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10 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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• Radiocarbon Dating:
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• Absolute dating
• Carbon 14: best on wood charcoal ○ Works from 75,000 - 400 years ago ○ Recalibration thorugh tree rings • Potassium Argon Dating ○ Dates volcanic material (you are dating stratigraphy) ○ Dating evidence around artifact ○ Best range: 400,000 to 2 billion years old § But works after 100,000 years § • Thermo Luminescence (TL) ○ Works on things that were heated (Ceramics and rock) ○ Past 80,000 years ago § Use this dating technique if you can't do C-14 ( □ b/c TL is less precise |
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• Ceramic Analysis:
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• Analogy and experiment: controlled experiments to replicate prehistoric ceramics technology
• Form and function analysis: ○ Shape of vessels relates to the function • Stylistic Analysis: ○ Decorative styles used by potters ○ Use attributes: individual features of artifacts • Technological Analysis: ○ Computer generation --> identify temper used ○ Determine variation on pottery forms |
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• Flotation:
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• Definition: a method of recovering plant remains by passing them through screens and water
○ Used byexcavators to get seeds from hearths and ry storage pits • How: water frees the seed and the seeds float on water whereas the dirt falls to the bottom • Importance: showed in North America a gradual shift from foraging of wild plants food sto subsistance patterns that relied heavily on cultivation of native plants |
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• Deductive Reasoning:
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• Definition: developing specific hypotheses using induction and then testing them against archaeological record
○ Inductive reasoning: taking specific observatiosn and making generalziations ○ Ex: Finding plant in camp and you can induct that it was a seasonal plant to eat - Shoshone people: Thomas based research on Steward's and found that each generation of fieldwork fine-tunes earlier hypotheses and provides more data to test them futher. |
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• Post-processual archaeology:
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• 1980s – Present:
○ Post-Processualism: approaching the past by examining ideology/nonenvironmental aspects of culture § People began to re-embrace cultural history § The use of ethnographic analogy: interpretation of archaeological remains by comparison to historical cultures (how do you know that this is a hearth? Well there is charcoal ….) § Class + race + gender was taken into account § Humanism ® Notion of agency: meaning that people have the power to change culture ® Culture is the accumulation of all the changes that people bring § Post-processualism did not reject that scientific approach to archaeology but expectations of archaeological record has shifted |
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Culture History (1940 -1960)
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assumes that artifacts can be used to build up generalized prictures of human culture in time and space • Based on descriptive methods: development of generalizations about a research problem based on numerous specific observations on artifacts and other finds.
• Normative view of culture: culture assumes that a culture consists of a set of norms. And these norms can be seen in archaeological remains. It does not explain why a certain cultural norm exists, but rather describes that it exists ○ Artifact changes represent evolving norms of human behavior • Constructing: ○ Identification of a research area and site survey ○ Excavation ○ Artifact analysis ○ Synthesis • Franz Boas – American anthropologist local tragetory · Cultural relativism: there is no universal standard by which to judge human progress; each civilization is unique, must be judged by its own standards · Historical particularism: each culture is the product of unique historical circumstances; cannot exp |
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Archaeological Ethics
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• Practice an promote stewardship of archaeological record
• Consult effectively with all group affected by work • Avoid commercialization of arch. Objects • Educate public • Public findings in available form • Preserve collections/reports for future generations • Don't do research without proper training |
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• Archaeological surveys
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· Survey:
· To discover archaeological sites ® Once you find artifacts you actually change your survey strategy you top and try to delineate the edges of the site · To find the edges and therefore the sizes of sites · In fact, to define what the site “is”, which is subjective—where is the limit of a site? How does a site as we define it line up with a meaningful unit on the ground? · To find the depth, age, cultural affinities, basic parameters of a site before coming up with a full-scale excavation strategy. |
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• Lewis Binford
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· 1960s- 80s: Social revolutions that affected archaeology
§ Processual Archaeology: New Archaeology: led by Lou Binford – · Goals of new archaeology: o Explain everything: not just about cultural histories but about explaining the past and just not describing it o Was about process as opposed to history § rocess: comparative phenonm across regions, looking for universals in human behavior/human social behavior o Was meant to be a scientific approach to archaeology |
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Ethnoarchaeology:
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study of living socieities to aid in understanding and interpreting archaeological records. · O'Connell followed the Hadza people of East Africa and found serious doublts in many of the assumption made by archaeologist about anicent hunter-gatherer kill sites. O'Connell's team found that kills were underpresented in the sites
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