Anth 201

Front 1

What is a Symbol: Introduction

Back 1

- Topic is intimately bound up with ideology
- how people structure their ideas about the world and their place in it
- In some cases, thought beyond the reach of archeology
- epiphenomenal - the realms of ideas
- resistant to culture change
- Often explored in feminist, Marxist and post-processual archeology

Front 2

What is a Symbol: Defn

Back 2

- something that stands for something else
- based on an arbitrary (conventional) relationship, eg. words in language

Front 3

What is a Symbol?

Back 3

- consistent with Saussure’s definition of a “linguistic sign” but what about material practices?
- But is the enough to effectively characterize the ‘symbolic’ properties of material culture?
- Can material culture signify in other ways?
- A more robust, semiotic model is based on the sign types of Charles Peirce (1839-1914) (pronounced perse)

Front 4

Three Sign Types

Back 4

1) Symbol

2) Icon

3) Index

Front 5

Sign Type: Symbol (Signifying Process & Examples)

Back 5

- By convention (the relation between sign and signifies must be learned)

- ex. words, gestures

Front 6

Sign Type: Icon (Signifying Process & Examples)

Back 6

By resemblance
(the sign looks the signified)

Examples:

- photos
- paintings
- sculptures. etc

Front 7

Sign Type: Index (Signifying Process & Examples)

Back 7

By causal or existential connection
(the signifies suggests a signified based on experience)

Examples:

- symptoms ie: cough suggests a cold
- thunder suggests lightening
- smoke suggests fire

Front 8

The Archaeology of Symbols (Two focused on)

Back 8

- how have symbols been conceptualized by archaeologists?

- in Structuralist Thought

- in Processualism

Front 9

Symbols in Structuralism & Processualism (two examples)

Back 9

- eg. Leroi-Gourhan’s (1982) analysis of French Palaeolithic cave art
- binary oppositions between ‘male’ animals such as bison and ‘female’ animals such as horses
- save arts as ‘mythogram’; symbols (signs) can be read as a text for meaning
- eg. Polly Wiessnar (1983)
- symbols operate within two distinct realms of style
- emblemic style: clear and conscious messages re; group affiliation or identity
- assertive style: messages related to individual identity

Front 10

Problems with Symbols & Archaeology

Back 10

- two problems with the above thoughts
- cultural norms have a meaning or existence prior to their investiture in symbols
- symbols merrily serve as material anchors in the representation of fully-formed reality
- what is material agency?
- what of historical context?
- understanding is always situated and contextual

Front 11

Art

Back 11

in effect, the rendering of ‘symbols’ generally within a certain stylistic tradition

Front 12

Style

Back 12

distinctive patterning of elements recognized within a group as appropriate for a particular kind of art

Front 13

Problems with Art as an Analytical Category

Back 13

- in the ‘modern west’ art is seen as a ‘realm’ of culture

- as well, it is something to be appreciated for its beauty
- ‘good’ arts if also prized

Front 14

Aesthetics

Back 14

How the senses are socialized and attuned to aspects of the physical world in culturally-meditated ways

Front 15

Art & Aesthetics

Back 15

- few other cultures view ‘art’ as a realm of culture, and this was likely true in the past as well
- not only is art ‘culture bound’ but our understanding of it is mediated by aesthetics

Front 16

Oldest Known Art

Back 16

-upper Palaeolithic Period, ca. 30-10 kya
-parietal (cave) & mobiliary (portable) art
-distribution: North Africa to Siberia; major concentrations in SW Franc, Northern Spain, central eastern Europe

Front 17

Parietal Art

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· engraved and painted animals (bison, horse, wild boar, ibex common) + humans, hands and geometric shapes
· charcoal, ochre, hematite used

Front 18

Mobiliary Art

Back 18

· many different media-clay, wood, fibre, hides, only a small portion of which survives today
· engraved antler, bone and ivory
-ex Venus Figurines

Front 19

Grotte de Chauvet

Back 19

- example of old art site

- SE France, Ardeche
· discovered in 1994, undisturbed
· earliest securely-dated parietal art in the world at 30 kya (also in use at 24,500 and 22,500 BC, visited over a 7000 year period)
· hand prints, mammoths, cave lions, rhinoceros and other animals
· near skills on pedestals

