The Human Past - Chapter 1

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Thomas Jefferson

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(1743-1826) Speculative period archaeological interest led him to excavate burial mounds in the Eastern united States during the 1780's. He applied a methodology using stratigraphy to record his finds.

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Charles Darwin

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(1809 - 1882) Revolutionised scientific thought with his Origin of the Species (1859) in which he proposed change due to natural processes, better known as the Theory of Evolution, rather than divine creation.

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Gregor Mendel

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(1809-1884) Monk and botonist whose work with plant breeding demonstrated the inheritance of traits from parent to offspring in the 1860's supported the Darwinian concept of natural selection.

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Lewis Henry Morgan

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(1818-1881) North Aberican cultural evolutionist who argued for a three-tiered universal system of social progress in his Ancient Society (1877) from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilisation.

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Edward Tylor

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(1832-1917) British cultural evolutionist with an interest in religon who supported the universal three-tiered system of social progress. provided first comprehensive definition of culture in his book Anthropology (1881).

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William Libby

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(1908-1980) Physicist who developed the radiometric technique for dating of organic material, or C14 dating in the 1950's

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Julian Steward

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(1907-1972) Major proponant of cultural ecology as a means to explain social change, while advocating a multilinear evolutionary approach. Conducted major research in Southwestern US and Columbia.

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Leslie White

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(1900-1995) Proponant of cultural ecology and cultural evolution who refreshed the 19th Century unilinear models with an emphasis on technological rather than psychological or biological development.

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Elman Service

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(1915-1996) Anthropologist who focussed on the origins of state society. He proposed the Neo-Evoloutionary stages of human society, of Band, Tribes, Cheifdoms and States in Primitive Social Organisation (1962).

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Lewis Binford

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(1930- ) Revolutionised archaeology with the challenge of new archaeology (Processural Archaeology) in the 1960's. Used ethnoarchaeological analogy to explain the importance of process in archaeological interpretation.

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David Clarke

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(1937-1976) Major British proponant of New Archaeology in the 1960's. Most notably with his Archaeology: The Loss of Innocence (1973). He focused on rigerous scientific methodologies, statistical approaches and early computer modelling.

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Michael Schiffer

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(1947 - ) Proponant of New or Processual Archaeology who focussed on behavioural aspects of archaeology and related site formation processes of the archaeological record.

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Cognitive Archaeology

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The study of past ways of thought and symbolic structures from material remains.

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Processual Archaeology

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Paradign developed in the 1960's, which argues for an explicitly scientific framework of archaeological method and theory. It emphasises culture as process - how and why change occured rather than simple description. Also called New Archaeology.

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New Archaeology

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1960's paradigm shift which argued for an explicitly scientific framework of archaeological method and theory, rigerous hypothosis testing, and an empasis on culture process. Later referred to as processual archaeology.

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Ethnoarchaeology

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The study of contemporary cultures as analogy to understand the behavoiural relationships which underline the production of similar material culture from the archaeological record.

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Experimental Archaeology

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Analogical method in which tasks or objects from the past are replicated and compared to the archaeologial remains.

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Postprocessual Archaeology

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paradigm developed in the 1980's which rejects the objective and rigidly scientific methods of Processualism in favour of a variety of humanistic approaches and multiple interpretations.

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Interpretive archaeology

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Approaches associated with Postprossualism which emphasise context, agency and experience rather than processes

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Gender archaeology

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An approach emphasizing in particular the role of females in past societies, arising out of feminist crtiques of male-dominated science

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Archaeological Computing

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The use of computers to organise and analyse archaeological data.

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Archaeometry

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An interdisceplinary approach which utilises the natural and physical sciences to analyse archaelogical data.

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Statigraphy

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The successive deposition of superimposed layers of either natural of cultural material.

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Chronology

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The temporal sequencing and organisation of the past.

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Relative Chronology

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The determination of a chronological sequence based on artifacts and deposition without reference to a fixed time scale.

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Absolute Dating

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The determination of age with reference to a specific timescale, such as a fixed calendrical system.

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Radiocarbon dating

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A method of absolute dating organic material using the decay of the radioactive isotope of Carbon, C14, Most successful on material less than 40,000 years old.

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Potassium-argon dating

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A method of absolute dating volcanic layers and rocks older than 100,000 years by measuring the radioactive decay of potassium-40. One of the most widely used methods of dating early hominid sites in Africa.

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Calibration

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The process of converting the radiocarbon dates into real calendar years through comparison with other absolute dating methods.

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Side-Scanning Radar

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Survey method using high altitude and satellite radar to detect large scale features or the earth's surface.

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geomagnetic prospection

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Survey method which identifies below surface features through analyzing changes in the earth's magnetic field.

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Resistivity

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Survey method which identified below surface features based on differential electrical resistance.

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Phytoliths

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Minute particles of silica derived from the cells of plants. able to survive after the organism has decomposed or been burned.

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Faunal analysis

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Study of the animal remains to determine past diet and subsistance practices. Can sometimes be used to temporarily situate activity in the site.