handle to form a cutting edge.
Band
A small, usually nomadic local group that is politically autonomous
Egalitarian
A society where people people of a given age, sex category have the same amount of opportunity
Direct Percussion
A technique used in the manufacture of chipped-stone artifacts in which flakes are produced by striking a core with another stone, a hammerstone, or by striking the core against a fixed stone or anvil in order to dislodge a flake
Blade
A thin flake whose length is usually more than twice its width. In the blade technique of toolmaking, a core is prepared by shaping a piece of flint with hammer-stones into a pyramidal or cylindrical form. Blades are then struck off until the core is used up.
Indirect percussion
A toolmaking technique common in the Upper Paleolithic. After shaping a core into a pyramidal or cylindrical form, the toolmaker can put a punch of antler or wood or another hard material into position and strike it with a hammer. Using a hammer-struck punch enabled toolmakers to strike off consistently shaped blades.
Homo heidelbergensis
A transitional species between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens
Jared Diamond
Agriculture the "worst mistake in human history."-Advantages •Increase Productivity •New skills and technologies •Larger sedentary populations •Specialization •Political institutions --Costs•Increase Productivity •New skills and technologies •Larger sedentary populations •Specialization •Political institutions • Heavily dependent on certain foods •Malnutrition •Increased disease close contact with animals, humans, waste •Increase warfare •Social Inequality •Soil depletion
Cro-Magnons
Humans who lived in western Europe about 35,000 years ago, were once thought to be the earliest specimens of modern-looking humans. But it is now known that modern-looking humans appeared earlier outside of Europe; the earliest so far found lived in Africa.
Otzi
IceMan 3300BC/Approx. 45 years old (5' 2") Deer, wild goat, grains Copper debris = metal worker (?) Lyme Disease, lactose intolerant, internal parasites Death by injury
Boc Mo
In vietnam-after a few years the deceased is dug up, cleaned, and either kept with the family or buried again filial piety
Ethnographic analogy
Method of comparative cultural study that extrapolates to the past from recent or current societies.
Upper Paleolithic and Dates
Microliths, atlatls points, and harpoons - Use of New Techniques • IndirectPercussion • PressureFlaking-40,000-10,000
Use-Wear Analysis
Microscopic analysis of a tools edge for characteristic wear patterns • Experimental archaeology
Early Civilizations (6)
OLD WORLD: Mesopotamia (5,500 years ago) Egypt (5,100 years ago ) Indus River Valley (4,800 years ago) China (3,800 years ago) NEW WORLD: Peru (2,200 years ago) Mesoamerica
Relative vs. Absolute Dating
Older/younger not fixed years • Seriation • Stratigraphic • Bone Chemistry--actual age of the specimen is measured
Blombos Cave
South Africa--Pressure flaking 73,000 years ago - Bone tools (80,000 years ago) - Decorated pigment and shell beads (75,000 years ago) - Early evidence for shellfishing and possibly fishing (140,000 years ago)
Inorganic vs. Organic
Stone tools, pottery, metals • extremely good preservation/bad preservation
Monumental Architecture
Structures created to commemorate a person, group of people, deity, or event which has become important to a social group (i.e. iconic landmarks)--- Mortuary Structures - Temples - Megaliths - Mounds - Pyramids
Excavation
Systematicuncovering of artifacts and features
Floatation
Technique for the recovery of botanical remains
Neandertal
The common name for the species Homo neandertalensis
Paleolithic
The cultural period of the Stone Age that began about 2.5 to 2 million years ago, marked by the earliest use of tools made of chipped stone--old stone age
Remote Sensing
The nondestructive techniques used in geophysical prospecting and to generate archaeological data without excavation-- surface survey techniques that leave subsurface archaeological deposits undisturbed.
Archaeology
The study of human past through material remains, involving themes of change and time.
Homo neandertalensis
The technical name for Neandertals, a group of robust and otherwise anatomically distinct hominin that are close relatives of modern humans.
Middle Paleolithic
The time period of the Mousterian stone tool tradition.
Evolution of Pyramid
Tomb-Mastaba-Stepped Pyramid-Bent Pyramid-True Pyramid
Pressure flaking
Toolmaking technique whereby small flakes are struck off ny pressing against the core with a bone, antler, or wooden tool.