Front 20

Approaches to Religion

Back 20

Tylor, Durkeim, Durran

Front 21

Tylor

Back 21

the belief in spiritual beings

Front 22

Durkeim

Back 22

a set of beliefs and practices by which society represents itself to itself

Front 23

Durran

Back 23

a system of collective, public actions which conform to rules (ritual) and usually express "beliefs"

Front 24

Classifying Religion (Two Types)

Back 24

world religions vs primal religions

Front 25

World Religions

Back 25

Features of World Religion (ex: Christianity, Islam, Judaism) after Bowie (2000)
· based on written scriptures
· has a notion of salvation, often from outside
· universal, or potentially universal
· can subsume or supplant primal religions

Front 26

Primal Religions

Back 26

Features of Traditional/ Primal Religions after Bowie (2000)
· Oral or, if literate, lacks written/formal scriptures
· 'this worldly'
· confined to a single language or ethnic group
· forms basis from which world religions have developed
· religious and social life are inseparable

Front 27

Two Types of Dating

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- direct dating: dates the artifact/ecofact
- preferred
- indirect dating: dates the context
- good, but subject to increased error

Front 28

Kinds of Dates

Back 28

- Relative: one artifact or level is younger/older than another
- Chronometric (Absolute): can determine age in calendar years (e.g. BP, BC, BCE, AD); subject to error

Front 29

Relative Dating Techniques

Back 29

Seriation

Sequence Comparison

Obsidian Hydration

Front 30

Seriation

Back 30

- technique used to order artifactual materials from one or more context(s)
- based on subtle changes through time/space
- premise: adjacent materials should be more similar to one another than non-adjacent materials
- first employed by Petrie, ca. 1864
- used to ‘sequence date’ pottery from a series of predynastic graves in Egypt
- typically proceeds from the relative frequencies of materials within a table (matrix) of values
- this is sometimes referred to as an Abundance Matrix or ‘Q-Matrix’
- these matrices were popularized by James Ford in the 1930s through his work on ceramics
- Ford would:
- classify pottery into types
- calculate relative frequencies
- represent these frequencies as horizontal bars on narrow strips of paper
- the strips were then arranged and rearranged in relation to one another until a clear pattern emerged
- provides us with a linear order, but…
- no guarantee the order proceeds from oldest to youngest, unless there is chronometric evidence to back it up

Front 31

Seriation Assumptions

Back 31

- typical assumption re: patterning
- introduction -> fluorescence -> decline
- this pattern is referred to as a unimodal distributions ‘battleship curve'

- other assumptions:
- each unit represents a relatively brief and comparable block of time
- all units need to belong to the same cultural tradition
- all units come from a reasonably small region

Front 32

Sequence Comparison

Back 32

- comparing unknown sequence to known
- used primarily in the dev. of regional chronologies

Front 33

Obsidian Hydration

Back 33

- discovered in 1960 by Irving Friedman and Robert L. Smith
- refers to absorption of water by volcanic glass after fracturing
- hydration layers (rinds) can be measured microscopically
- layers increase in thickness through time
- rate of hydration must be known
- rate affected by material, temperature, exposure and material

Front 34

Chronometric Dating Techniques

Back 34

Calendar

Dendrochronology

Radiometric Dating:

- Radiocarbon Dating

- Potassium Argon

Thermoluminescence Dating

Front 35

Calendar Dating

Back 35

- have written records in some places so can use those

- Notions of time:
-cyclical as opposed to linear
- Case Study: Mesoamerican Calendars:
- long count (earliest calendar of the three)
- base-20 / base-18 calendar
- records number of days since the world was created (corresponds to August 11, 3114 BCE)
- occasionally found on monuments (eg. Stela C, site of Tres Zapotes [Olmec] September 3, 32 BCE)
- ceremonial calendar
- known as the Tzolk’in (Maya Calendar) but is found as far back as Olmec times
- 20 names days x 13 cycles = 260 day year
- Among Maya, articulates with solar (Haab’) calendar
- solar calendar
- known as the Haab’
- 18 months x 20 days = 360 + 5 ‘dangerous days’
- periodic ‘corrections’ instead of leap years
- articulates with ceremonial calendar
- each named day would be reappear for 18,980 days or 52 of our solar years

