UNC ANTH 220 Final Exam

What types of information can we gain from using seasonality to study faunal remains?

Age of animals represented in a faunal assemblage coupled with their season or birth can help determine a site's seasonality

What are the four criteria for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)?

-Must be at least 50 years old -associated with an important historic event-must make a major contribution to american history. -important person-place associated to this person architecture or certain style-brutalist architecture -important to understanding history, information potential-property has or could yield information to prehistory or history

What techniques can archaeologist use to overcome those problems?

Archaeologists use very detailed and careful excavations. They also analyze formation processes

What types of information can we gain from using kill sites to study faunal remains?

Bones lie more or less the way the hunters left them Affected by carnivore scavenging, weathering, and other natural processes Found in camps, villages, larger settlements where people butchered game and/or domesticated animals

What types of information can we gain from using non cultural remains to study faunal remains?

Bones of animals that simply died in the site or that carnivore raptors brought in after people abandoned camp

How do archaeologists use stratigraphy to build regional chronologies?

By determining the different levels of one site, they can create a master sequence for the regional sites

What types of absolute dating techniques are used by archaeologists?

C-14, Tree-ring, Archaeomagnetic, Obsidian Hydration

How can presence/absence help to study diet?

Can give a list of species that were or weren't used for food or utilized on the site

What are the limits to C-14?

Can only be used on organic materials and can be costly

They determined that the statues were pyramid based

Commoners at the bottom Status determined based on sex and age Buried in cemeteries away from the mounds w no goods Few individuals with ascribed status in the middle Buried w few goods like ceramics Elites at the top Copper tools and weapons, exotic minerals (lead, mica) and copper sheets as grave goods Assumed individuals w these grave goods were of high status

What are the four simple rules to consider when submitting and interpreting C-14 dates?

Contextualize: know where the sample came from Is your sample relevant? Is it associated directly with human activity relevant to dating the site Know your sample materials. Know when to correct the plant type (CAM, C3, or C4) and calibration Calibration

The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) requires that federal agencies to determine the effect of their activities on "historic properties."

Created National Register of Historic Places Created Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Created State Historic Preservation Offices A process to mitigate the impact of development

What is relative dating?

Dating by comparing an artifact or site to known dates (ex. Stratigraphy, frequency seriation, etc)

Pollen

The semen of a plant which carries the DNA and also looks specific to certain plants. Fluctuations in pollen percentages reflect changes in plant densities which can construct environmental changes (changing boreal forest example). Pollen diagrams

How do archaeologists create and use temporal types?

They use artifacts, soil types, and seriation

Reservoir effect

You are as old as what you eat. Shellfish and other foods can accumulate in a body and date it older than what it actually is

What is the Law of Superposition?

a basic law of geochronology, stating that in any undisturbed sequence of rocks deposited in layers, the youngest layer is on top and the oldest on bottom, each layer being younger than the one beneath it and older than the one above it.

Band

a small, loosely organized group of people together by informal means. Concerned with meeting the basic needs of survival

Ranked society

a society in which a hierarchy of social status has been established with a restricted number of valued positions Not everyone in these societies have access to the same critical resources of life (food, water, shelter)

How do archaeologists date sites?

absolute and relative dating

C-14 Correction

adjusting to the plant type (C4, CAM, C3) based on the deduction or enrichment of c-14 during photosynthesis

What types of artifacts do archaeologists use?

artifacts like pottery and tools

What types of information can archaeologists gather from the study of human remains?

can determine age, sex, past food diets, and health (stress included as well as childhood disease)

How is Isotope analysis helpful to study human remains?

can indicate certain types of food consumed in normal diet. A count of isotopes in bone, increased with corn

What are the limits to tree-ring dating?

can only tell you when the tree died, not when it was used and how old the site is. You also need bark or outer rings to get the best accuracy

Subordinate

certain symbols and the energy expended on mortuary ritual reflect the statuses of sex and age Ex: adult burials are more elaborate than children

CRM

cultural resource management law: describes the brand of archaeology related to compliance with legislation that protects cultural resources.

Why is it important to reconstruct site seasonality when studying foragers?

depending on season the sites would be more abundant than others. During the winter the sites are larger, during the summer the sites are smaller. Dry season all live near a water hole, wet season they would be more spread out.

How does Coprolites help determine past diet?

desiccated feces often containing macro-botanical remains, pollen, and remains or small animals to determine diet Contain remains of meals, but very short-term records

How do archaeologists and archaeologists reconstruct gender roles?

division of labor for gender based on bone structure like grinding on knees and such. wear and tear associated with genders.

What are the limits to obsidian hydration dating?

each source has a different absorption rate, dependent on local climate, surface vs. subsurface artifacts.

