Introduction to Archaeology Midterm Study Guide Instructor Jane A. Hill
Julian Steward
(1902-1972) Father of Ecological Anthropology; developed scientific theory of culture change; research centered on subsistence- the dynamic interaction of man, environment, technology, social structure, and the organization of work
Subsistence Environmental modeling Artifact
-how people feed themselves/survive -subsistence, environmental modeling, human interactions, social organizations + religious beliefs
True North vs. Magnetic North
1- True North (aka- geographic north)points to the north star(Polaris) 2-Magnetic North(where the compasses point to)points to wherever the magnetic forces on earth are pulling it to Maps are oriented toward geographic, or "true," north (the North Pole), but compass needles point to magnetic north, a place that wanders slowly within the Canadian Arctic.
Christian Thomsen
19th century develop early archaeological techniques and methods
Ecosystems
A biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
Archeomagnetism
A dating technique that uses a determination of declination angle in archaeological samples.
Experimental archaeology
A field of of archaeology that involves the study of the manufacture and use of tools in order to learn how they were made and used in the past.
Percussion flaking
A toolmaking technique in which one stone is struck with another to remove a flake.
Flake
A type of stone artifact produced by removing a piece from a core by chipping or knapping
Ian Hodder
Cognitive-Processual Archaeology Hodder argued that it WAS possible to get at the intangibles of culture by looking at material culture. It was the archaeologist's duty to "get into the heads" of his ancient peoples. Argued Binford's approach dehumanizes the people of the past.
Cross-dating technique
Crossdating is the most basic principle of dendrochronology. Crossdating is a technique that ensures each individual tree ring is assigned its exact year
Anthropology, four fields of
Cultural Linguistics Biological American Anthropology: the holistic and comparative study of all humanity
Anthropology, four fields of
Cultural Anthropology Anthropological Linguistics Biological Anthropology American Archaeology Anthropology: the holistic and comparative study of all humanity
Relative chronology
Determine the age of items in relation to one another
Multilinear cultural evolution
Different human groups should evolve different cultures because they live in different environments.
Charles Darwin
English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882)
Prehistoric archaeologists
Examine remains from people before writing
Archaeological fieldwork - three stages of
Finding a site by accident or by survey - Asessing the site non-intrusively - Excavation
Cultural Ecology
Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.
Bruce Trigger
Historical Materialist Approaches Doesn't assume that people without writing had no historical development Use historical documents AND material culture to interpret the past of cultures like the Huron. Asked archaeologists to stop being so either adaptive or ideational and do the work necessary to get a well rounded view of culture.
in situ
In original position or place
Systems theory (aka Big Barrel of Culture)
Maintains that everything in a system is connected and that change in one part creates change in all other parts -Systems resist change Barrel system
Declination of a compass
Maps are oriented toward geographic, or "true," north (the North Pole), but compass needles point to magnetic north, a place that wanders slowly within the Canadian Arctic. The difference in angle
Ecofacts
Natural materials that give environmental information about a site
Outliers
Numbers that are much greater or much less than the other numbers in the set
Contour lines
On a topographic map, these lines represent the shape an elevation of Earth's surface
Battleship curves in measuring stylistic frequency
Shape on a seriation graph formed by plotted points representing, for instance, the rise in popularity of an artefact, its period of maximum popularity, and its eventual decline.
Ground Penetrating Radar
Specialist imaging hardware used to detect and visualise objects buried underground.
Three-Age System
Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age: devised by Christian Thomsen in the early 19th century to organize artifacts chronologically and enhance museum displays, the system is based on the idea of technical progression of materials used in prehistory.
Context
THE POSITION OF ARTIFACTS, ECOFACTS, AND FEATURES IN RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT. FOUNDATION OF ALL ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH.
Walking survey
Technique of using one's senses while traveling through a community to obtain information about sociocultural characteristics and the environment, housing, transportation, and local community agencies
Core
The production process begins with a piece of raw material, called a core
Ethnicity
The shared social, cultural, and historical experiences, stemming from common national or regional backgrounds, that make subgroups of a population different from one another.
Culture concept in anthropology
The study of contemporary human cultures, the diversity, similarities and processes of change
Obsidian hydration
Volcanic glass absorbs water over time forming a cortex; thickness = how much time has passed, climate and soil chemistry; not reliable for absolute dating
Dendrochronology
a chornometric dating method based on the fact that trees in dry climates tend to accumalte one growth ring per year
Potassium-argon dating
a dating technique that measures the amount of argon gas in relation to radioactive Potassium-40 in volcanic rock that is more than ca. 200,000 years old - more argon gas = older
Features
a distinctive attribute or aspect of something.
Carbon 14 dating, half-life of its radioactive isotope
a form of radiometric dating, measures the decay of a certain type of atom found in a once living organism to determine when it was alive. A carbon 14 atom is radioactive. these atoms decay and at it's half life of 5730 year it loses half of its atoms.you can only carbon date from roughly 50,000 years ago
Seriation techniques
a method of RELATIVE DATING pioneered by Flinders Petrie in the 19th century, in which artifacts are arranged according to frequencies of their co-occurrence in specific contextrs (usually burials) -Stylistic seration - general order of objects by changes in thier decorative o technological style Frequency seriation - changes in the frequency of styles through time
Pressure flaking
a toolmaking technique that typically involves making flakes from larger ones by pressing with a tool such as an antler. This method is in opposition to percussion flaking, where striking is involved.
