archaeology 2
Santa Elena (Stanley south)
1566-1586, used mean ceramic dating; desert , nomadic people were not building large structures, standard archaeological surveys,
Gatecliff Projectile Point Typology
400 speciments; 25 types;Material not important Weight, size, notching (side,base, corner), Proximal Shoulder Angle Time Markers - 10 examples based on stratigraphy and 47 C-14 dates (3500 BC to 1300 AD+) = 5000 - 7000 years Elko Corner Notched (3500-1500 BP): Arrowhead Cottonwood Triangular AD 1300: Arrowhead If you know the date of an artifact it allows you to date the surrounding site
Half-life
5, 730 years, but is good only for organic remains that are younger than about 45000 years.
Chaco Canyon (roads - Great Houses- Astro-archaeology)
950-850 years ago, a system of roads radiating out from Anasazi Great House and lead to smaller outlier sites and natural features; divided between an economic purpose and a symbolic ideological role linked to ancestral puebloan beliefs.
Functional Types
A class of artifacts that performed the same function; these may or may not be temporal and/or morphological types.
Morphological Types
A descriptive and abstract grouping of individual artifacts whose focus is on overall similarity rather than function or chronological significance.
Argon-Argon Dating (Potassium Argon Dating)
A high precision method for estimating the relative quantities of argon-39 and argon-40 gas; used to date volcanic ashes that are between 500,000 and several million years old
Soil Horizons (A,B,C)
A is the upper part of a soil, where active organic and mechanical composition of geological and organic material occurs, B is a layer found below the A horizon where clays accumulate that are transported downward by water. C is below the B horizon that consists of the unaltered or slightly altered parent material.
Temporal Types
A morphological type that has temporal significance, also known as a time-marker or index fossil.
Ground Penetrating Radar
A remote sensing technique in which radar pulses directed into the ground reflect back to the surface when they strike features or interfaces within the ground, showing the presence and depth of possible buried features.
Proton-magnetometer
A remote sensing technique that measures the strength of magnetism between the earth's magnetic core and a sensor controlled by the archaeologist. Magnetic anomalies can indicate the presence of buried walls or features.
Soil resistivity
A remote sensing technique that monitors the electrical resistance of soils in a restricted volume near the surface of an archaeological site; changes in the amount of resistance registered by the resistivity meter can indicate buried walls or features.
Stratigraphy
A site's physical structure produced by the deposition of geological and/or cultural sediments into layers, or strata
Test Excavations
A small initial excavation to determine a site potential for answering a research question.
Mean Ceramic Dating
A statistical technique for combining the median age of manufacture for temporally significant pottery types to estimate the average age of a feature or site. Gives a range
Tradition
A tradition is a belief or behavior passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past
Thermoluminescence
A trapped charge dating technique used on ceramics and burned stone artifacts - anything mineral that has been heated to more than 500 degrees.
Optical Stimulated Luminescence
A trapped charge dating technique used to date sediments; the age is the time elapse between the last time a few moments exposure to sunlight reset the clock to zero and the present
Electron Spin Resonance
A trapped charge technique used to date tooth enamel and burned stone tools; it can date teeth that are beyond the range of radiocarbon dating
Natural level
A vertical subdivision of an excavation square that is based on natural breaks in the sediments.
Phase
An archaeological construct possessing traits sufficiently characteristic to distinguish it from other units similarly conceived; spatially limited to roughly a locality or region and chronologically limited to the briefest interval of time possible.
Marker Beds (Mazama Eruption)
An easily identified geological layer whose age has been independently confirmed at numerous locations and whose presence can therefore be used to date archaeological and geological sediments.
Attributes
An individual characteristic that distinguishes one artifact from another on the basis of its size, surface texture form, material method of manufacture or design patter.
Terminus Ante Quem
Anything before the event is younger
Carbon-14 Dating
Can be run on anything organic.measuring the decay of carbon isotopes in an artifact to determine the age of the artifact
Master Chart - "floating chronology"
Douglas's master sequence of tree rings, when he could only find stumps and living trees as 500 years. Floating chronology is when the beginning and end dates are not known.