What is achieved status?

earned through skill set

What are the limits to archaeomagnetic dating?

every region varies with magnetic north because the magnetic field of the earth's core varies around regions

What is ascribed status?

given by without reference to skill (ex. Sex and age)

Where do men tend to have osteoarthritis?

hips, ankles, foot -Hunting, gathering, walking

How is Harris line analysis helpful to study human remains?

horizontal lines near the ends of long bones indicates physiological stress

what is faunal analysis

identification and interpretation of animal remains (bones) from an archaeological site

How is Cortisol in hair analysis helpful to study human remains?

indicative of stress since cortisol is a stress hormone released in the brain

How do archaeologists reconstruct social status from household remains?

locality of goods value of materials used to make goods quality of products size and location of house

How do you use human remains to determine diets?

looking at teeth to determine diet, such as with grits I think that ground down teeth

Where do women tend to have osteoarthritis?

lower back -Childbirth and food processing

What is C-14 dating?

measures the amount of C-14 accumulated to determine the time period

What is Obsidian Hydration dating?

measures the thickness of the obsidian rind. The thicker it is, the longer it has been exposed to weathering

What are some of the problems archaeologists face when they try to study hunter-gatherers such as the Kung?

no single site will tell you everything since foragers move often, and they have to study regions instead of small sites to gather the most information

How can diversity help to study diet?

number of different species found, shows how many different types of plants and animals were consumed.

Superordinate

partially hereditary ordering based on criteria other than age and sex

How can ubiquity help to study diet?

percentage of samples that have a certain species in it. ex. 100 samples and 99 of those had corn so ubiquity is 99%

How can the problems of studying the hunter-gatherers be overcome?

problems can be overcome with ethnoarchaeology, studying seasonality, and use sample surveys of overall area

What is a historic property according the NHPA?

properties significant to the Nations heritage or cultural resources that are being lost or substantially altered and eligible for the NRHP

Macrobotanical

readily recognized plant parts. Stems and seed taken from place where you think there may have been food remains. Flotation machines are used to see what floats (organic material)

What are C-14 key terms?

sigma, calibration, correction, old wood problem, cross-sectional error, reservoir effect

Phytoliths

silica skeleton of plants. When you grind grains, the phytoliths fall out and take shape of the cells in which they were deposited which makes them unique to a plant. Contains no genetic materials

Inferences from architecture

social status (location... north=high status, south=low status) How they treat their dead (in home graves and bring them out to honor them) daily activity family size diet wealth patrilineal vs. matrilineal

Egalitarian society

social systems that contain roughly as many valued as there are people capable of filling All people nearly have equal access to the necessary resources of life

Cross-section error

states each ring is one year younger than the last

How are time markers used within stratigraphy?

strata in widely separated sites that contain the same distinctive artifact forms

What is the Index Fossil Concept?

the idea that strata containing similar fossil assemblages of a similar age. This concept enables archaeologists to characterize and date strata within sites using distinctive artifact forms that research shows to be diagnostic of a particular time period

NISP: number of identified specimens

the raw number of identified bones (specimens) per species. Limitation in constructing human behavior

MNI: minimum number or individuals

the smallest number of possible individuals is found by how many of the same bone is found. 3 left femurs means at least 3 people Possible that fragments could come from the same original bone Have to compare fragments one by one to see if it comes from the same bone -time consuming Can also be messed up in division of the site Difficult in narrowing a site with multiple occupations to a specific group

Starch grains

tiny structures made by most plants as products of photosynthesis

What is Tree-ring dating?

used by counting the number of tree rings to determine how old the tree is.

How is frequency seriation used to date sites?

Frequency seriation is uses an artifacts frequency or popularity during various time periods to determine which time frame the site was in Takes index fossils concept and refines it to permit a more fine-grained relative sequence

What can archeologists learn from pollen?

Good for constructing regional environment; measures to ensure the results are not biased based on a local environments pollen

How do archaeologists reconstruct social status from mortuary remains?

Grave goods Types of goods, lack or presence of goods Commoner children did not receive grave goods typically Types of burials Mounds vs. not in mounds Buried in a sacred area

How is teeth and caries analysis helpful to study human remains?

Help determine diet and health. Enamel hypoplasia (lines in teeth from childhood disease, stress, or hunger), periodontal disease (limits food from loss of teeth), dental calculus (can find food samples in plaque)

What techniques do they use to study human remains?

Teeth and caries analysis Harris line analysis Cortisol in hair analysis Isotope analysis Bone analysis

Sciatic notch

The angled edges of the rear of the pelvis. Measurement of this angle is used to determine the sex in human skeletons. Although it varies among populations, a narrow notch is typically male, and a wider notch is typically females

How can abundance help to study diet?