Front 36

Dendrochronology

Back 36

- non-radiometric

- tree-ing dating of preserved wood
- chronologies based on overlapping ring sequences
- limitations:
- cannot be used in tropical regions
- limited to certain tree species

Front 37

Radiometric Dating

Back 37

- concern: bias
- difference between dated event and target event
- dated event: what is dated
- target event: event of interest
- curation - eg. bone tools
- recycling of materials - eg. posts in a house
- bias can be avoided through:
- the careful selection of materials for dating
- obtaining more than on date from the context
- paying close attention to context

Front 38

Radiocarbon (14C) Dating

Back 38

- radioactive isotope or variety of carbon which forms in the atmosphere
- absorbed by plants during photosynthesis
- absorbed by animals when they eat plants
- after death, 14C decays at a known rate - this is its “half-life”(5370+-40 years)
- William Libby, University of Chicago
- Libby’s calculations were based on a ‘curve of knowns’'
- compared Egyptian tree-ring data to radiocarbon samples

Front 39

Radiocarbon Dating: Two Forms

Back 39

- conventional: measures rate of decay per unit of time
- cheapest of the two, but…
- is not as sensitive as AMS
- requires larger sample (~10 to 500 grams of material)
- AMS: direct counting of 14C atoms
- more expensive, but…
- more accurate
- faster results (atoms counted in minutes)
- can get away with smaller samples (~100 mg or less)
- fewer labs

Front 40

Radiocarbon Dating: Reporting

Back 40

- radiocarbon years BP (e.g.. 770 +- 40 years)
- error estimate - Statistical approximation based on the Normal Distribution
- 67% chance object dates to 730-810 BP
- 97% chance object dates to 690-850 BP

Front 41

Radiocarbon Dating: Calibration

Back 41

- conversion to date in calendrical years
- necessary because of atmospheric fluctuation in carbon levels though time
- makes use of Calibration curves
- curves based on comparison of sample 14C dates with dates obtained through other means (e.g.. dendrochronology)

Front 42

Potassium Argon (K-Ar) Dating

Back 42

- same principle as 14C:radioacitive decay
- in this case 40K to 40Ar
- half-life is around 1.3 billion years
- gives an estimate of volcanic rock formation
- geological dates on rock samples
- chronological sandwich

Front 43

Thermoluminescence Dating

Back 43

- works on pottery and HT cherts/flints
- similar principle (radioactive decay) but measured differently
- basis:
- decay of uranium, thorium and potassium
- displaces electrons that become ‘trapped’
- re-heating object releases electrons, which emit light (TL) as they escape
- advantages: can be used on pottery and heat-treated flint/chert older than 50,000 years
- disadvantages: less precise then 14C
- difficult to achieve accuracy of better than +- 10 percent

Front 44

Two Questions to when Considering how societies were organized

Back 44

- what was the size or scale of the soviet?
- was it autonomous or interdependent?
- how can we characterize its internal structure?
- how did they deal with issues of kinship, marriage, labour, status, ethnicity, etc?

Front 45

Classifications of Societies (What Model? How did classify?)

Back 45

- one model in Archaeology - Service(1962)

- Classification based on size & scale:

- bands

- tribes

- chiefdom

- state

- problems:

- unilinear
- pigeon-holes

Front 46

Bands

Back 46

- small scale ( < 100 people)
- egalitarian; informal leadership
- maintaining solidarity
- highly mobile - temp. camps
- oldest form of social organization
- archeological example: all Palaeolithic societies

Front 47

Tribes

Back 47

- larger than bands (~1000-2000 people)
- some (kin-based) ranking; pan-tribal sodalities
- greater sedentism - farming, herding
- some warfare (raiding)
- archaeological example: Neolithic societies; Iroquois

Front 48

Cheifdom

Back 48

- larger than tribes (~5000 - 20000+ people)
- kin-based ranking under hereditary leader
- economy based on tribute/redistribution
- settlement centre - secular & sacred
- archaeological example: NW coast, Mississippian

Front 49

State

Back 49

- pre-industrial
- larger than chiefdoms (generally 20,000+ people)
- class based hierarchy under king/emperor
- laws, bureaucracy (taxation), standing armies
- cities - palaces, temples, public buildings

