Midterm for Archaeology :3

STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY FOR THURSDAY

What is archaeology?

The study of the human past

What is meant when archaeologists refer to the archaeological record?

the body of physical, material evidence left behind by past human societies

What is a feature?

Any physical structure that was created by a person that cannot be removed from the site

What are Transformational Processes

natural and human events move or damage, or change archaeological materials after they have been left behind

What are Cultural Transformation Processes?

Cultural transformation processes (often referred to as cultural formation processes or C-transforms) are the human actions and behaviors—intentional or accidental—that create, modify, use, and discard physical remains at an archaeological site

What are the four main types of Cultural Transformations?

are the human actions and behaviors—intentional or accidental—that create, modify, use, and discard physical remains at an archaeological site

What are the three main types of Deterioration noted when discussing Natural /
Non-Cultural Transformation processes?

The three main types of deterioration noted in natural/non-cultural transformation processes (such as in archaeology or artifact preservation) are chemical, physical (or mechanical), and biological deterioration

What are organic artifacts/materials?

Things that came from a living thing

What are inorganic artifacts/materials

are man-made objects or natural substances that do not come from living organisms (plants or animals) and generally lack carbon-hydrogen bonds. They originate primarily from the earth's crust and geological resources.

What are sites of extreme preservation conditions? What does it mean when
archaeologists discuss this term?

are rare environments that stop or greatly slow down the natural decay of organic and inorganic material

What are the three extreme preservation conditions discussed in class

are dry environments, cold (or frozen) environments, and waterlogged (or wet) environments

Which site type is problematic for metal (especially iron)?

waterlogged and anaerobic (oxygen-poor) environments like peat bogs, marshlands, and marine wreck sites are notoriously problematic for metal—especially iron

Which site type is better for plant-based artifacts?

In archaeology, permanently wet (waterlogged) and permanently dry (desiccated) site types are the best environments for preserving plant-based artifacts

Which site type is better for animal-based artifacts?

waterlogged sites, arid sites, or freezing sites

what site type is in danger of disappearing?

Among all types, coastal sites and cryospheric (ice/permafrost) sites are vanishing the fastest

Who was Tollund Man? Why is he important?

Prehistoric man from the Iron Age who lived between 405 and 380 BCE and was naturally mummified inside a peat bog in north-central Denmark

What is important about the wreck site of the Titanic?

as a historic underwater laboratory, a maritime memorial, and an archaeological resource that continues to reveal details about the ship's construction and rapid natural decay

What is important about the discovery of the Somerset Levels site?

its waterlogged peat preserves ancient wooden trackways, organic artifacts, and paleoenvironmental data dating back thousands of years

Who were the Chinchorro Mummies? Why are they important?

ancient, maritime hunter-gatherer society that lived along the Pacific coast of northern Chile and southern Peru from roughly 7000 to 1500 BCE.

Who was Ötzi? Why is he important?

is a 5,300-year-old natural human mummy who lived around 3300 to 3250 BCE during the Copper Age, discovered by hikers in the Ötztal Alps on the Austria-Italy border on September 19, 1991

What was the (Lord) Franklin Expedition? Who was John Torrington? Why are they important?

was a doomed British Royal Navy voyage led by Sir John Franklin to map the Canadian Arctic and find the Northwest Passage. Both ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, became trapped in pack ice near King William Island, and all 129 men perished from cold, starvation, and lead poisoning

What is culture?

the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and traditions that a group of people learn, practice, and pass down through generations

What are archaeological data?

physical remains, environmental samples, and contextual information collected from sites and artifacts to study past human behavior

What is a soil matrix?

the solid phase of soil, made up of mineral particles and organic matter that form the physical framework supporting pore spaces filled with water and air. It acts as the structural foundation and reactive surface where physical, chemical, and biological interactions occur

What are strata?

the plural form of the noun stratum, which means a layer, level, or series of layers lying one upon another

What do archaeologists mean when they refer to “provenance?”

the documented history of an object's ownership, custody, and movement from the time of its creation or discovery to the present day

What is the Law of Association

is the concept that objects found together within the same archaeological stratum, layer, lens, or feature were deposited at roughly the same time

What is the law of superposition?

in any undisturbed sequence of sedimentary rock layers, the oldest layers are at the bottom and the youngest layers are at the top

What do archaeologists mean when they refer to an artifact’s “context?”

means the exact physical and spatial setting where it is found and its relationship to everything around it. Without context, an object loses its historical meaning and becomes little more than a standalone curiosity

What is Primary Context?

to the most immediate, foundational, or undisturbed set of circumstances, conditions, or original materials that give meaning to an event, artifact, or statement

What is a secondary context?

A person that has imformation from a primary source

What is spatial context?

to the physical or geographic setting, location, and arrangement of objects, people, or events, and how these surrounding conditions influence behavior, interactions, or data. It answers the question of where something happens and how that specific space shapes the outcome

What are the four aspects of human behavior that spatial context reveals?

Terrortorality, Personal space, privacy, crowding

What is a settlement pattern?

is the way that human buildings, homes, and communities are arranged and distributed across a given landscape

What is the Artifact Level?

refers to a distinct layer of soil, sediment, or deposit within an excavation site where material remains and artifacts are found

What is the Structure Level?

l typically refers to the four levels of protein structure that describe how proteins fold and organize into functional shapes

What is the Site Level?

The process of making or shifting a grounds surface

What is Region Level

l refers to a geographic, administrative, or organizational scale that sits between the local level (such as a city or town) and the national or federal level (covering an entire country)

What are the basic goals of archaeologists everywhere?

To tell stories of people from the past

What are the threats to archaeology?

, human development, deliberate destruction, and systemic neglect

How is the archaeological record formed?

through cultural and natural events that have been shaped over time

What kinds of things are found within the archaeological record?

consists of all the physical, material remains left behind by past human activity

What artifacts are most likely to survive in the archaeological record under normal
(not extreme) preservation circumstances?

inorganic artifacts

What environmental conditions allow for remarkable/extreme preservation?

Arid and freezing conditions

Is archaeology a cultural transformation?

no

Why does culture matter to archaeologists?

because physical objects alone do not explain the human experience; culture provides the framework, meaning, and context behind those remains

What are the three main components that archaeologists view culture as having
when we analyze it?

When analyzing culture, archaeologists (most notably through Lewis Binford's framework) divide human culture into three main domains, often illustrated as the Pyramid of Culture

Archaeological context involves more than provenance alone – what else do
archaeologists take into account?

In archaeology, context is the foundation of all interpretation. While provenance (the exact three-dimensional point where an object is found, also called provenient) is critical, context encompasses a much broader web of information

What needs to be significant distance to be considered important for spatial context?

depends entirely on the environment's scale and how interaction or behavior changes across that space. There is no single universal measurement in feet or miles; instead, significance is defined by functional thresholds

What kinds of information can spatial context provide archaeologists

critical data about how ancient people interacted with their environment, organized their societies, and moved across landscapes

Why do archaeologists classify, categories, and define the material remains of the
human past?

to organize massive amounts of physical evidence, detect cultural patterns, and reconstruct how past human societies lived.