Anthro 313 Final

Adoption of ceramic in Southern Mesoamerica

Arguably fits the model based on opportunity costs and economies of scale articulated earlier Question remain (where did the technological knowledge come from? Apparently not invented locally since technology is fairly sophisticated Were highland ceramic traditions invented/ adopted independently?

How Darwinian evolution explains altruism and cooperation

1. Kin selection (inclusive fitness theory) since your kin carry copies of your genes, you are furthering you own fitness by assisting kin, even if you are slightly disadvantaged 2. reciprocity - you may be paid back in the future for a good turn you do today 3. group selection- group in which pro-social behaviors become frequent, despite selection against such behaviors will outcompete other groups so that pro social behaviors spread in the general population

Case study: lowland Mesoamerica

As we have seen, sedentary villages first appeared in the lowlands of eastern Mesoamerica about 1800 BC During the subsequent 3300 years (1800 BC -1521 AD) complex societies emerged and went through several cycles of florescence and collapse before the arrival of Europeans in 1521 The three periods of florescence we will cover are Olmec, Preclassical Maya, and Classic Maya

Homo erectus/ergaster

At about 1.8 mya, a new hominid, Homo ergaster (Homo erectus appeared in East Africa This species had a larger brain, and the increased behavioral flexibility this permitted soon led them to spread out of Africa into souther Europe and Asia

European Mesolithic

Atlantic, North Sea, and Baltic coasts Ertebolle of southern Sweden and Denmark Some highly productive inland locations, eg along rivers Eg Lipinski Vir on Danube in Serbia North European Plain, south of glaciers, largely ignored during Mesolithic

A. Robustus

1.9-1.5 mya, Kromdraai, South Afirca

Tell Oueili

10 ha Numerous small rooms -probable storage Implication is that growing surplus was beginning to support elite

narikotome Boy

11-12 year old boy Alomost complete Homo Erectus 1.6 mya West of lake Turkana, Kenya estimated height 5.4 to 5.8

Sivapithecus

12-8 mya thick enamel cap on the molars- it has thick enamel indicative of tough and /or gritty morsels such as seeds, nuts, and tubers there has been one skull of Sivapithecus and it is a near-complete skull of an orangutang The orangutan, represented by Sivapithecus, diverged from the other great apes c. 13 mya

4 branches of anthropology

Biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic, archaeology

Broad spectrum revolution

Broadening of subsistence-resource base at end of Pleistocene early Holocene To reduce subsistence risk under conditions of increasing population, plants and small animals enter human diets, especially in marginal areas Seen in many world regions at end of Pleistocene, Sets stage for origins of agriculture 20-14.5 jya: cold and dry: Kebran foragers on Coastal plain 14.5 -13 kya : rainy Kebaran expansion to dessert /steppe east of coastal plain Ground stone mortars, bowls, cup holes-> "road spectrum"

13C enrichment shows increased reliance on maize

C3 photosynthetic pathway-95% of plants (trees, cool/temperate grasses) C4 pathway grasses (eg maize) Enriches 13C

Early pottery in Northern Africa

Ca 10,500 BP Libya, Chad, Niger, Mali, Egypt Extensively decorated

Earliest pottery= Jomon in Japan

Ca 14,500 years old Round-bottom cooking pots Small linear incisions

Earliest fired clay= Venus Figurines

Ca 26,000 years old Found in Asia and Eastern Europe Low fired and Unfired

Uranium-Thorium Dating

Calcium carbonates (eg speleothems, flowstones, coral) Speleothems and flow stones form in caves, from dripping groundwater Uranium is slightly soluble in water and thus can be incorporated into the carbonate tocks Thorium is not soluble in water so is initially absent from precipitating CaCO3 Uranium -234 is an isotope of uranium that has a half-life of 234,000 years Thorium-230 is a daughter product of U234

Mitochondrial Eve

Cann, R., M. Stoneking, and A. Wison (1987) "Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution," Nature 325:31-36 All modern humans have mitochondrial DNA derived from a single African female who lived -200kya Suggested a recent African origin for all modern human Initiated a debate over "multi-regional" vs "out-of-Africa" models that continues to this day

Post-Glacial Europe

Changes in distribution of game Mammoth, wooly rhinoceros went extinct Reindeer and elk herds driven norht Smaller game more abundant (red deer, roe deer, pig, aurochs) Opening up of settings with access to diverse resources Lakes and swamps left by retreating glaciers River banks Delta of major rivers Sea-coasts-Baltic, Atlantic and North Sea, Mediterranean

Domestication vs Agriculture

Changes in the physical characteristics of a plant or animal species by human manipulation Agriculture (obtaining food from intensive use of previously domesticated plants and animals)

Early Upper Paleolithic tools (40,000-22,000)

Chatelperronina (40,000-32,000), Aurgacian (40,000-28,000), Gravettian (28,000-22,000)

Teminus Post Quem

"date after which" eg the K-Ar date obtained from the underlying tephra layer in the K-Ar example

Impact of agriculture on human populations

"worst mistake in the history of the human race -Jared Diamond 1997 When compared to foraging populations agriculturalists have: higher levels of infection, chronic malnutrition, more anemia, shorter statures, shorter lives, increased warfare and violence The blessings of agriculture: Long hours, crowded conditions, disease, short lives Despite the disastrous consequences of human quality of life, agriculture has risen independently in at least 6 distinct world regions, all during the past 10,000 years

Pilocene

(6mya -2.5 mya) another adaptive radiation= bipedal apes (hominids), confined to Africa

Torralba and Ambrona

(Spain) -450,000 Remains of elephants, horses, cattle, rhinos. Acheulean industry, 420-450kya Cut marks on bones Strategic location-migrations of game animals

frequency seriation

A relative dating method which relies principally on measuring changes in the proportional abundance, or frequency, observed among finds (e.g. counts of tool types, or of ceramic fabrics).

City or UR: Tomb entrance and grave goods of Pu-abi

A succession of empires Babylonia (lower Mesopotamia) Assyria and Mitani (upper Mesopotamia ) Hittites (Anatolia) Elam (east of lower Mesopotamia Philistines (levant) Phoenicians (Levant) Achaemenid Empire (Persian) Cyrus extended empire west to all of Anatolia Defeated by Alexander the Great of Macedonia 334 BCE Mediterranean world then becomes ascendant

Monk's Mound, Cahokia (Mississippian Period)

Agricultural subsistence has the potential to support non-farmers Opportunities for non-agricultural roles in society Part-time specialist craft people Full- time specialists -> technological change accelerates Increased economic interaction Traders Opportunities for non-producing specialists Priests administrators

Increased demand for containers (ceramics)

Agriculture and sedentary residence Increased need for storage Cooking cereal-type foods Ceramics favored because of economies of scale

Aquatic Ape

Alister Hardy, Elaine Morgan (TED talk) Seashore or lakeshore collecting an open niche Many primates walked bipedally crossing water We are "naked" (like many other water adapted mammals) and have subcunatenous fat Pollen associated with "Ardy" and elsewhere bellies the extensive savanna hypothesis But most see the hypothesis as cherry- picking and misrepresenting human characteristics (eg we're not really very good swimmers, we're not really naked" )

Edward Osborne Wilson

American biologist recognized as the world's leading authority on ants. He was also the foremost proponent of sociobiology, the study of the genetic basis of the social behavior of all animals, including humans

Maize

An early form of corn grown by Native Americans, closely related to an annual grass called teosinte (z. Maya parviglumis), Piperno, Rnaera, et al archaeological investigations in the Balsas Basin 2005-2007, Maize starch grains from Xihuatoxtla Rock shelter 8700 Cal BP, Cucurbit and Maize cob Phytoliths (Few maize stock phytoliths)

examples of natural selection (Peppered Moth)

The dark form of the "peppered moth" is more visible on the light lichen-covered tree The mottled-gray moth on the left is almost invisible, and much better camouflaged from birds looking a mean On trees darkened by Manchester's pollution, the lighter form is more visible and exposed to predation After multiple generations the process of natural selection lead to dominance of moths with dark coloring in habitats with soot covered trees

origins of our lineage

The earliest known fossil hominins come from Africa and date to between about 6 to 7 mya Genetic analysis of modern humans and chimps also suggest that our lineage diverged from the chimp lineage between 7 to 5 mya 6-7 mya Northern Chad

Proto -Archaic in South America

The evidence from Monte Verde, Chile Chewed mass two types of seaweed plus one type of leaf

What happened after the dinosaurs became extinct Between 70 and 65 mya

The extinction and the radiation of the angiosperms (flowering plants) left a variety of habitats available for exploitation by mammals Led to adaptive radiation of many kinds of mammals, including primates, which include apes and bipedal apes (hominins)

Solutrean Hypothesis

Clovis ancestors came along pack ice of North Atlantic at height of last glaciation (Europeans were here first after all)

When did people first come to the New World?