Front 50

Internal Organizations

Back 50

- some archeological indicators
- settlement patterns/ systems
- funerary customs (burials)
- trade and exchange
- sex and gender
- ethnicity

Front 51

Funerary Customs

Back 51

- burial mode:
- primary:
- initial burial; typically fully articulated
- secondary
-evidence of exhumation and reburial, often as a group
- amount of articulation varies
- placement of individuals within burial
- is there spatial evidence of rank, stays, etc?
- funerary architecture
- eg. pyramid passage tomb
- nature and extent of grave good
- personal affects, badges of office, etc
- can also be used to assess economic and ideational organization

Front 52

Trade & Exchange

Back 52

- can take the form of:
- reciprocity:
- mutual exchange of itself creates obligations
- redistribution:
- centralized, organized collection & dissemination
- market:
- sophisticated, regulated; subject to regional and inter-regional economic force - supply, demand, etc
- Reciprocity; Hopewell Interaction Sphere:
- eastern North America, ca. AD 1-500
- involved exchange of both raw materials and finished goods
- finished objects common to “core” areas

- redistribution eg. potlatch
- NW Coast of North America
- lavish celebration help by family and chiefs
- wealth (e.g.. food, skins, furs) distributed to group
- reinforced status & authority
- often competitive particularly in 19th C
- market, eg most ancient civilization
- at the state/complex chieftain level
- sophisticated economic system, merchant ‘class’
- tied to sedentism, food production (states)
- subject to ‘force’ - supply and demand
- writing first emerged in connection with trade

Front 53

Settlement

Back 53

- nature and extent of settlement features
- use of seasonal vs fixed locales
- arrangement of sites across the landscapes (settlement systems)
- size and internal arrangements structures
- band : campsite
- tribe: villlage (ex. Draper)
- chiefdom: town (ex. Cahokia)
- state: city (ex. Teotihuacan)

Front 54

Settlement Systems: Bands

Back 54

Forgers

Collectors

- continuum proper by Lewis inform (1980) as a way to account for diversity in hunter0gatherer life ways
- continuum underlined by mobility but use of landscape differs from one end to the other

Front 55

Forgers

Back 55

- residential mobility - short-term base camps, forays over limited distances
- food; other resources in close proximity
- usually associated with warmer climates (lower latitudes(
- food available year0round (no seasonal shortages)

Front 56

Collectors

Back 56

- logistical mobility - more complex, fewer moves
- more foods and other resources found around base camps
- use of seasonal resources (eg. Spring - Fall, Winter)
- winter: evidence of storage (caching)
- usually found in colder climates and higher latitudes

Front 57

Settlement Systems: Tribes/Chiefdom

Back 57

sedentary settlement

Front 58

Settlement Systems: States

Back 58

hierarchical settlement system

Front 59

Social Organization: Gender/Sex

Back 59

- how do gender roles vary through time & across space?
- to what extent are they ‘constructed’ and ‘manipulated’
- similarly, are sexual preferences/activities culture bound?
- feminist critique in Archaeology
- eg. Androcentrism
- position of ethnocentric assumptions re: nature, roles, social status of males and females from our own culture on the past
- eg. males - stronger, more aggression, active, important females - weak, passivem dependent
- eg. invariant space/time sexual division of labor

Front 60

Gender/Sex Case Study Example

Back 60

- Moche, North Coast, Peru ca. 200 BC - AD 700
- well known for ceremonial complexes, monumental architecture, irrigation systems, fine pottery, cemeteries
- sex pots: display persons engaged in various sexual activities
- pornographic by Modern Western sensibilities, but:
- clay figures look oddly asexual
- buttocks, breasts and lips are flat instead of rounded
- women’s bodies are blocky, not curvaceous ; men’s chests and arms lack rippling muscles
- emphasis on receiving/releasing fluids
-circulation of fluids also involved the bodies of the dead

Front 61

What is a Complex Society?