The count divided by the volume. If in high abundance it is highly likely this is where they stored the plants

foodways

The food traditions of a people or group of people (what people eat, how they eat it, how it is cooked, disposed, etc.) Ways in which we select and prepare food. The cultural, social, and economic practices relating to food production and consumption. How it is presented and eaten, disposed of, and cooked

Matrilineal descent

Kinship system in which ancestry is traced through the female line

Patrilineal descent

Kinship system in which ancestry is traced through the male line Make up about 60% of the world's known societies

How can artifacts help to determine diet?

Looking at tools or vessels for food processing, cooking implements, serving, and storing. Looks at use wear, chemical residue, starch grains, and phytoliths. Residues: extract a sample from a piece of pottery and determine what was cooked in the piece. Hallucinogenic things in vessels

Osteoarthritis

Loss of cartilage caused by mechanical stress Appears as a bony growth that forms a lip around the edge of an articular surface or between vertebrae Often times seen in males more

How do botanical remains help with discovering past diets?

Macro: stems, seeds, and leaf parts Micro: pollen, phytolith (leaf skeleton, silcas Flotation: separate soil from plant remains

What techniques are used by archaeologists to reconstruct past diet and foodways?

Macrobotanical analysis Microbotanical analysis phytoliths Microscopic analysis Botanical remains faunal analysis Coprolites Contain remains of meals human remains tools or vessels artifact analysis

What are the two main clauses of the Antiquity Act of 1908?

Makes it a crime to loot lands- punishable by jail time or fines Requires federal permits before excavating or collecting artifacts on federal land established a permitting process Gave the president the authority to create national monuments Does NOT prohibit the federal government from destroying sites on public lands

What is archaeomagnetic dating?

Measures movement of iron. The iron are frozen in place, burned, and frozen again to point north.

How do archaeologists use presence/absence, ubiquity, and abundance to study diet?

Microbotanical analysis and measuring phytoliths presence/absence Ubiquity Abundance Diversity

Tribe

More formal and membership is restricted to descendent groups.

State

Most complex. States control many areas of its member's lives (ex. Marriage, adoption, etc). Has a formal government and social classes and branches to control districts, provinces, etc.

When can MNI be most useful?

Most useful and accurate when fine stratigraphic divisions are used and when bones are not overly fragmented

How is the Law of Superposition applied?

Need a master sequence -area of minimal disturbance Needs time markers: artifact forms that, as with the index fossils in geology, research shows to be diagnostic of a particular time period

Can frequency seriation say how old a site is?

No, it cannot tell you how old a site is, but whether or not it is older/younger than another

How is bone analysis helpful to study human remains?

Pelvic and skull indicate sex, evidence of violence or trauma

Why is the study of foodways important?

People's interaction with the environment has an economic basis, but culture may place layers of symbolic meaning on top of that interaction Social identity and political uses of food

Chiefdom

Political organization characterized by social hierarchies of political power who control production and distribution of resources

What is a big factor in dating?

Pottery - if a wide variety of strata contain the same artifacts, they can be dated to the same period

What is absolute dating?

Producing an exact date by directly dating the site or artifact (ex. C-14, tree ring, archaeomagnetic, obsidian hydration)

How do archaeologist study social stratification? Ethnicity?

Ranked vs. egalitarian societies Reflected in spatial layout of houses and communities; mortuary goods Geographical locations Elite goods Kinship

What is the difference between absolute and relative dating?

Relative dating places a site, features, or strata in a relative order, while absolute dating finds a particular date within a known level of probability

What are the primary characteristics of foraging societies?

Small and flexible group size, high mobility, communal ownership or territory, limited private property and possessions, equal access to resources, flexible leadership, low population growth/density

What is seriation?

A relative dating method that orders artifacts based on the assumption that one cultural style slowly replaces an earlier style over time. With a master seriation diagram, sites can be dated based on their frequency of several artifacts styles

Kinship

A socially recognized network of relationships through which individuals are related to one another by ties of descent (real or imagined) and marriage Bilateral descent

C-14 Sigma

1 sigma has 2/3 chance of being in the time range, while 2 sigma has a 95.4% chance of being within the time range

Clan

A group of matri- or partilinealages who see themselves a descended from a (sometimes mythical) common ancestor Can be grouped into moieties - Two groups of clans that perform reciprocal ceremonial obligations for one another Often intermarry

What types of information can we gain from studying faunal remains?

Faunal remains Humans may have had their hand in the formations Kill sites Non-cultural remains Types, size, weight, and parts of animals in which were being consumed or killed by humans Some bones provide stone tool cut marks, burn marks, or fractures where the animals were smashed/attacked by humans (larger animals) Seasonality

C-14 Calibration

For C-14, calibration is adjusting the date from radiocarbon years to calendar years

Old Wood Problem

Tree ring dating only tells us when the tree died, not when it was used. The wood could be older than the site

When is NISP useful?

Useful for comparing large number of collections from different sites, but has severe limitation in reconstructing human behavior at a single site

How is seriation used in reference to temporal types?

Uses changed in the frequencies of artifacts or styles to date sites relative to one another