Clovis first: humans (Clovis big game hunters) entered the New World via the Bering land Bridge no earlier than 10,000 BC

Maritime Neolithic

Coexistence of maritime Mesolithic groups and LBK in Southern Scandinavia 5400-3900 BC Rapid adoption of Neolithic packages in Brittany, 4800 BC Simultaneous emergence of Megalithic England and Ireland adopt Neolithic package, 4300 BC-3800 BC Rapid adoption on coasts of souther Scandinavia -3900 BC

Interpretation of Historical records

Difficult rulers use propaganda Compare themselves to gods Change history (erase peoples) Rimush son of sargon (2278-2270 BC) Manishtushu son of sargon )2269-2255 BC) Naram-Sin grandson of Sargon (2254-2217) All use propaganda - mix of truth and fiction Akkadian empire spreads but how far? Falls less than 30 years after Naram-Sin

How did we know Homo erectus used fire?

Difficult to show, but the earliest possible evidence for hominin fire use dates to about 1.3 mya and comes from a site called Swartkans in South Africa Animal bones were found here 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 It is therefore thought that hominins must have built a fire here to cook some meat (though no fire pits have been found).

Middle Pleistocene

Distinct regional populations derived from homo erectus that had dispersed much earlier Africa :Kabwe (broken hill) Zambia 125-300 kya; 1300 cc cranial capacity Europe : Neanderthals -1300-1600 cc cranial capacity African hominins from Middle and earliest late Pleistocene (1mya -100kya)

Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia

Dmanisi D270 (2001) 1.8 mya; cranial capacity of 600cc to primitive for Ergaster

Coevolutionary Model (The origins of the Agriculture, by David Rindos, Academic Press, 1984)

Domestication came about as a result of mutualistic interaction between humans and plants Plants exploited people plants Selection arising from the interaction drove genetic changes in plants Selection also drove cultural (and genetic) changes in humans who tended the plants These processes were completely unconscious - people didn't choose to make the mistake of agriculture Human agriculture is only one example of many such animal-plant mutualistic relationships in nature Ants and bullhorn acacia Ants farming aphids Ants farming fungi

Uruk, the first true city

Dominant settlement of lower alluvium Supported by irrigation agriculture in surrounding fertile alluvial land Population in 10s thousands Functionally differentiated spaces (craft production, administration, public gatherings) Textual evidence suggest elite (priestly) control over most aspects of peoples lives Since then, virtually all complex social formation based on the city

Olmec: Mesoamerica's first complex society

Ecologically advantageous circumstances (favorable for agriculture plus exploitation of the wetlands)-> Monumental architecture and public words (San Lorenzo) Monumental art (colossal heads et al.) Long- distance commerce Division of labor (monument carvers, ceramic and jade artisans, farmers) Social hierarchy (the kinds of the monuments) Admirative bureaucracy (to organize labor forces) Writing (Cascajal block)

Lowland Mesoamerica vs Egypt

Ecologically different, but both highly productive in agricultural goods Both emerge where agricultural villages had spread widely throughout an ecologically consistent region Both had functional differentiation eg farmers, stone carvers, traders, etc Monumental building and public worlds emerge early in both Distinctive monumental art style emerges early in both Strong centralized authority able to organize large work forces in both External relations with neighboring states was and wane through history of both Both go through several cycles of consolidation/florescence and disintegration the latter apparently due to least partly climatic downturns

New Kingdom, 1539-1069 BCE

Egypt becomes imperial power in eastern Mediterranean King Ahmose of Thebes expelled Hyksos, 1570 BCE Conquered Mediterranean coast to east Hittites in Anatolia and Babylonians paid tribute Exchange relations with Phonecians, Crete, and Aegean Islands (Greece) Firm control over Nubia and gold source

Major changes began around 1400 BC in one corner of the "Locona interaction sphere" the Gulf Coast

Elite art (sculpture) Monumental architecture Colossal heads: a defining characteristic of the Olmec Sculptural art of the Olmec Widespread ceramic art of the San Lorenzo Horizon La Venta Offering 4 Olmec Jade (La Venta Horizon): black jade and green and blue jade

13-11 kya: rainy, precipitation peak -11.5 kya

Emergence of Natufians in central Levant, 12,800 BP

Tula, AD 800-1150

Emerges out of Epiclassic untest following Teotihucan's decline Near Northern limit for ran-fed agriculture Mutli-ethnic Immigrants from North (Teochinimecs) Immigrants from Tabasco (Nonalca) and Huasteca region (El Tajin) Teotihuacanos 30,000-60,000 population, housed in apartments Center of commercial empire during Tollan Phase 900 -1150 AD

Central region (8,500-8,000) domestication

Emmer wheat, barely, sheep, goats

Levantine corridor (10,300-9,300 years ago) domestication

Emmer wheat, barley, sheep, goats

Charles Darwin

English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882)

Baltic (Sweden and Denmark)

Ertebolle -coastal adapted Shellfish, fish, sea mammals, birds, Technology well preserved in waterlogged coastal environments fishhooks, spears, fish traps, canoes, paddles

Post-Pleistocene climate and culture

Europe: upper paleolithic-> Mesolithic-> Neolithic Near East: late paleolithic-> epipaleplithic-> pre-pottery Neolithic Jomon Japan Americas: Pallidinines/protoarchaic-> archaic -formative

Complex human societies

Eventually sedentary residence, population growth, and surpluses became the context within which early complex societies emerged Division of labor Social hierarchy Administrative bureaucracy monumental architecture and public words monumental art Writing

Behavioral ecology perspective (Bruce WInterhalder)

Focus on individual decision-making-> shifts in resource use Declining return rates on preferred (most profitable) resources causes ne resources to be incorporated in diets (small game, plants, shellfish) Environmental changes may change relative resource rankings, so that new resources are used Or technological change may increase rank of some resources (eg discovery of fermentation Either way if high-yield (though perhaps less profitable) resources are incorporated into the diet, the stage is set for subsistence innovation(eg plating, fertilizing), leading to population growth and further intensification The new resources then become subject to coevolutionary pressures of human-plant mutualism

Agricultural revolution

For 998% human history, hominids were hunter-gatherers (extending back at least 4.5 mya) Fully modern humans had been hunter-gatherers for perhaps 200kya Agricultural revolution : all of a sudden, after about 11,000 BP agricultural subsistence emerged independently in at least 6 different world regions (now virtually everyone in the world depends on agriculture for food)

Which Hominid Frist left Africa?

H. Georgicus

Timing of faunal extinction and human presence

H. sapiens present: Africa- 2000,000 years ago Australia -45,000 years ago North America 14,5000 years ago Madagascar - 2000 years ago

Mesopotamia chronology

Halaf (upper Mesopotamia) 6000-5400 BCE Ubaid 5900-4200 BCE Uruk 4200-3000BCE Early Dynastic 3000-2000 BCE Middle Bronze Age 2000-1650 BCE Late Bronze age 1650-1185 BCE Iron Age 1185-330 BCE TELL= mound (Arabic)

The Natufian "homeland" of the central Levant

Harifian: Specialized Late Natufian Hunters of the Negav and northern Sinai

Sumerian states collapse ca. 2279 BC

Heavy environmental deterioration Salinization of agricultural fields Warfare takes down state as well King sargon of Akkad from Agade raids from north between 2334-2279 Establishment of Akkadian empire northern Mesopotamia)

Clovis (13,200-12,900 BP)

Highly specialized Hunters (primary hunting technology was the Atl-atl or throwing stick) An ecologically naive landscape Clovis and folsom associated with extinct Pleistocene fauna (horse, mammoth, etc) Black water Draw NM: Folsom overlies Clovis Clovis first: big fame hunting Dominant subsistence strategy

Out of Africa hypothesis for the evolution of modern humans

Hominins (homo erectus) disperse from Africa to Eurasia before 1 million years Population then follow different evolutionary trajectories on different continents Modern humans evolve only in Africa Omo I and Omo II from Kibish Formation, Ethiopia, dated 160 kya Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated 350-280 kya H. Sapiens disperse to Eurasia roughly 50,000-40,000 years ago, replacing Neanderthals and other non-modern (Archaic) Eurasia African hominins from middle and earliest late Pleistocene (1mya-100kya)

Inomata and Triadan

Inland movement on Pacific coast Piedmont Highlands Initial settlement along rivers and in wetlands in the interior lowlands

Burial 5: cross-legged seated position burial very rare in Mesoamerica

Interesting that it has Jade in the grave basically saying that the May and the people in Teotihuacan interacted and might have traded with each other

