Archaeology & Biological Anthropology

Archaeology #1

The subdiscipline of anthropology focusing on the human cultural past.

Archaeology #2

The study of “material remains of human behaviour”

Archaeology #3

Reconstructs past life and adaptations from tools, debris, shelters, ornaments, food remnants, animal remains, modified landscapes, etc.

Based on the materials human beings left whether that’s junk, accidentally left, or purposefully left.

Site

a location in which evidence of past human activity is preserved.

Artifact

Any object made or modified by humans (and non-humans)

Ecofact

A non-artifactual item that has cultural relevance; organic (e.g., animal and plant remains) or inorganic (e.g., minerals, stones). Not made nor modified by people.

Feature

A non-portable element of an archaeological site that reflects human behaviour, e.g., health, midden, grave, fortification walls.

An artifact that you can’t move.

How Are Sites Formed?

1. Erosion versus deposition

2. Primary refuse

3. Secondary refuse

4. Stratigraphy

5. Deposition is not continuous or consistent

6. Depositional unit

Primary Refuse

Artifacts or eco facts left at the place where they were used or produced (an intact activity area)

Secondary Refuse

Artifacts or eco facts that were moved by people to a designated refuse area/midden

Stratigraphy

The arrangement of rock and sediment into layers (or strata) formed by natural processes and anthropogenic (human-caused) activities

Depositional Unit

Basic unit of an archaeological site

• Represents material deposited at a particular point in time

• Occupational levels reflect stable environment

• The lower the items are found from a deep dig, means that is is older than the modern items.

Finding Archaeological Sites Through Common-Sense Techniques

1. Previous research conducted in the area

2. Knowledge of local inhabitants (e.g., oral history and/or tradition)

3. Natural and human alterations to the land

4. remote sensing techniques

5. Surface survey (pedestrian survey)

6. Test pits or shovel pits

7. Probes

What to do after finding archaeological sites?

• Once a site has been found, an assessment is done to decide whether an excavation should be done and, if so, the scale of the work.

  • Typically conducted by permit holding professional archaeologists (funded by developers) or academic archaeologists (funded by universities and government research agencies)

Aerial Survey

1. Shadow sites

2. Soil marks

3. Cropmarks

4. LiDAR

Shadow Sites

• Earthworks that cast shadows and are visible during low light

Soil Marks

Differences in soil moisture or texture (e.g., flattened burial mounds or cairns)

Cropmarks

Variations in the height, health, or type of vegetation reveals buried features (e.g., ditches, walls, latrines)

LiDAR (Light Detection & Ranging)

Measures reflected light to generate elevation models

What’s part of archaeological excavation?

1. Horizontal

2. Vertical

Horizontal Archaeological Excavation

Exposure of a broad area reflecting a single point in time.

Vertical Archaeological Excavation

Exposure of the full sequence of occupation

• Almost always a destructive process

• Therefore, meticulous care is taken to preserve artifacts, eco facts, and features

How to document spatial context in sites?

• Provenience

• Association

Provenience

• exact 3D location

Association

• location relative to other artifacts, features, or eco facts.

Excavation Unit

An individually-excavated section of an archaeological site; often part of a grid

• Sediment removed in layers and screened

• Artifacts, eco facts, and features are typically left in sites for documentation

Datum point

Reference for all vertical (depth) and horizontal documentation (using a theodolite/total station)

Grid System

Reference for all horizontal documentation

Increasing use of photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning, when appropriate.

How to interpret artifacts?

• Attribute

• Typology

Attribute

A particular characteristic of an artifact (shape, decorations, raw material, etc.)

Typology

Classification of artifact types based on their attributes

Reflect specific contexts (e.g., time period, geographic region, culture, manufacturing process)

Ethnoarchaeology

Learning from skilled and/or traditional peoples in order to better understand past craftwork, technology, and activities.

Experimental archaeology, e.g., flint napping, use-wear analyses, replication of structures, etc.

Experimental evidence for lithium projectile injuries

How to interpret past diet?

1. Recovering food remains from hearths, middens, pots, etc.

2. Direct and indirect evidence from human remains

3. Zooarchaeology

Zooarchaeology

The study of archaeological animal remains to reconstruct diet, substance, human-animal relationships, and other aspects of behaviour.