Baroque City Plan
Emphasized power through high points and triangles; was one of the first examples of separation of church and state (equal but separate)
South West Example
Evolution of different tribes settling in the same area, if you did not have a chronology you would not be able to see these groups develop and when they lived at the same time: Anasazi, mgollon, Hohokam , would not be able to place points to certain tribes.
Pleistocene Extinctions
Extinction of megafauna (giant animals) in North & South America and Australia. Why not in Europe and Africa? → They had existed in Europe and Africa for hundreds of thousands of years whereas in Australia and the Americas people appeared suddenly and in great force and hunted and killed the animals
Silver Reef (mining town and region)
Ghost town in Utah; adobe buildings; specialized silver community; easy to dig (sandstone); Impact of human beings: Built huge mounts of debris, which affected the water flow and surrounding environment; also mixed mercury with the ore to extract the silver and then flushed the waste product into the environment
Global Positioning System (GPS)
Handheld devices that use triangulation from radio waves received from satellites to determine your current position in terms of either the UTM grid or latitude and longitude.
Seasonal Round - carson desert survey
Hunter-gatherers pattern of movement between different places on the landscape, timed to the seasonal availability of food and other resources.
Time Markers
If you have a certain object at another site you can assume its from the same time, cross date
Clark Erickson - Amazonia - raised fields
Manmade features that Erickson was uncovering (Bolivian lowlands archaeology; pulled up dirt and stone to make a higher elevation to avoid damage from floods; Huge human-produced landscape → islands connected to the raised fields by prehistoric causeways
Ozette
On Washington's Olympic peninsula; Makah people lived their into the 1920s and used oral traditions; hunter-gatherers; high level of preservation; were able to obtain many artifacts. Preserved by saturated dirt and clay cap.
Pattern Recognition
Patterns based on types
Method and theory in American archaeology
Published by Gordon R. Willey and Phillip Phillips. little interpretation had taken place in American archaeology, and their book offered an analytical perspective; the methods they described and the structural framework they used for synthesizing American prehistory were all geared toward interpretation. Method and Theory served as the catalyst and primary reader on the topic for over a decade.
Frontier Pattern vs Carolinian Pattern
Shows the different needs of the Carolinian pattern (more city oriented) vs the frontier pattern (more wild so they needed more arms for protection or grew more tobacco because they had more agricultural land) More tobacco on the frontier because more men were on the frontier and they're the ones who smoked it This is the same as Stanley South → Pattern recognition in historical archaeology/patterns based on types
South India Example
Sir Mortimer Wheeler trained southern Indians to find scores of silver and gold roman coins to date the deposits, since they were originally found without chronology.
Arbitrary level
The basic vertical subdivision of an excavation squre; used only when easily recognizable "natural strata" are lacking or when natural starta are more than 10 centimeters thick
Space-time Systematics
The delineation of patterns in material culture through time and space. These patterns are what the archaeologist will eventually try to explain or account for.
Site Formation
The human and natural actions that work together to create an archaeological site
Culture History
The kind of archaeology practiced mainly in the early to mid twentieth century; it explains differences or changes over time in artifact frequencies by positing the diffusion of ideas between neighboring cultures of the migration of a people who had different mental templates for artifact styles. Outlines human prehistory and historic period, chronology gives a framework for culture history, and gives a scale to measure cultural processes and evolution
Settlement system
The movements and activities reconstructed from a settlement pattern
Dendrochronology
The use of annual growth rings in trees to assign calendar ages to ancient wood samples. Trees have to reflect climate change.
Grid System Datum Point
The zero point, a fixed reference used to keep control over the locations of artifacts, features, etc on a dig; usually controls both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of provenience.