The Basin of Mexico was and still a major center of gravity

Interior drainage basin Shallow lakes prior to conquest Population: 22 million (population of Metro LA: 3,695,000) 0- 100 AD (Tzaculli): Teotihuacan eclipses all other settlements, Almost 90% of population lives at Teotihuacan Sothern Basin almost abandoned Overall possible slight population loss

Impact of domestication on plants

Marsh Elder or Sump weed (Iva Annua) Sunflowef (Helianthus annus) Squash (Cucurbita pepo) Impact of domestication on animals Goat Horns (Ali Kosh, Iran) CATTLE (WILD VS.DOMESITCAE)

Homo heidelbergensis

Mauer jaw: Mauer, Germany, Homo heidelbergensis, teeth more modern than H. erectus, -500kya, Arica, Europe

Middle Kingdom, 1999-1759

Mentuhotep II re-unifies upper and lower Egypt Took control of Nubia to South - gold and other minerals Religious reform

New World Domestication

Mesoamerica: Maize, squash, beans between 10,000 and 8,000 BP maize between 9,000 and 7,000BP beans at least by 3600 BP but perhaps earlier Eastern North America squash, small seed plants between 5,000 and 4,000 BP Andean South America: potatoes, quinoa, guinea pigs, llamas, alpacas; potatoes by 5,000 BP quinoa between 5,000 and 4,000 BP, animals beginning around 6,500 BP

New world Domestication

Mesoamerica: maize, squash, beans, squash between 10,000 and 8,000 BP, maize between 9,000 and 7,000 BP, beans at least by 3600 BP but perhaps earlier Eastern North America: squash, small seeds plants; between 5,000 and 4,000 BP Andean South America: Potatoes, quinoa, Guinea pigs, llamas, alpacas, potatoes by 5,000 BP quinoa between by 5,000 and 4,000 BP animals beginning around 6,500 BP

Star Carr, England

Mesolithic 8500BC, Waterlogged: preservation of bone, antler, wood Red deet explotion during winter based on presence of antlers which are shed in winter

River valleys of the Old World

Mesopotamia (Tigris and Euphrates) Nile Indus Yangtze and Huang He Coastal Peru (river valleys draining Andes) Highland Mesoamerica (Basin of Mexico) Tropical lowlands Olmec and Maya area of lowland Mesoamerica Southeast Asia Sedentism agricultures, and population growth are constraints

how can Darwinism explain structures of behaviors that apparently reduce the ability to survive (reduce fitness)

One possible solution suggested by Darwin: sexual selection The peacock the poster child for sexual selection they have high survival cost they attract a lot of attention even from predators they have evolved through previous generations

Agricultural subsistence has the potential to support non-farmers

Opportunities for non-Agricultural roles in society Part-time specialist craft people Full-time specialists

Surpluses -> exchange->

Oppurtunite's for specialization (functional differentiation)-> New technologies that require sedentary residence-> Everything we see around us today

The Sumerians 2900-2350 BCE

Or early dynastic period Starts with alliance between 13 city states Ends with conquest of Sargon in 2279 BCE Cuneiform writing widespread (End of prehistoric period in region)

Aztec (Mexica)

Origins story say they were Chichimecs" from outside Basin of Mexico Settled on island in the middle of Lake Texoco (tenochitland-Tlatelolco) Some oral histories say that they served as mercenaries and military experts and merchants for the competing staes until the establishment of Tenochtitlan in AD 1325 Allied with Texcoco and Tlacopan 1428 -> Aztec Empire

Why all of a sudden is there so much cultural stuff in Europe from the Aurignacian on

Seemingly associated with arrival of anatomically modern humans

Halaf period

Sequence of pottery styles Proto-Hassuna 6800-6500 BCE Hassuna 6500-6000 BCE Halaf: 6000-5399 BCE Population growth draft animals (plowing) and dairying Mostly small sites but a few larger (12-20 ha) Imported obsidian from Antonia In Northern Mesopotamia highly decorated (painted)

Pre-dynastic (6900-5100 BP)

Several independent polities Rich tombs show kingly authority By 6000 BP large farming settlements

Potassium - argon (K-Ar) dating

Potassium 40 is slightly radioactive Magma: potassium but no argon (argon is a gas) Volcanic rock solidifies (no argon initially) Potassium-40 decays to argon-40 : 40 K+e= 40 Ar Half life+1.26 billion years (so applicable to much earlier time periods than radiocarbon) Ratio of argon-40 to potassium 40 increases in volcanic rock over time

Egypt after the New Kingdom

Several periods of resurgence and contraction 1000-500 BCE 525 BCE: Cambyses, a persian king, conquers Egypt and declares himself Pharaoh 332 BCE: Alexander the Great chases out the Persians and founds city of Alexandria which grows into and important center of Hellenistic civilization Conquered by Rome in 30 BCE, after which it became the major source of grain for the empire and the richest province of the east

Chantuto Zone Shell Midden

Shell mounds of the Chantuto Zone: 5500 -3500BC Chantuto B phase: 3500-1500 BC A distinct estuarine focus in Eco factual record Midden Faunal Constitutes (%Meat Weight) Marsh Clam: 99.4 Fish: 75% Other Reptile: 3% Turtle : 11% Mammal :11% Bird: 1.0%

General trends in marginal highland zones of Mesoamerica during the Archaic Period :

Shifts in resource use: Increasing importance of plants in diet Increasing role of domesticates: Maize Beans Squash Chili peppers Avocado Decreasing residential mobility

Singer and Galway -Witham (2017): Jebel Irhoud supports out of Africa

Simal de los huesos Spain 430,000 years old pre-neanderthal (homo heidlebergensis) La ferrassie France 60-40kya late neandertal Jebel Irhoud Morocco 350-280kyaearly homo sapiens Abri Pataud, France 20,000 years old modern H. Sapien

LBK: Neolithic in Northern Europe

Similar Neolithic settlements from Poland Belgium and the Paris Basin Colonized deciduous forests between foothills of Alps and north European plain Distinctive rectangular long houses 30-40 m long Lots of cattle, fewer sheep, goat, pig

What else has complexity arisen in the animal kingdom?

Social insects: Division of labor Food production (agriculture in some cases) Standing armies Monumental architecture /public works Huge ecological footprint What are the parallel traits in complex human societies

Nuclear America (Spinden 1917)

Some parts of "nuclear America" remain poorly known (basically central America) Globular vessels dominate early assemblages in Nuclear America Barra Ceramics, Chiapas-1800BC

Late Upper Paleolithic tools (20,000-10,000 BP)

Soultrean (22,000-28,000), Magdalenain (18,000-11,000)

application of (uranium)

Speleothem chronology- climate reconstruction Calcite formed over cave paintings- minimum age for paintings Calcite formed on bones- minimum age for bones Calcite flowstone underlying cultural layers- minimum age for cultural layers Coral both in-situ and in archaeological sites

End- Pleistocene environmental changes important to human subsistence

Stabilized sea levels-> increased coastal productivity Increase availability of plant foods -> more evidence of year-round site occupation -> populations grow -> anthropogenic impacts increase

The evolution of eusociality (Neffs version)

Step 1. formation of groups widespread in primates and hominins in particular - defensibility of hearth/ home Step 2. pilo- Pleistocene emergence of distinctly human traits (bipedalism, encephalization, tool using) which become preadaptation's that can be coopted later Step 3. origins of eusocial at the end of the Pleistocene when agriculture permitted sedentary residence Step 4. withing sedentary agricultural societies, selection targeted pro-social cultural traits Provisioning of those in need Working on public works projects Step 5: between - tribe selection on cultural traits-> highly specialized and elaborate social systems that we see currently in human societies

prehistoric archaeology

method and theory techniques (field and lab), prehistory (what we think we know about the past practiced in North America , South America, Mesoamerica, etc

microscopic record

micor-remains invisible to human eye, phytoliths and pollen in sediments, minerals formed in-situ in sediments, microsturctue of sediments and artifacts, minerals and organic molecules in sediments or artifacts Microscopic record is more informative than macroscopic

Toltec:

military/commercial empire centered in Northern Basin-900-1160 Toltec commerce extended not just south but also to northern and western Mexico, and traded for gemstones, metal and other trade items with populations as fat north as Arizona and New Mexico

Climate drying at the beginning of pilocene

more open country, but still a mosaic of forest and Savannah Alternating high lake levels -> barriers-> allopatric speciation