Two Broad Categories for Archaeological Dating

1. Relative Dating

2. Chronometric (or absolute) dating

Relative Dating

Comparative methods that provide relative estimates (e.g., “older than…”) but not specific dates

Includes the:

• Law of superposition

• Seriation

Law of superposition

For undisturbed stratigraphic layers, more recent ones are superimposed on top of older ones.

• Lyell’s principal of uniformitarianism

Seriation

Using a sequence of changing artifact styles to establish a relative date

E.g., vehicle styles over time

Chronometric (or absolute) dating #1

Methods that provide specific dates (in years or ranges of years)

Chronometric (or absolute) dating #2

Often called radiometric dating because many (not all) techniques are based on the decay of radioactive isotopes (unstable from of an element that decays back to a stable element over time).

Includes half-life

Half-life

The amount of time required for half of a radioactive isotopes to decay back to a stable form.

Radioactive isotopes never completely disappear (but approach zero and eventually can no longer be measured)

Two Chronometric Dating Methods

• Radiocarbon

• Dendrochronology

Radiocarbon Dating

• Also called C14 dating

• Based on the decay of radioactive C14 to stable N14

• Carbon exchange reservoir - in life, organisms maintain a fairly constant ratio of C14 to C12 (and C13)

• When they die, they stop absorbing new carbon, but C14 decay continues so the ratio changes

• C14 half-life is 5730 years, so applicability ranges from several hundred to ~50,000 years

What are the limitations of Radiocarbon Dating?

• Can’t be used on organic materials, destructive, calibration (C14 fluctuation, ‘old’ carbon reservoirs)

• We need a once living organism

Dendrochronology

• Tree-ring dating

• Very accurate; used to develop calibration curves for C14 dating

What are the limitations to dendrochronology?

• Wood only

• Master sequence must be developed for different regions of the world (some extend back as far as 10,000 years).

The Development of Archaeology

• Professionalization of archaeology began in the late 19th century, with an emphasis on culture history (referred to then as “cultural evolution”)

• Classification of archaeological artifacts and sites into cultural or ethnic groups based on material culture.

• Early archaeologists often labeled “technicians” and criticized for ignoring societies.

V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957)

• Only excavated one site, but asked fundamental questions about the nature of the past.

• Moved archaeology away from simple classification and towards a focus on past societies as dynamic entities.

• Demonstrated how Neolithic and urban transitions had occurred in many different regions of the world.

• Part of the development of Archaeology.

“New” or Processing Archaeology (Beginning in the 1960s)

• Movement that questioned how we could know the past (theoretical problem), static artifacts vs. Dynamic societies.

• Archaeology as science, using scientific methods, driven by scholars such as Lewis Binford (1931-2011)

• Not limited to simplify describing the archaeological record, but open to all aspects of understanding the past, requiring disciplinary specialization.

Archaeology should be …

• Deductive (NOT inductive) - theory → hypothesis → observation

What happened to the “processing archaeology” in the 1980’s?

• It became more moderate.

• Recognition that induction (observation → hypothesis → theory) was sometimes necessary.

• Binford’s middle-range theory

Binford’s Middle-Rance Theory

• Considered processes that could be observed in the present and used them to interpret the past.

Post-processing Archaeology

• Beginning in the 1980s, it emphasized the subjectively of archaeological interpretations.

• The past can only be understood through an “epic” (insider’s) perspective.

• Context is the key to interpretation. Interpretation should be ongoing, well-grounded, and employ multiple approaches.

Post-Processualism

• Forced archaeologists to consider modern politics and ideas, acknowledge that these can be projected onto the past.

• Spurred scholars to look critically at the history of archaeology (colonialism, racism, nationalism, sexism, etc.)

Feminist Archaeology

• initially concerned with the invisibility of women in past (societies is not equal to homogenous!)

• Later questioned methods of knowledge production (e.g., gender and other bias in interpretation)

• Opened doors for queer archaeology

Indigenous Archaeology

• Collaborative approach involving Indigenous communities and perspectives.