Back 61

- typically associated with chiefdoms and states
- for V. Gordon Childe (1952), states were:
- centralized authorities with the power to tax surplus production derived from intensive land use and increased productivity
- but there are other indicators - a ‘complex of cultural phenomena’ (Flannery 1972), such as…
- writing
- metallurgy
- predictive sciences (eg. astronomy, mathematics)
- large population aggregates; urbanization
- social stratification (classes)
- occupational specialization, eg. full-time religious specialists
- monumental (public) architecture and works

Front 62

Writing (Complex Society)

Back 62

- writing:
- ‘symbols’ - present since Upper Palaeolithic times
- most early writing involves combinations of:
- pictographs
- logographs / ideographs
- later developments involve:
- syllabic/alphabetic writing

Front 63

Pictographic Symbols

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- one to one correspondence between the depiction and what it depicts
- subject to interpretation of ‘meaning’; limited in scope

Front 64

Logographical/ Ideographic

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- abstract formal correspondence between depiction and word
- one written symbol for each item (morpheme) in vocabulary
- characters stand for meanings, not sounds

Front 65

Syllabic/ Alphabetic

Back 65

- syllabic - written symbol for each syllable
- example: cuneiform (Mesopotamia) and hieroglyphics (Egypt) use a combination of logographs and syllabics
- alphabetic - written symbol for each vowel and consonant\
- greek alphabet - 22 symbols
- roman (latin) alphabet - 21 symbols

Front 66

Metallurgy (Complex Society)

Back 66

- early metalworking (Copper/Bronze/Iron Age) ca. 4000-600 BC
- Balkans ca. 4000 - copped hammered
- Italy and Iberia ca. 3000 BC - copper smelting
- Czech Republic ca. 2500 BC - bronze
- bronze spread rapidly throughout Europe ca. 1700 - 1300 BC
- exchange networks facilitated the spread of ironworking techniques after 1000 BC
- weapons, utilitarian objects
- more difficult to smelt, but iron ore is more widely available
- better agricultural implements, population increases presage Roman empire

Front 67

Predictive Science (Complex Society)

Back 67

- typified by astronomy
- eg. Mesoamerica (Maya)
- 260 day ceremonial calendar articulates with 365 day solar calendar
- sophisticated knowledge of mathematics, ‘zero concept’
- movement from ‘real’ to ‘abstract’ calculations
- observatory (Caracol) at Chichen Itza
- astronomy, eg. Bronze Age Europe
- megalithic tombs and henge monuments

Front 68

Urbanism (Complex Society)

Back 68

- not simply a product of increased (settlement) size but also density
- articulates with high degree of social stratification
- classes based on wealth, power, economic specialization
- diverse; new settlement features
- relation between, e.g., avenues, alleys, temples, workshops, markets, houses, apartments
- site of Teotihuacán (ca. 200 BC - AD 750) Highland Mesoamerica
-ca. 40 km NE of Mexico City; 21 km^2
- 150,000+ inhabitants after AD 200
- significant urban planning and monumental architecture
- stress of the deal (focal N-S axis)
- 600 pyramids
- 500 workshops, 2000 apartment complexes (barrios)
- ‘great marketplace’ and other plazas

- also involves…
- organization of the production ‘hinterland’
- replacement of more or less equally-sized communities with marked hierarchy of settlement sizes

Front 69

Occupational Specialization

Back 69

- consumers and producers have different skill sets, may no longer know one another, or occupy the same settlements
- increase in trade and exchange
- increase in ‘conspicuous consumption’ but the elite

Front 70

Complex Society in North China (Case Study Example)

Back 70

- states
- Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC)
- seven capitals; lower reaches of the Yellow River
- 1557 BC - central capital established at Ao(Zhengzhou)
- ca. 1400 BC -capital moved to Anyang
- ramed earth ‘mounds’
- royal residences - mud brick, timber frame surrounded by sacrificial burials (animals and humans)
- City of Ao
- royal compound + earthen wall enclosed area of 5km^2 (10,000 workers, 18 years); temples
- flanked by residential quarters and craft workshops
- bronze, bone tool, pottery ‘factories’
- Chinese (Shang) Bronze-working
- indigenous development; exceptionally sophisticated
- copper and tin found within 200 km of Shang homeland
- very much an ‘elite’ commodity
- ride of ‘national consciousness’ marked by spread of bronze artifacts
- Shang Royal Burials (ca. 1500 - 1200 BC)
- 1200 simple buirals; 11 deep burial pits (elite)
- elite burials: cross-like pits, ramps; attendants sacrificed, decapitated
- bronze works: sophisticated and elegant; vessels, weapons, horse tack
- tomb of Fu Hao (king) had 440 bronzes and 600 pieces of jade and 100s of other items
- Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC)
- Shi Haungdi - ‘first emperor’; reunification
- increased standardization; centralized bureaucracy and military power
- known for burial mound complex and initial construction of the ‘Great Wall of China’
- Burial Mound of Shi Haungdi
- 335 m tall; 700,000 labourers, 39 years
- interior (legend): scale model of the empire; physical features, palaces, night sky, etc
- 1970s - terracotta warriors first excavated just E of mound 8000+; highly detailed and individualized