Koobi Fora

region of paleoanthropological sites in northern Kenya near Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf). The Koobi Fora geologic formation consists of lake and river sediments from the eastern shore of Lake Turkana. Well-preserved hominin fossils dating from between 2.1 and 1.3 million years ago (mya) include at least one species of robust australopith (Paranthropus boisei) and three species of Homo (H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, and African H. erectus, which is also called H. ergaster). Stone tools dating to 2 mya resemble certain Oldowan industry artifacts from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Koobi Fora's archaeological record dates to as recently as 1.4 mya, but there are very few Acheulean hand axes.

cultural (evolutionary theory)

relavant along with biological, to the history of modern humans and modern human society

Where and when (agriculture)

primary centers of domestication Eastern North America (9,500 BP) Mesoamerica (9,000 BP) South America Near East (4,500 bp) Sub-Saharan Africa (4,000 BP) China

Biological anthropology

primatology, human variation, paleoanthropology

relative dating

put things in order relative to one another (Stratigraphy, frequency seriation

radiogenic/isotopic

radiocarbon, potassium- argon (K-Ar), Thermoluminescence/ optically-stimulated luminescence

Reduced opportunity coast of ceramics

sedentary residence, blocks of time, women can multitask

Gravettian 28,000 -22,0000

stone tools: Gravette points, Noilles Burin, etc, Mobility art: Venus Figurines,

linguistics

study of language, historical linguistics

Mt. Sandel (Northern Ireland)

substantial houses (post holes, puts and hearths) 700 BC, high tool diversity-large number of activities

Archaeological fieldwork

survey, mapping, surface collection, excavation

biological taxonomy

the science of classification and naming of living things

arcaheology

the study of material objects to describe human behavior. Historical archaeology and prehistoric archaeology Artifacts, features, sites, ecofacts

Evolutionary ecology

the study of the evolution of decision-making strategies is sometimes called what

why did hominin brain size increase so dramatically beginning around 2.0 mya

these are large metabolic costs to large brains

where did the oldest oldowan tools come from

they came from a site called Kada Gona in Ethiopia

adaptive radiation

when a singled ancestral species diversifies into a large into a large amount of descendant species that occupy a wide varity of niches, generates the hierarchically nested groups seen in nature and describe by biological taxonomy

stratigraphy

which depends on the law of superposition, other things being equal, if layer 1 lies under layer2, layer 1 is older than layer 2

True or False Does Darwinian evolution apply to behavior

yes what an animal does, how it makes choices are important to adaptation as how its body is engineered

archaic humans

The geographic range of archaic humans encompasses much of Africa and Eurasia like Homo erectus In Africa the earliest archaic human fossils may date to as early as 600 kya and there are many that date to 300 or 200 kya In Europe the earliest well dated Homo heidelbergensis fall between 300 and 200 kya but Homo Antecessor predates this In Asia archaic human fossils date to 200 kya or later and may overlap H. erectus

Origins of complex societies

There are problems with classifications of societies according to increasing complexity masks variability Nonetheless if you look at what societies apparently were like at the end of the Pleistocene and in the early Holocene compared to today, there are cast differences on many dimensions As argued at the beginning of this class, complex societies are not unique to humans, and a comparative perspectives provides insight into how complexity might have arisen with a defensible home base, followed by emergence of conditions that favor "working together"

what route did people first come to the New World?

There are south American sites accepted by ardent advocates of the clovis first hypothesis whose spatial and temporal contribution cannot be reconciled with an approximate date of 12,000 BP for the first migration " DS Whitney and R. I Dorn (1993) New perspectives on the Clovis Vs Pre-Clovis controversy American Antiquity Pre-Clovis: humans perhaps with a variety of stone tool technological traditions, entered the New World substantially earlier than 10,000 BC

Early Aztec

Tula destroyed -1160 population shifts back to Southern Basin Exceptional Agricultual productivity in the Southern Basin due largely to Chinampas Sometimes called "floating gardens" Chinampa cultivation may have been practiced as early as 500-200 BC Still present in Xochimilco (southwest Basin)

Grave 14: exact center of FSP

Twenty bound individuals Not placed in an excavated pit, but laid out directly on the surface of the leveled tepetate FSP erected over them following sacrifice nearly 600 greenstone objects, More than 800 Obsidian objects Over 3,400 shell items Slate disks Organic remains animal bones Pyramid of the Moon tunnel excavations (Saburo Sugiyama) 11 tunnels 345 linear meters Built in 7 construction stages tooke three hundred years Stage 1 (under Adosada) dates -100 AD Stage 7-400 AD Each stage commemorated with sacrificial offerings

Agriculture

Ultimately post-Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in several regions developed new relationships with plants and animals the consequences of these subsistence changes couldn't be more profound Human niche construction really takes off Agricultural subsistence is ultimately responsible for the world we live in today If there are any "big topics" in archaeology, how and why humans invented/adopted agriculture at the end of the Pleistocene must be one

Early Dynastic period 5100-4600 BP

Upper and lower Egypt unified Credited to Narmer (Narmer palette below) Large construction projects and tombs Hieroglyphic writing fully developed From this time on written historical records supplement archaeology

The formative period of costal Ecuador: the Valdivia and Machalilla phases

Valdivia A and B -5500-4500 Early Jomon 11,000-5500 BP Middle Jomon -5500-4500 BP

Darwin's three principles

Variability: Members of any group vary The variation has consequences for survival and reproduction Offspring resemble their parents in some of the variable trait

Sedentary Villages

Villages are most common with agricultural subsistence but there are expectations Northwest Coast of North America, Coastal California, Jomon Japan, Productivity of the local resource base is key Domesticates incorporated into subsistence of foragers doesn't necessarily mean sedentary residence (archaic Mesoamerica, great basin (maize sometimes grown eg by Fremont people)

Another consequence of agriculture ( a village in Jordan (early Neolithic period)

Villages= nucleated, sedentary settlements (ie a settlement in which everyone lives in a single spot years around) Villages had appeared before full-blown agriculture (e.g Natufian, Jomon Japan), but they proliferate much more rapidly under agriculture

Why archaeologist like pottery

Virtually indestructible a manmade sedimentary rock A relative timepiece: frequency seriation

Early Uruk Period (4200-3600 BCE)= first city

Warfare eg mass graves at Tell Brak, northeast Syria Large irrigation works Multi-community polities, fortified villages Inferred that community territory belonged to temple, which would have loaned it to people Primary state formation Beginnings of writing Standardized ceramics-> craft specialization Weel-thrown pots standardized Uruk pots produced by crafts specialists traded all over Mesopotamia

artifact

anthing humans intentionally use, modify, or make, small enough to carry around -portable, can also include by-product or tool- making

Procunsul Africanus

appeared to be an arboreal quadruped

Hominins

are all memebers of the biological family to which we belong, which is called Hominidae

Dawkins

best known for his popularization of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in his books: The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".

Mesopotamia

between two rivers, Tigris, Euphrates, flow through a desert landscape-linear oasis

geochronological data

data from the rocks in which fossils were buried, varves, tree- rings (dendrochronology), archaeomagnetic

teminus ante quem

date before which, eg the K-Ar date obtained from the overlying tephra in the K-Ar example

Goals of Archaeology

discovery description and classification of physical evidence in the archaeological record, placement of material remains in a time-space framework, inference human activities (subsistence, architecture, economic interaction), explain human history and cultural evolution

allopatric speciation

georgraphic barriers to gene well accepted

cerebral radiator

increased blood supply to the head removed constrains on brain tissue

Machiavellian

intelligence, aility to detect cheaters, language acquisition were favored, and general behavioral flexibility

genus

is a group of closely related species

Lamarck

is best known for his Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, first presented in 1801 (Darwin's first book dealing with natural selection was published in 1859): If an organism changes during life in order to adapt to its environment, those changes are passed on to its offspring.

context

is really important term/concept in archaeology, because it is the association of artifacts, ecofacts, features, and sites with one another that allows for the inference of past human activities

Why did hominins become bipedal?

made long distance travel easier, freed up their hands caused specialized hand function to evolve - opposable thumb lead to tool use manipulating food lead to evolved jaw lead to language

Homo Iuzonensis

67,000-50,000 years Luzon Philippines Small stature, like H. Floresiensis Foot bones similar to australopithecines H. erectus descendent or descended from an earlier dispersal? Water crossing needed

Gran DOlina, Atapuerca (Spain)

780,000 Bp "Homo Antecessor" Cutmarks on Human bone-> cannibalism? Cutmarks on animal bone-> butchery of animals for good

Consequence of the adoption of domesticates?