• Understanding the past through multiple viewpoints; integration of Indigenous knowledge: guidance of Indigenous scholars and communities

• Often referred to as Indigenous archaeologists

Stewardship

• the - long tern conservation and protection of cultural heritage

Ethics In Archaeology

• Stewardship

• Repatriation whenever possible

• Accountability

• Commercializations should be discouraged

• Public education and outreach

• Intellectual property

• Preservation of records and reports (including digitization)

• Training and resources

Accountability

Public consultation

What should be discouraged in the ethics of archaeology?

• Commercialization

Intellectual Property

• Data should be shared (FAIR principles: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) and results disseminated.

• However, data openness cannot always be universal (e.g., for human remains, “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”)

Training and resources

• Archaeologists must be properly trained and have adequate resources and facilities before conducting research.

Biological Anthropology

• The systematic study of humans as biological organisms

• Other specializations include:

  • Human Biology

  • Eco-Devi Anthropology

  • Primatology

  • Forensic Anthropology

Bioarchaeology & Paleoanthropology (human paleontology)

• Specializations within biological anthropology that study past populations (including our early hominid ancestors) through human remains and fossils.

Why Study Bones?

1. Understand human evolution and adaptation over time and space.

2. Explain modern human variation

   • Underneath the surface of the skin, we all look the same

3. Identify cultural features and behaviours

4. Reconstruct past diet, health, activity, etc.

5. Identify individuals and the circumstances surrounding their deaths

How many bones are in an adult skeleton?

~206

How many bones are in an infant skeleton?

270+

How many bones are in a growing child?

1000

What are the five functions of the skeleton?

1. Support / Framework

2. Protect

3. Movement

4. Mineral / Fat Storage

5. Blood Cell Production

How many bones are in an axial skeleton?

• 79

• Skull (cranium, 27 + mandible) and hyoid

• Vertebrae (24), sacrum/coccyx

• Ribs (12 × 2) and sternum

How many bones are in an appendicular skeleton?

• 126

• Upper limb (2x) - clavicle, scapula, humerus, radius, manual bones (27)

• Lower limb (2x) - hip bone (os coax), femur, patella, tibia, fibula, pedal bones (26)

How to know if it is a human?

1. Cranium - large vault, high rounded forehead

   • Flat face with forward-facing eyes

   • Small teeth

   • Inferior for foramen magnum, etc.

2. Ribs - round(er) shafts

3. Scapulae - greatest width in parallel to the vertebral column

4. Long Bones - short and broad

5. Hand/foot bones - no claws

Sexual dimorphism

Biological female - male variation in body size and morphology (form and structure)

Population Variation

Average body size differs among various populations, as does the extent of sexually dimorphic features.

Gender

Refers to someone’s social identity.

Not binary with sex

What age is most accurate to determine biological sex from post-pubescent individuals?

15+ years of age which is 80-99% effective.

What age is nonadult / immature?

<20 years

Nonadult / immature

reflects growth and maturation; generally, quite accurate

Includes:

• dental formation and eruption

• Bone growth and union

What is the age for adult / mature?

~20+ years

Adult / mature

Age estimation is generally based on bone degeneration

Includes:

• Modification of particular joint surfaces

• Cranial and palatal suture closure

How to determine size of a biological sex?

• In general, biological females are smaller and more gracile (smooth, delicate)

• Males are larger and more robust (rugged) ~ 8 - 10% in modern humans

Are sex determination traits metric (measurable) or non-metric (morphological, visible?

Yes

Can there the differences on the skull (cranium and mandible be easily observed?

Yes

True or False: Stature reconstruction is based on long bone lengths.

True

Is there a such a thing as race?

No

How can we do a facial reconstruction?

• 2D

• 3D

• Manual

• Digital

Bioarchaeology

The study of archaeological human remains (biological anthropological methods applied to archaeological problems)

What can be provided as independent information on Bioarchaeology?

• Body modifications

• Trauma and injury (paleopathology)

• Physiological stress, health, and disease (paleopathology)

• Diet and food processing

• Nutrition (paleopathology), hygiene

• Activity, behaviour, health care

• Workload, inequality, and much more!