Period
a length of time distinguished by particular items of material culture, such as house forms, pottery or subsistence
Offa's Dyke
a massive linear earthwork, roughly followed by some of the current border between England and Wales. used to be a border between two kingdoms. Fox interpreted the Dyke as the product of a negotiated agreement between Mercia and the Welsh Kingdoms
Heat treatment
a process whereby the flintknapping properties of stone tool raw material are improved by subjecting the material to heat
Gatecliff Rockshelter
a rock shelter; 16 living layers; human activity 5500 years ago to 500 years ago
Sampling- Random Sampling
a sample drawn from a statistical population such that every member of the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample
Calendrical
absolute dating, year, month day (from solar activity)
Provenience
an artifacts location within a site
Cagny-l Epinette Site
artifacts found here were separated by sediments, which could mean people lived on multiple floors, or moved around by burrowing rodents. By noting the position and orientation, they were able to figure out that the river moved the objects from another site to this one.
Shroud of Turin
cloth that looks like Christ when he was crucified. They tried to determine authenticity by carbon 14 dating and found it to be 1260-1390 AD
House mounds
clusters of mounds , more rura, not as grandiose in design as palaces in urban areas.
William Strata Smith
created index fossil concept, different fossils characterize different rock strata
Sir Cyril Fox
created iron age to show the evolution of a region
Terminus Post Quem
date after which the object joins the archaeological record
Absolute Dating
dates expressed in specific units of scientific measurement (days, years, centuries, or millennia)
Ford-Spaulding Debate
debate on types; Ford: Invented by the archaeologist, arbitrary, imposed on the date; Spaulding: Discovered by the archaeologist, inherent in the data, use of statistical approach to attributes to define types
Gravestone studies (James Deetz)
decorations on the tombstones followed the battleship pattern for seriation dating, death heads motif showed the orthodox puritans and the change to the cherub showed the liberal perspective in the great awakening period.
Andrew E Douglas
developed dendrochronology, an astronomer studying the effects of sun spots on the Earth's climate
St Mary's City
first colonial town and settlement , Agriculture protected the archaeological treasure and preserved an unparalleled resource for the study of Early America. St. Mary's City offers a rare opportunity for researchers to coax information about the Maryland colony and people's lives from a priceless archaeological record
Lovelock Cave
first excavated in 1912 by a museum security guard from the university of California and later in 1924 by mark Harrington. They found duck decoys and radiocarbon dating showed they were made about 2000 years ago. Preserved by dry and dusty interior.
Laetoli footprints
footprints preserved by volcanic ash of two hominins;; law of superposition was used to show the relative stratigraphic sequence and potassium argon dating dated the beds around the footprint. She found the age of the footprints were between 3.56 and 3.49 million years old.
Trapped Charge Dating
forms of dating that rely on the fact that electrons become trapped in mineral's crystal lattices as a function of background radiation. The age o the specimen is the total radiation received divided by the annual does of radiation.
Nicolas Steno
formulated the law of superposition
Homo erectus dating issue
found infant homo erectus fossils very far away. They found the bones to be 2 million years old, which they could not believe because they thought they only lived in Africa. Argon-Argon dating showed it was 1.8 million years old.
Bristlecone Pines
full chronology is known because the trees are so old they have living and dead species where they can compare with radiocarbon dating.
Pecos and Chetro Ketl
had begun to dig a ditch and create a heap of trash with reverse stratigraphy
Ceremonial centers
had high residences packed around them
Stratigraphic Area Excavation
identification of the context is important , Wheeler emphasized stratigraphy - never dig around the building because it destroys the stratigraphic layers and chronological record
The personality of Britain
if you look at the natural deposits you find a major division in the land of Scotland and England; looked at settlement pattern throughout British history; low land-fertile agricultural regions, region of invasion and colonization, and transformation vs high land zone - mountain and hill region, region of cultural survival, and traditional zone
Why is temporal dimension important and first step?
important to know the timing of when something happened. Helps establish a chronology; without a chronology we would not be able to date things. "Culture history" approach has outlined human prehistory and historic periods for most areas on earth
Henry Miller
lead in archaeological excavation of St. Mary's city, Analyzed the layout of St. Mary's citym, and foudn it to be an example of baroque planning, rather than an unorganized layout. shows that "tidewater towns" were unplanned and unsophisticated, and that such cities were meant to be centers of political power, rather than centers of commerce.