Normal Distribution or Bell Curve
a type of distribution where the values of a variable have a smoothed histogram or frequency distribution that is shaped like a bell
Topographic mapping
a type of map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of relief, usually now using contour lines, but historically using a variety of methods
Remote sensing - techniques of
a way of documenting an archaeological site without having to put holes in the ground Satellite Ground Radar Magnometer
Processual archaeology or "New Archaeology"
an approach to archaeology that uses deductive research methodology -research design and scientific method- to analyze conditions of cultural change
Unilinear Cultural Evolution
an early anthropological theory that states all cultures evolve from simple to complex along a single trajectory of progress
Cognitive-processual archaeology
approach to archaeology, combines methods of processual and postprocessual research scientific and cultural and social changes
Direct Historical Approach
archaeological technique of working back into time from historic sites of know age into earlier times
Cognitive archaeology
archaeology of thinking, archaeology of what people thought in the past
Mean
average
Geographic Information Systems - GIS
computer-generated mapping systems that allow archaeologists to plot and analyze site distributions against environmental and other background data derived from remote sensing , digitized maps, and other sources
Cultural systems
consist of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of social and ethnic groups that are perpetuated through generations
Cultural process
deductive approach to archaeological research that is designed to study the changes and interactions in cultural systems and the processes by which human cultures change throughout time
Excavation
digging of archaeological sites, removal of the matrix, observance of the provenance and context of the finds therein, and recording of them in a three-dimensional way a precise, slow moving process, working with trowels and brushes, often without a particular find, from one day to the next
Test pit
excavation unit used to sample or probe a site before large-scale excavation or to check surface surveys
Bruce Bradley
expert stone tools maker; Clovis points, Explains the fundamental of Flintknapping
Frauds
fakes; faking there work for gain
W.M.F. Petrie
father of archaeology/ Petrie's Pottery Families founded the Seriation of Predynastic Egyptian Graves for information about the culture
W.M.F. Petrie
father of archaeology/ predynastic egyptian pottery, developed seriation(a relative dating method in which assemblages or artifacts from numerous sites, in the same culture, are placed in chronological order.) late 19th c.
Adaptive Approach
focuses on material needs of a culture, a research perspective that emphasizes technology, ecology, demography, and economics in the definition of human behavior (examples: Food, Shelter, Reproduction)
Antiquarianism
historical accuracy
Statistical inference
make a statement (inference) about the population based only on information from a sample in such a way that we can quantify the uncertainty associated with the correctness of the statement.
Pseudoarchaeology
make assertions that can't be tested. making up stuff that isn't real. They are theories
Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS dating)
measures Carbon-14 dating -measures milligrams of stuff in C-14 -more expensive -faster -smaller sample -less destructive -more accurate
Magnetometry Survey
measures magnetic fields on archaeological sites, producing subsurface contour maps of buried features
Thermoluminescence (TL)
measures the accumulated radiation dose since the last heating or sunlight exposure of an object
Seriation
methods used to place artifacts in chronological order;artifacts with similar style placed closer together
Use-wear analysis
microscopic analysis of artifacts to detect signs of wear on their working edges
Elevation
movement of a structure superiorly
Migration
movement of people from one place to another
Identical Approach
one cannot comprehend behavior without knowing the symbolic code for that behavior
Striking platform
point of contact between core and the tool used for striking or placing pressure
PP/K
projectile point knife
Absolute chronology
provides a specific temporal assignment in terms of years
Sampling (random and cluster)
random- a sample in which every element in the population has an equal chance of being selected cluster-sampling in which elements are selected in two or more stages, with the first stage being the random selection of naturally occurring clusters and the last stage being the random selection of elements within clusters science of assessing the reliability of data through the use of probability theory
Law of Superposition
strata (layers of sand dirt, fossils) are arranged in temporal order. oldest on bottom, youngest on top
Industrial archaeology
study buildings and other structures of the industrial revolution
Zooarchaeology
study of animal remains
Electromagnetic survey
subsurface detection method that measures conductivity of the soil to aid in locating buried features
A.V. Kidder
technique of Dendochronology (time dating trees.) used the direct historical approach to study the Pecos
James Deetz
tested the battleship-shaped curve against the dated gravestones in New England colonial cemeteries (Death Heads)
Historical archaeology
the archaeological study of places for which written records exist
Agency
the assumption that a person or group of people is responsible for cultural change
Invention
the combination of existing cultural items into a form that did not exist before.
Median
the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it
Mode
the most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution
Bulb of percussion
the place where a flake was struck, which can be identified by a little crack or "scar"
Diffusion
the spread of ideas, traits, or people from one area to another
Underwater archaeology
the study of marine history and prehistory through the excavation and analysis of underwater sites.
Archaeobotany
the study of plant remains from archaeological sites
Stratigraphy
the study of rock layers and the sequence of events they reflect Study of the sequential layering of deposits lower layers are older
Paleoanthropology
the study of the history of human evolution through the fossil record
Cultural process
the ways in which human cultures change over time
Postprocessual archaeology
theoretical approach to archaeology that are critical of processual archaeology and emphasize social factors in human societies
Style (importance in relative dating)
type based on stylistic distinction -when something is older than, younger than, or the same age as something else -does not gives us dates
Primary context
undisturbed artifact/object found in original position of discard/deposition
Evolutionary Archaeology
using darwinian concepts of evolution to explain cultural change (Robert Dunnell)
Normative view
view of human culture arguing that one can identify the abstract rules regulating a particular culture; a commonly used basis for studying archaeological culture throughout time Generalizations of certain characteristics a group of people should exhibit
Secondary context
when an object/artifact has been disturbed by its primary context (through transformation processes)
Midden
where you find human trash (artifact) an accumulation of food remains and other occupation debris often used for shells