Front 71

Monumental Architecture (Complex Society)

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reflects economic, social and political differentiation within the community

Front 72

Complex Society Models: Single Cause

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- Karl Wittfogel (1957) - Irrigation
- large-scale irrigation systems were crucial to development
- required co-ordination and control over large numbers of people and resources
- ruling class maintained authority through control of water
- Robert Carneiro (1970) - Population Pressure
- ag. populations hemmed in by geographical barriers and/or neighbours expand through force
- centralized government emerges first to mobilize armies and then control territory/conquered peoples
- William Rathje (1972) - Trade
- a number of major states emerge in areas lacking essential raw materials
- mesopotamia - stone, wood
- lowland maya - salt, obsidian
- centralized authority emerges to control supply and redistribution

Front 73

Complex Society Models: Multiple Cause

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- V. Gordon Chile - ‘Urban Revolution’
- metallurgy, craft specialists, food surpluses give rise to city-states
- trade networks + more sophisticated agricultural technologies results in centralization
- economic class replaces kinships as organizing feature

Front 74

Archaeology Roots: Colonialism

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- much of archaeology is intimately tied to the colonial enterprise
- as well, Americanist archaeology is bound up in the anthropological study of the ‘Other’
- the ‘Other’ is:
- anyone who is perceived as different
- used to define our own identity
- ofter, in colonial settings, ‘primitive’ peoples of non-Western cultures
- in “the Mind of the Primitive Man” (1938), Franz Boas defined ‘primitives’ as:
- “Those people whose forms of life are simple and uniform, and the contents and form of whose culture are ,eager and intellectually inconsistent”

Front 75

Archaeology Roots: Privilege

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- Boas and other early anthropologists and archaeologists were able to pursue their studies because of certain privileges including:
- race
- class
- gender
- sexual orientation
- education

Front 76

Problems with Roots of Archaeology

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- how does one get past this legacy?
- how do you talk about your object of study without recourse to its prejudicial, discriminating and supremacist underpinnings?
- one option: to point out what is wrong with thinking about past peoples as primitive, savage and simple
- What happens when the ‘Other’ becomes the ‘Self’

Front 77

Decolonizing Archaeology

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- Major shifts in theory/methods/ethics
- Archaeology (re)connecting with descendent groups
- More mindful of Indigenous concerns, eg. digging burials, curation of human remains (ancestors)
- repatriation of human remains and material culture
- In Canada and the USA:
- ‘Building bridges’ or partnerships with FN communities
- repatriation of human remains (eg. NAGPRA[1990])
- recognizing FN interests and concerns are not always compatible with ours

Front 78

Decolonizing Archaeology: Challenges

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- conflicting ethics and gaining trust
- state control of access to archaeology
- overlapping claims of ownership between and within Indigenous communities
- indigenous - state relationship
- Indigenous control of archaeological research - consultation or permission?
- intellectual property and censorship
- “Sustainable Archaeology”

Front 79

Ethics

Back 79

- SAA Code of Ethics (1996) - stewardship
- CAA Principles for Ethical Conduct Pertaining to Aboriginal Peoples (2000) - consultation and involvement
- WAC Code of Ethics (1990) - Indigenous owners
- UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) - indigenous owners

Front 80

A Shift in Archaeology Today!

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- major shift in theory/methods/ethics
- sites and artifacts now seen as finest resources
- need to obey legislation; register all sites
- ruse of CRM archaeology