Culture area
marked by a particular set of material traits (environment and culture)
Maya Urban Site
palaces, house mounds, tikal settlement maps, high density and presence of heterogenous populations and centralized political administrativem communicative and religious functions . sites in the lowlands tend to be more compact
Pipe Stem Dating
pipes generally broke within a year of being made. Their shapes, decorations, stem lengths and thickness characterized its time. Systematically date site within years by using a drill set to measure holes of pipe and place them into categories.
Site
place of interest for archaeological exploration for example Parris Island, used test pit survey and was able to recreate through archaeology
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS)
reduced the quantity of material required by using an electrostatic tandem accelerator and mass spectrometry to count the proportion of carbon isotopes in a sample
Viru Valley Project
rich agricultural zones, archaeology of peru - 1964 surveys, took aerial photos, settlements maps, conducted the first archaeological settlement pattern study in Peru's Viru Valley- marks the beginning of landscape arcaheology.
Folsom Site
showed importance of leaving artifacts in place, in situ. Spears were found in between the ribs of the bison.
Popularity seriation (battleship shaped curves)
shows frequencies as large and then tapering off in the middle
Index fossils (time markers)
strata in widely separated sites containing the same distinctive artifact forms are assumed to be of similar age. Ex. Oscar Montelius divided the Stone, Bronze and Iron Age with distinctive sets of artifacts or artifact styles
Seriation
styles change, and new technologies arise over time. Uses the changes in the frequencies of artifacts or styles to date sites relative to one another
Settlement Pattern
the distribution of archaeological sites across a region.
Law of superposition
the geological principle that in any pile of sedimentary rocks that have been disturbed by folding or overturning, each bed is older thn the layers above and younger than the layers below
Mental Template
the ideas and values that govern the creation of artifacts. Also called "mental templates" or "cognitive maps" or "cognitive frameworks," these structures are not beyond archaeological inference. Recognition of Mentefacts allows archaeologists to explore nonmaterial aspects of culture through analysis of the material manifestations of cultural needs and beliefs. INFERENCE; "in the mind of the maker
Reverse Stratigraphy
the result when sediment is unearthed by human or natural actions and moved elsewhere in such a way that the latest material is deposited on the bottom of the new sediment and progressively earlier material is deposited higher and higher in stratigraphy.
Landscape Archaeology
the study of ancient human modification of the environment
Astro - Archaeology
the study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used phenomena in the sky, and what role the sky played in their cultures., Much of Chaco canyon is built in conjunction with important solar and lunar directions. also the presence of the sun dagger, where explicit light markings that record all the key events of both the solar and lunar cycles: summer solstice, winter solstice, equinox, and the major and minor lunar standstills of the moon's 18.6 year cycle
Typology
the systematic arranging of material culture into types, according to physical characteristics. helps to manage a large mass of archaeological data
Relative Dating
unspecific segments of time, expressed as relationships or comparisons
Time markers
use distinctive artifact forms to characterize and correlate strata between archaeological sites
Santa Catalina de Guale (David H Thomas)
used flotation to recover, had to use conservation excavation strategy - only excavate as much as you need to
Cross-Dating
using other objects to find the date of the artifact
Alta Toquima
village located 11,000 feet in the mountains of central Nevada, used a shifter that was a shaker screen mounted on two pivoting legs to recover artifacts, Before survey and excavations conducted at Alta Toquima by Dr. Thomas and his team, many archaeologists believed that early American hunters avoided high altitude environments as too harsh and barren to sustain life. However, mountains were used intermittently by small groups of hunters who seasonally exploited mountain sheep. These new large, long-term settlements at Alta Toquima represented a major shift in how ancient Americans used mountain resources, and illustrate how archaeological research continues to teach us about the past.
Gordon R Wiley
was attempting to put to work ideas about identifying not just archaeological sites, but how sites fit into the context of a physical landscape, available resources, and other sites in the region
Spatial Dimension
where it is is important