Class
a category of people who have about the same opportunity to obtain economic resources, power, and prestige
Systematic Survey
archaeological technique of detailed examination of an area for the purpose of recording the location and significance of archaeological resources. It provides a regional perspective by gathering information on settlement patterns over a large area
Prehistory
before writing
Tucson Garbage Project
catagorizing trash to find out about the people that threw it away
Seriation
creating a sequence of artifact types and variability over time
Writing systems (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerican)
cuneiform--hieroglyphics
Subsistence
economy in which almost all able=bodied adults are largely engaged in getting food for themselves and their families
Supine vs Prone
face up-face down
Flexed vs Extended Burial
fetal position and lain out flat
Historical Archaeology
form of archaeology dealing with places, things, and issues from the past or present when written records and oral traditions can inform and contextualize cultural material
Coprolite
fossilized excrement
Agriculture
growing plants in place-part of sedentary lifestyle
Rosetta Stone
holds the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs—a script made up of small pictures that was used originally in ancient Egypt for religious texts. Hieroglyphic writing died out in Egypt in the fourth century C.E..
Grave Goods
items buried along with the body
Raised Fields
large artificial platforms of soil created to protect crops from flooding. They are generally found in areas of permanent high water table or seasonal flooding
China's Terracotta Army
made of stone, took 11 years to make, 8,000--100,000made them
Surplus
more than is needed
Cave Art vs. Portal Art
on a cave wall or on an entrance
Horizontal Excavation
opening a large area of a particular layer-spatial association between artifacts and features
Screening
passing soil through mesh to retain artifacts
Material Culture
physical evidence of a culture in the objects and architecture they make, or have made. The term tends to be relevant only in archeological and anthropological studies, but it specifically means all material evidence which can be attributed to culture, past or present.
Artifacts
portable object or material used, modified, or created by human activity
Phytolith
rigid, microstructure in plant cells (e.g., silica)
Worst Mistake
sedentism and agriculture
Sedentism
settled life
Environmental Preservation
strict setting aside of natural resources to prevent the use or contact by humans or by human intervention.
Megafauna
term used by archaeologists and paleontologist to refer to large-bodied mammals, that is, any mammal weighing more than 100 pounds
Fossils
the hardened remains or impressions of plants and animals that lived in the past
Zooarchaeology
the study of animal bones from archaeological sites
Archaeobotany
the study of remains of plants cultivated or used by man in ancient times
Half-life
the time it takes half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to decay into atoms of a different substance
Terraced Fields
type of landscaping-Graduated steps commonly used to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain--decrease both erosion and surface runoff, and may be used to support growing crops that require irrigation, such as rice.
Potassium-Argon Dating
used to date things 5,000 to 3 billion year old
Cuneiform
wedge-shaped writing invented by the Sumerians around 3.000 BC
Burial Orientation
what direction the body is buried-in the west facing the east for christianity
State
• Agricultural Innovations • Cities • Record keeping/Writing • Monumental architecture (public and private) • Warfare
Piltdown Fraud
• Exposed as a hoax in 1953 • Fluorine/Uranium dating indicated skull was only about 600 years old and jaw was from a modern orangutan
Ecofacts
• Non-artifactual remains that have archaeological relevance • Provide information on environment & subsistence
Circumscription Theory
• Populations concentrated in agricultural areas • Population grows, agricultural areas fill up, competition for land and resources increases • If agricultural areas are limited (circumscribed) by natural boundaries, stress leads to warfare • A state established to administer conquered lands, people and tribute
Stratigraphy
• Sequential layering of deposits (strata) • Superposition--dating
Silver Fox
• StartedintheUSSR1959 • Selectivebreedingofsilver foxes • Artificial selection for a single trait - friendliness towards humans • 35 generations over 40 years created a domesticated foxes of different colors that were more tame and dog-like
Dendrochronology
• Studyoftheannual growth rings of trees • Veryprecisedates • Requiresgoodwood preservation
Radiocarbon Dating
• WillardLibbyin1949, awarded Nobel Prize • Environmental14Cis absorbed by living organisms. When they die, no more is absorbed and decay rates can be measured. • Half-life of 5730 years makes method very useful for much of the archaeological record (to 50/100kya)
Sites
• concentrated traces of human activity • accumulations of artifacts or features
Features
• non-portable human-made object (recorded in-situ) • Cannot be moved without destroying • Must be studied (documented) in the field
Vertical Excavation
•Excavated to expose strata • Site formation and chronology