A "wave of advance" (demic diffusion) Language expansions: south Asia -> Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa (Bantu expansion), Mesoamerica Result: certain language families eg Indo European, Bantu, Uto-Aztecan, Oto-Manguean, and Mayan, dominate across large areas, while certain other languages occur as isolates

Agriculture and its consequences

A coevolutionary process involving human-plant and human-animal mutualism Related to increased predictability of resource bases at beginning of Holocene, when climate became more stable Increased productivity -> sedentism-> population growth-> agricultural subsistence out-competes other subsistence out-competes other subsistence systems

Dryopithecus

A genus of dryopithecid apes found in southern France and northern Spain, 15-10 probably frugivorous due to the way his teeth were shaped and probably lived Asia

Denisova Cave Level 11, 23,000 BP to > 50,000 BP

2 hominin teeth, one finger (sequenced for Denisovan genome) Upper Paleolithic assemblage Bone tools, including eyed needles Polished stone bracelet, other jewelry

A. Boisei

2.3-1.4 mya, Olduvia Gorge, Tanzania

A. Garhi

2.5 mya, Bouri, Ethiopia

H. Habilis

2.5-1.7 mya first stone tool users (Oldowan), 500-750cc brain size, some indication of Broca's area development, small incisors and canines and small molars

A. aethiopicus

2.8-2.3 mya, omo, Ethiopia

Mal'ta Siberia (Nature 2013)

24,000 years old, upper paleolithic assemblage juvenile male burial genome sequneced 2013 Affinities with western Europeans, as expected based on UP assemblages 14-30 % contribution to Native Americans

A. africanus

3.0-2.3 million yers ago Taung, South Africa

Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis)

3.6 -2.9 million years ago Lucy: adult female 40% complete skeleton Definitely a biped, based on pelvis, knee 3 feet 6 inches, 62 pounds Cranial capacity 400 cc

Homo Naledi

300,000 years south Africa (rising- star cave) Cranial capacity 465-610 cc Human- like feet and hands Mosaic anatomy expands range of morphological diversity within genus Homo

Bigger brains coincided with

A) onset of Pleistocene conditions and B) hominin movement out of Africa (though timing unclear now with Dmanisi finds), Ability to live in environments that were much colder than the African tropics in which hominins had originated implies increased behavioral flexibility, presumably as a result of increasing intellectual capacity

The Anzick -1 (12.6 kya) genome refutes Solutrean hypothesis

ADNA from Clovis- age infant skeleton derived from ancient Siberian population and clearly ancestral to contemporary Native Americans The Anzick -1 (12.6 kya) genome is closest to Native Americans from central and South American and shows gene flow from Mal'Ta (Paleolithic Lake Baikal)

Miocene

Africa collides with Asia 17-15 mya leads to an exchange of fauna between Africa and Asia, the apes undergo a second radiation somewhere half arboreal and land apes, some were just land, and some were just arboreal

Neanderthal: Biology

Anatomically, the Neanderthals were very robust- they were extraordinarily muscular compared to the average modern humans and protruding faces, which were probably adaptation to cold climate of Europe during the Pleistocene

Talud of Building B:

Battle of Jaguar and Eagle warriors Depiction from Maya figure-painted vase Visible from North Plaza

Maya (distruption/abandonment -250 AD)

Becan, E l Mirador, Seibal, Altar de Sacraficios

What are the causes of the creative explosion (or great leap forward)

Behvioral Hypothesis: some kind of neural reorganization that left no trace in the fossil record (Richard Kelin) Demography hypothesis (Chris Stringer) Modern cultural traits had appeared on and off in Africa prior to 60,000 years ago, but they were often lost due to low population size and interaction rates (Tasmanian analogue); critical demographic threshold reached by 60,000 years ago-> out of Africa 2

Under what condition might ceramics substitute for existing alternative container technologies? Ie why switch? Sedentary residence:

Blocks of time Women's labor costs (in a sedentary setting, women can multitask, eg grind grain, take care of kids and make pots Protected space Opportunity cost of ceramic production decreases as time spent in one place increases (you're not giving up much by choosing to produce ceramics) Ceramics thus predicted to be associated with the transition to agriculture and increasingly sedentary residence, Ceramic production can yield economies of scale (Returns from two Container)

Schalenthropus tchandensis (Toumai)

Brain -320 cc (chimp size) volume inside the skull On hominin line? Or prior to split?

Use of Desing of Pots

Cooking pots: withstand heating and cooling transfer heat (thin and right temper) Storage pots: keep out pests and sunlight stronger (thick) Serving pots: easy access to contents decorated and often smaller Transportation pots: light in weight yet strong

Complex Human Societies

Cultural complexity increased in several world regions following the adoption of agriculture after the end of the Pleistocene Anthropology classifies societies based on complexity

Is Darwinism applicable to culturally inherited traits

Darwinian evolution assumes no specific kind of inheritance (Darwin didn't even know about genes), so in principle any inheritance system will evolve by the selective process that Darwin proposed (Richard Dawkins)

Why spend time making large temples? (Instead of producing food or crafts or just lying around Theories

Deflect population growth Give people something to do Idle people make trouble Reinforce elite status Visible storage and redistribution centers

Daily life in the New Kingdom

Deir el Medina, village of craftsmen who worked on the royal tombs of the valley of the Kings

Egyptian civilization

Desert of Egypt presents an ecological contrast with lowland Mesoamerica Little ecological diversity Civilization grew along a fertile corridor defined by the Nile River Highly predictable productivity due to annual floods Similar to Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates), Indus Valley, and China

Sites of Mezirich 15,000 BP

Dwelling made from Mammoth Bones

Megaliths

Earliest along Atlantic coast esp. Portugal and Brittany, 4700-4500 BC Collective burial in stone-lined chambers (passage graves) Spreads to England and Ireland Via Irish Sea by 3500 BC Spreads to Baltic and inland along river by 2500BC Circular stone arrangements, eg Stonehenge 2500BC

Gulia Naquitz, Oaxaca (marginal highland)

Earliest occupation between 9000 and 6,700 BC 6 fall microband encampments (Zones B1, B2, B3, C,D,E) Exploited mesquite, acorns, and pinenuts Squash (Curbita pepo) dated 8,000 Maize cobs (Zea mays) AMS-dated 4250 BC earliest anywhere (ash lenses above Zone B1) Archaic period seasonal mobility, marginal highlands- Oaxaca and Tehuacán (Flannery 1986)

But where do the earliest ceramic containers appear?

Earliest pottery occurs in Late Paleolithic (hunter-gatherer) contexts South China 20,000 BP Incipient Jomon Japan -16,800 BP North Africa -11,000 BP Contradicts expectation that pottery should be associated with transition to agriculture Neolithic Or at least ceramic technology was invented in some hunter-gatherer contexts

Summary of AMH expansion

Evolved in Africa by-160 kya In Middle East by 100kya (or earlier) Interbred with Neandertals in NE, Denisovans in Asia, and likely other Archaic populations Expanded through tropics as fat as Australia by 60-50 kya Expanded into Euope 45-40 kya In North central Asia by 30 kya or earlier Associated with creative explosion especially in Europe, although art and other "UP" features appear earlier and (now) associated with

Blombos Cave, South Africa 100,000-70,000 years ago: evidence for the demographic hypothesis?

Fewer innovations lost Trade spreads both goods and ideas Innovative technologies could be built upon and recombined giving rise to cumulative culture Pace of culture evolution speeds up

How did fire help Paleolithic people to survive?

Fire -> availability cooked food -> greater range of foods available, greater nutritional value ->Reduced need for gut tissue ->Easier to support brain tissue -> more time available since less chewing -> promotes sexual division of labor (usually women cook, men hunt, play politics, or sit around) Provides warmth Keeps the dark (and predators) away

Coastal archaic summary

Foragers utilizing estuarine resources by 5500 cal BC (even earlier in Panama) Estuaries only pary of the picture However archaic period archaeological sites on the coastal plan so far have not been well documented Sediment cores document interior forest clearance and domesticates Increased sedimentation would helped build productive lagoon -estuary production

Anatomically Modern Homo Sapiens

Fossils of Anatomically modern humans are relatively common across Africa by 100kya, and they are present in Middle East, where moderns apparently co-existed with Neanderthals, by about 90 kya or slightly earlier Most well-dated fossils or anatomically modern humans in rest of Europe and Asia are much younger than this The earliest in Europe date to about 40-35 kya Apidima-1 Greece is an enigmatic exception

Robust Australopithecines

Fully bipedal Robust skulls were probably an adaptaion to eating hard foods like nuts and seeds (through they may also have eaten other things) Three species sof robust australopithecine which span the period between about 3-2.5 mya and 1.5 or 1 mya The robust branch of the hominin lineage apparenetly went extinct by 1 mya

what are the advantages to big brains that might have outweighed the metabolic costs?

General behavioral flexibility, ability to envision, plan, learn from others was favored-> many advantages behaviors possible, eg tool making, hinting, coordination of activities and other, less obviously beneficial capacities, eg art, language, are byproducts of the general flexibility

Doni Vestonice, Czech Republic

Gravettian 27,000-25,000BP, Gravettian tool assemblage, carved Earliest ceramic Beehive-shaped kilns Figurine production

European Neolithic Summary

Greece (Thessaly) Earliest Spread to Balkans by 5800 BC Western Mediterranean (Impressed Ware) by 5500 BC Early LBK 5500 BC Late LBK 5400-4900 BC

Maize adopted by agriculturalists in eastern North America

Indigenous cultivars Squash Sunflower Marsh elder Goosefoot Introduction of maize -AD 200

Multiregional evolution hypotheses

Human dispersal from Africa to Eurasia by 1 million years ago Far- flung human population then diverge morphologically due to natural selection and genetic drift However gene flow ensured that highly adaptive novelties (like larger brins) spread everywhere Modern humans thus evolved simultaneously in Africa, Europe, and Asia

Ceramic technology

Human experience with and mastery over plasticity and Pyrotechnology goes back to the Late Paleolithic (Dolne Vestonice) Ceramic containers were invented in multiple world regions independently during the past 15,000 years No reason to think that serviceable ceramic containers can't be made virtually anywhere

The formative period in lowland southern Mesoamerica

Humans highly visible on the landscape for the first time Settled villages recognizable as mounds along the pacific coast Pottery adopted Subsistence based on combine maize agriculture and exploitation of estuarine resources Population growth-> settlement density increases, villages spread throughout lowlands

Second Intermediate Period, 1759-1593 BCE

Hyksos groups of the eastern Nile Delta grew in power, 1786-1720 BCE Mixture of Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian cultures Trading contacts throughout eastern Mediterranean 1674 BCE Hyksos capture Memphis and much of the rest of Nile Valley

Technological change accelerates (Neolithic)

Increased economic interaction Traders Opportunities for non-producing specialists Priests, administrators

Hublin et al. June 2017 Nature: earliest anatomically modern humans?

Jebel Irhoud, Morocco Enigmatic hominin fossils and Middle stone age tools found during 1960s Recent dating places fossils and tools 350,000 -280,000 years Skull morphology suggests ancestral to modern human

What were precipitating conditions?

John Clark and Mike Blake: status/ prestige competition and adoption of ceramic technology are interrelated processes: Social competition among "aggrandizers" Demand for more and better containers Aggrandizer import ceramic container technology from elsewhere

Spread of rice and millet agrculture to Japan, 800 -500 BC (Yayoi)

Jomon 11,000 2800 BP (Hunter-gatherers, pottery) Yayoi, 8000 BC AD 300 (introduction of rice farming)

Specific contact of early pottery adoption by hunter-gatherers

Jomon: highly -productive marine-focused economy and Sedentism South China: Late Pleistocene focus on grasses (wild rice, millet) North Africa: Late Pleistocene grasses So maybe the expectations prove the rule? But clearly the economic models that predict early pottery in an agricultural setting may need to be revised

Hydraulic Hypotheses for the origins of the state and civilization

Karl Wittfogel (1896-1988) Need for water control is the prime mover that brought about early sates Societies about early states Societies in the great river valleys depended on irrigation woks Labor needed to be mobilized to build and maintain them This requires an administrative bureaucracy with literate officials Such early state societies were inevitably despotic (Oriental Despotism)

Maya (Abandoments 0 AD)

Komchen, Edzna

Catal Hoyik, Turkey: Early Neolithic village (7500-6200 BCE)

LOTS OF RITUAL SHRINES A city? No function redundancy/ differentiation Tightly packed city

Neanderthal art dated by U-T

La Paiega Cantabria, Spain U-Th dates of carbonates formed over the red pigment > 64,800 years 20,000 years earlier than arrival of moderns

Neandethals had art

La pasiega, Cantabria, Spain U-Th dates of carbonates form over the red pigment > 64,800 years 20,000 years earlier than arrival of moderns

Homo sapiens in Australia -45 kya required substantial water crossings

Lake Mungo "Mung Man" 45, 000 BP Upper swan, 38,000 BP Malakunja II 45-61 kya Puritjarrn Rock shelter, 22,000 BP Kow Swamp, 13,000 -13,000 15,000

Archaeological site of Uruk- the first city

Large dense settlements go back to early Neolithic eg Catl Hoyuk But functional redundancy identifies them as more like overgrown villages Cities are like Teotihuacan not just large but with obvious functional differentiation of activity areas (ceremonial, craft production, administrative )

What would the end-Pleistocene impact hypothesis explain?

Large fauna extinctions (mammoth, mastodon, etc) Small fauna extinctions The end of Clovis The "black mat" at Clovis sites The Younger Dryas

Disease

Largest cause of population loss European disease were deadly to Native populations since lack of previous exposure meant no immunities The greater the density of population, the larger the effect Up to 95% population loss in Urban areas 25 million people in Mexico in 1519 1.2 million people in Mexico in 1619

11-10.3 kya: Younger Dryas climatic crisis; cold, dry

Late Natufians returned to more mobile pattern

who made the first tools

Lomekwian 3.3 mya, Hominin that made them was Kenyanthropus Playops

Egyptian sites

Lower Nile= Giza, Memphis, Alexandria Upper Nile = Luxor, Karnak, valley of the Kinds Nubia = lower Bordered by the red sea

Black Earth Site, Illinois

Middle Archaic 6,000 -5,000 BP Dark Midden (charcoal, ash, etc) Small land mammals, aquatic resources, hickory nuts and acorns. Diverse tool assemblage (projectile points, ground stone, needles) Large cemetery (154 burials) Artist's reconstruction of activities at the Black Earth site

Ardipithecus ramidus

Middle Awash, Ethiopia 5.5-4.3 mya 300 - 350 cc cranial capacity Canines reduced compared to chimpanzees and similar in males and females Bipedal on the ground but also a god tree climber Environment a mosaic of grass- and woodlands with swamps and lakes

Two Centers of agricultural origins in China

Millet (6500-5000 BC) RICE (7000- 5500BC) PIGS BY 7000 Northern China: Millet (aC4 Plant 8000-6000)

Aurgnacian 40,000-28,000 BP

Mobility art: Vogelherd Horse, 28,0000 Chauvet Cave 32,000-30,000 BP earliest parietal art Aurignacian tools: blades, strangled blades, bone points

Neanderthal: Brains

Neanderthal brains were as large or larger than ours, and we have clear evidence that they did some things that we would consider to be human such as burying dead and placing items in the grave with them and making and wearing jewelry.

Younger Dryas

Named after Dryas octopetala, the alpine-tundra wildflower that appears in the pollen record of key European locations Climate begins to warm during Bolling-Allerod interstadial -15,000 12.9 kya warming trend abruptly reverse and glacial conditions again prevail for about 1000 years Thought to be related to shutting down of thermohaline circulation by influx of glacial meltwater from Laurentide ice sheet into North Atlantic

ecofacts

Natural materials that give environmental information about a site, non-artificial organic remains

Some details on how the history of agriculture played out

Near East-> Europe China-> Japan, SE Asia Mesoamerica-> North and South America (Arrows indicate spread from zone of origin)

initial expansion of early Neolithic economy

Neolithic economy established in Levant, souther Anatolia, 7,500 cal BC (eg Catal Hoyuk) and Cyprus Crete by 7000 cal BC Eastern Greece (Thessaly) settled by immigrant farmers 65000 cal BC Movement north to Balkans Neolithic package include crops, sheep and goats, ground stone, pottery, figurines, spinning and weaving

Egyptian chronology

Neolithic period (7500-6900BP) Pre-Dynastic (6900-5100 BP) Early Dynastic (5100-4600 BP) Old Kingdom (2650- 2152 BCE) First Intermediate (2152-1999 BCE) Middle Kingdom (1999-1769 BCE) Second intermediate (1769-1529 BCE) New Kingdom (1539-1069 BCE) Over the course of 2000 years, three cycles of florescence and decline/ reorganization, beginning with Old Kingdom

Significance of agriculture (from peoples' perspective)

New relationships with the environment Foragers-extensive use of land (generally) Agriculturalists -intensive use of smaller amounts of land Long-term changes in the structure and organization of societies that adopt this new way of life Foundation of state societies that developed around the world Human society was never the same again after the agriculture

Postscript: did the Maya disappear?

No Maya society continued in northern Yucatan until the Spanish under Francisco de Montejo and their Xiu Maya allies conquered the peninsula in the 1540's Postclassical Itza Maya remained independent in the area around Lake Peten Itza (northern Guatemala) a region that did not fall to the Spanish (and Xiu Maya allies) until 1697 Today seven million Maya speaker live in Guatemala and Mexico

El Mirador, Guatemala

Northern Peten, grandest city ever built in the Maya area, Dante complex 70 m high, El tiger 55 m high, abandoned with rest of Mirador Basin 150 AD

Thorstein Veblen- theory of the leisure class (reduce fitness)

Nouveau riche have an undetectable quality (vast wealth) In order to signal their possession of vast wealth, they engage in conspicuous consumption The signal can't be faked (have to have money) "the most expensive cars in the world are so much more than transportation. These rolling art pieces encapsulate the priories of the one percent, and in that universe, flamboyance over practically and efficiency"

Another consequence of agriculture? Beginning of the "Anthropocene"

Possible contributors Deforestation eg in Europe -9,000 BP 5500 BP forested continent covered by Neolithic settlements-> increased CO2 Rice agriculture (China) and livestock -> increased methane beginning -5500BP

Teotihuacan apartment compounds

Over 2000 mapped Domestic function Most build -AD 200 Related individuals (skeletal evidence) Craft specialization (eg obsidian, ceramics, trading- Merchants Barrio) Generally of similar size and quality Gini index=0.12 (vs 0.45 fro US 0.25 Sweden) But Ciudadela may be extreme Ciudadela complex: Miccaotli Thamimilolpa (200-300 AD) : North and South palaces: rulers of Teo? Similar to apartments elsewhere at Teo but on grander scale Feathered serpent pyramid (FSP) between palaces) contemporary with palaces Adosada platform added to from of FSP postdates original construction Hides the original façade

10.3 -8 kya: returns of Pluvial conditions, very wet Early Holocene

PPPNA and PPNB: agricultural production in Levantine corridor and beyond

Prehistory

Paleolithic: hunter gatherers Neolithic (7500-6900 BP) : wheat, barley from fertile crescent, cattle

Classic Period Teotihucan

Pan-regional commercial empire Military/commercial incursions Gulf coast Maya are (documented on inscriptions) Pacific Guatemala Urban center deteriorated -500 AD City Center burned -600 -700 AD Never fully abandoned

Neanderthals

Particularly well-known from of archaic human lived in Europe and the middle east the Neanderthals Most consider them to be a distinct species which they call H. neanderthalensis Survived in Europe until the late Pleistocene - 30,000 years ago

Schoningen, Germany

Peat deposit, dated - 400,000 Bp 8 wooden spears Stone tools Bones of horse with butchery marks Homo heidelbergensis seems to have been a hunter

Reduced opportunity costs of ceramics

Sedentary residence Blocks of time Women can multitask

Why did humans independently make the same irreversible, awful mistake, adopting and agricultural lifestyle, at roughly the same time (10,000- 4,000 BP) in a at least seven different world regions? Did people "choose" agriculture?

People would never choose sickness over health, or longer and harder working conditions over the easy life To do so would reduce Darwinian fitness and would be selected against very rapidly and efficiently No one ever saw that they were making such a choice, they just made decision day to day But how, then, do we explain this "mistake" that has been made by virtually the whole human species? Prime movers: Environmental change hypotheses (eg the Oasis Hypothesis of V.G Childe Population pressure hypotheses (e.g Binford, Cohen); Agriculture was a last resort that emerged only after the Pleistocene landscape had filled in and population began to bump up against carrying populations began to bump up against carrying capacity for hunter-gatherer subsistence systems Social hypotheses- Eg B. Bender Hayden: Certain individuals' intensity in order to accumulate a surplus of food; They use the surplus in competitive feasting (Hayden) or transform it into more value items (rare stones, metals etc) (Bender)

Villages

Permanent architecture Entire community of individuals living in one place Often rectangular houses: packing Examples ( catal Hoyuk, Jericho, Mehrgarh (Pakistan) Part of "Neolithic Package" LBK Longhouse Villages

Lepinski Vir (Middle Danube, 9500-6000BC)

Permanent habitation, stone slab and timber architecture, fish from river, plant foods, game (red deer, boar, aurochs, otter, duck, goose)

Implications of Sedentary residence

Permanent villages and larger settlements Architectural permanence Monumental architecture Surpluses

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction shows extensive marshes -750 BC when earliest Maya settlers arrived

Permanent water Abundant wildlife Fiber resources Defense The maya then transformed the region into an agricultural breadbasket by a combination of terracing and fertilizing with organic-rich marsh mud They also developed rainwater management systems that eased dry season water shortages

Didiwan, Western Huang He drainage (Barton et al. 2009)

Phase 1, 7900-7200 Cal BP (pre-Yangshao) Bimodal 13C in dogs-> wild+ human-associated subsistence Low level food production in hunting-gathering context Phase 2, 6500-4900 BP) Yangshao BOTANICAL millet Camp-fed dogs Pigs (camp-fed) Intensive agriculture

First intermediate period 2152-1999 BCE

Population -1 million by end of old Kingdom Global climate drying beginning -2200 BCE-> Series of very low Nile floods Breakup of Old Kingdom by 2152 BCE Religious and political upheaval Multiple independent states

Disintegration of the New Kingdom 1200-1000 BCE

Pressure from Hittites Increasing aridification of the Sahara Incursions of "Sea Peoples," who threatened the Nile Delta area, -1200 BCE Gold mines of Nubia Exhausted Tomb robbing rises dramatically even local official taking part By 1000 BCE control of Nubia and lands of the Eastern Mediterranean was lost

genus homo

Presumed to have evolved from a gracile australopithecine eg Australopecus garhi 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 This is the first big increase in brain size that we see within the hominin lineage

Old Kingdom constrictions

Pyramid of Khufu Largest at Giza Granite interior Limestone casing stones (removed in antiquity) Probably used ramps Built 2430 BCE looted -100 BCE

radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon -(step 1: reaction of nitrogen with thermal neutron produced by cosmic ray-effect on light atoms in upper atmosphere N^14+N^1= C^14 +P^1 Step 2: oxidation of Carbon 14 to CO2 then incorporation into plants by photosynthesis and carbonate exchange in seawater step 3: radioactive decay of Carbon to Nitrogen step 3: radioactive decay of Carbon 14 to Nitrogen 14 which provides the basis for radiocarbon dating C^14 to Nitrogen 14 which provides the basis for radiocarbon dating Carbon14 = Nitrogen 14+ B-) Amount of Carbon 14 in dead sample decreases at a rate determined by half-life so that measurement of Carbon 14/Carbon 12 provides an estimated age Approaches 0 after about 50,000 years or so But Carbon 14 in atmosphere has varied over time, which means radiocarbon ages have to be "calibrated" to calendar dates

Western Mediterranean Neolithic

Rapid spread around shores of Adriatic, to Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica 6300 -5800 BC Southern France and around coasts of Iberian Peninsula 5800 -5300 BC

Specific explanation for adoption of pottery: The barra phase example

Sedentary residence -a necessary (permissive) condition By about 1800BC, the combination of farming and exploitation of estuarine resources on the lower coast could support year-round or nearly year-round residence on the coast of Chiapas and Guatemala

Spread from Balsas Basin

Recent evidence (El Gigante, Honduras) suggests highly productive maize varieties may have evolved outside of the range of initial domestication

When the distinctive characteristics of Mesoamerica civilization coalesced:

Reliance on agriculture Pottery Settled villages Public architecture First sculptural art (olmec) Long distance interaction First evidence of accumulation of power (elites)

Sumerian life

Religion (polytheist) Each city had patron god Temples built to patron god 4 main gods: an Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag

Disadvantages of pots compared to alternatives

Requires large amount of fuel during firing Fragile (more so than other containers) Baskets, stomachs, Gourds Heavy Can only be made during dry season (need to dry Dry season= good gathering time for seeds (opportunity costs) Have to be in 1 place for many days To see production cycle through

Post-Pleistocene landscape changes, North America

Retreat of glaciers Rising sea levels Expanding forests in the east Expanding deserts in the west

Early Dynastic period 300-200 BCE

Rise of first city states Urbanism with multi-storied houses Mass production pots from molds Writing widespread dynastic records of city states Monumental architecture -pyramids, palaces, platforms

De glaciation in Europe

Rising sea levels More habitable land Dampened climatic fluctuations

Old world domestication

SW Asia (the "Fertile Crescent"): wheat, barley, sheep, goats, cattle; beginning between 11,000 and 10,000 BP China: rice by 11,500 BP; millet, cabbage, pigs and chickens later North Africa: Sorghum and millet; around 8,000 BP

Anthropology

Study of the origins and development of people and their societies

Old Kingdom Economy

Subsistence base intensive wheat and barley agriculture Craft specialists Trade as far away as Syria

Osiris - Grandson of Ra

Taught agriculture and abolished cannibalism

Ubaid Period 5300-4600 BCE

Temples important in early sites, like Oueili and Eridu Irrigation agriculture key technological innovation -> surplus-> elites Starts in South and spreads north Altars raised on mud-brick platforms Ancestors of later and larger temples Trade of raw materials from surrounding regions

Maize beer hypothesis (Smalley and Blake 2003)

Teosinte seeds would have been of little interest Sugary stalk however would have been a good source of energy Also fermentation would have yielded maize beet (chicha) Social importance of alcohol -> rapid spread of early maize

Rainfall record in water and wetlands

Terminal classic maya droughts O^18/ o^16 is a paleoenvironmental record O^18/ o^16 in a stalagmite called "Chaac" Dry interval 810-938 CE Rainfall dropped periodically to 36-52% today level during the 130 years period Eight extremely severe episodes 3-18 years duration The most intense drought of the entire 1500 year Chacc record

Cortez

The Spaniards kidnapped and killed Montezuma and enlisted the help of local, non-Aztec people who had been subjugated by the Aztecs and were willing to help out the newcomers Between internal strife and Cortes murder of all the Aztec leaders superior weapons and perhaps most importantly diseases the Spaniards prevailed and the Aztecs surrendered on August 13, 1521 Most of the Aztec heartland was captured by 1524 Disease (smallbox here)

What happened to lowland Maya civilization?

The lowland cities in 1840 CE (drawing by F. Catherwood) Rainfall records from lakes and speleothems

The Neolithic (or formative)

The period when domesticated plants entered the human diet is often called the Neolithic= New Stone Age (old world), Formative in the New World Occurs at various times and places across the world since the onset of modern climatic conditions about 11,000 BP Also marked by domestication of animals (dogs, pigs, goats, cows, sheep. Etc) Agricultural revolution was not a single event or discovery however To understand it we need to understand the process

Old Kingdom (2650-2152 BCE)

The role of king refined and power consolidated Absolute power Inherited position Ruled in both religion and politics: was a god Obsession with afterlife-> lavish tombs The pyramids of Giza were built

Hypothesis about spread of Proto-Uto-Aztecan: hill, J (2001), Demic Diffusion

The spread of Uto-Aztecan, Oto -Mangena, and Mayan Language families beginning -3000 BC

Homo Floreiensis

These astonishing little people nicknamed hobbits made tools hunted tiney elephants and may have lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area 100,000-60,000 Bp 1 m tall, with a 380 cm^3 brain Shaped stone tools Some primitive features unlike H. erectus

Australopithecus anamnesis

Thought to precede A afarensis But near- complete skull discovered 2016 dates 3.8 mya so must have overlapped A. afarensis which resulted from a speciation vent from A. anamnesis within an isolated subpopulation

Community in central Peten

Tikal, Uaxactun, Yaxha

Magdalenian -18,000-11,000

Tools =Bone points, harpoons, spear throwers, Parietal art, earliest dogs, Eliseevichi I, central Russian Plan 16,000-18,000, mammoth bone dwelling, Russia 15,000 BP

Mousterian Industry (Middle Paleothic)

Tools found at early archaic human 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 appearance which referred to as Levallois technique Associated especially with Neandertals in Europe and Western Asia

Solutrean 22,000-28,000 BP

Tools= Vine fine, Leaf-shaped points

Agriculture- questions and issues

Where and when? What plants/animals domesticated? Impact of domestication and agriculture on plans and animals Impact of domestication and agriculture people Explanatory frameworks for domestication and agriculture

Origins of Ceramic Production

Why switch from alternative containers? Advantages and disadvantages of various container technologies Where do the production of techniques come from? Indigenous invention Ideas diffused from elsewhere

New Kingdom

Widespread prosperity Increasing power and wealth of temples threatens king Akhenaten (135201336 BCE) attempts to install Aten (the physical sun) as single god of Egypt Moves capital north Akhenaten (Tel el Amarna) Amarna letter discovered 1887: 350 documents that describe Egypt's relations with other states of the ancient Near East Diplomacy marriage alliances, trade etc Largely a time of peace and prosperity But cult of Aten fails after Akhenaten's death Akhenaten's heir is the boy Tutankhaten, but changes name to Tutankhamun within a year, indicating fall of the Cult of Aten King Tut (1334-1325 BCE) dies at 19 but is justly famous as a result of discovery of his unlooted tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 A snapshot of the fabulous wealth of New Kingdom Pharaohs

Rice agriculture origins and spread

Wild progenitor, likely a perennial, Oryza rufipogon, which grows widely across China and South Asia Tow domesticates O. Japonica and O. Indica Lower and Middle Yangtze -8000-6000 Some suggest separate origin along Ganges in India Spreads to SE Asia, India, Japan, 2000 BC-0 No clear linguistic correlate, unlike Europe

historical records

Written information relating to historical figures or events, dated Maya Monuments

An impact as cause of end of Pleistocene extinctions?

YBD impact hypothesis, Evidence of biomass burning and platinum spike in chile and sought Africa Faunal extinctions and other eco-system and cultural changes Discovery of 31 Km diameter impact crater beneath a glacier in Greenland together with platinum spikes in Greenland Ice dated to 12,800 BP

Natufian

a diversified, intensive hunter-gatherer adaptation in which harvesting of wild cereal played a crucial

family

a group of closely-related genera (plural for genus)

sites

a place where people performed some activity in the past, fixed place on the landscape

Evolutinary theory

a theoritical framework for explaining change and diversity (biological and cultural )

Achulean Handaxes

after 1.5 mya, more sophisticated, semisharp point, carefully shaped

absolute dating

assign absolute ages to things

Absolute (chronometric) dating

assign an age to specific contexts, provides dates for major developments, indicates duration for periods, phases, and other chronological units

A. afarensis

based on a famous chimpanzee-like fossil nicknamed Lucy,3.6 -2.9 million years ago Laetoli, Tanzania

Laetoli footprints

earliest direct evidence of hominin bipedalism; 3.6 million years old; trail of footprints that extends over 70 feet, preserved in a layer hardened volcanic ash laid down during the middle Pliocene in Tanzania

sympatric speciation

ecological differences in single population, debatable if this ever happens

Biological (evolutionary theory)

especially relevant for discussing hominin ancestors

Cultural Anthropology

ethnography, ethnology

order

grouped into classes we are in the mammalian class

Denisovians

hominin group;distant cousins to Neanderthals; DNA evidence from finger fragment and wisdom tooth traced to Denisova, a cave in Southern Siberia; apparently lived in Asia from roughly 400,000-50,000 YA

Genetic evidence for the Out Africa Hypothesis

mtDNA evidence shows that European archaic Neanderthals were separated from anatomically modern humans for a long time Also consistent with Out of Africa

Coyotlatelco:

multiple competing power centers in much of central and southern Mexico- as many as 50 competing polities

Darwin's Theory

natural selection to explain the diversity of life

Chemical Data

obsidian hydration, amino-acid racemization, fluorine, ceramic hydroxylation

Board adoption of pottery

one technological consequences of agriculture

Broad adoption of pottery:

one technological consequences of agriculture Changes take place upon firing that turn plastic clay into an artificial sedimentary rock, changes take place upon firing that turn plastic clay into an artificial sedimentary rock

Archaeological sites in Mesoamerica

palenque, Chiapa, Mexico Teotihuacan Mexico, Mexico

oldowan choppers

the cobble tools are called Oldowan choppers, named after Olduvai Gorge where they were first found Olduvai Gorge, Beds 1-1v, 1.85 -1.7 These "choppers" and the flakes that were produced when the choppers were made were used for cutting, scraping, chopping, etc (based on use-wear analysis) Oldowan: cutting edges produced by striking flakes from a core

Levallois Tolls (Mousterian Industry)

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) projective point, scraper, etc) Ensure sharp edge, affords better control over size Neandetals, Homo neandertalensis 200kya -27 kay Mousterian Tools Apidama Cave, Southern Greece, July 2019 Apidima 1 (Modern 210,000)

Near East domestication

the earliest primary center of domestication (10,000-8,000 years ago) Sheep, goats, pigs, emmer wheat, Einkorn wheat, Barley

Speciation

the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.

Archeological record

the material remains of past human activity (i.e. what archaeologist study) made up of artifacts, ecofacts, features, and sites, created and modified by human activities

Features

the non-portable remnants of technology/human activity, large and/or heavy, or not movable as a whole

Sunghir Moscow 28,000 BP Gravettian

three graves with total 13,00 carved ivory beads each requiring 1 hour to make

Macroscopic record

visible artifacts, features, sites

archaeological lab work

washing, sorting, description, analysis