UCR anth005 midterm 2

Small Scale

artifact, ecofact, feature, structure (Ex: Tokens in Syria used them as stamps, the stamps had symbols that indicate a writing system. Indus Valley Civilization: stamp seals, cubical weights in graduated sizes)

Middle Scale

a group of structures, a site (Ex: some sites are walled, built walls to get water during the dry season, no evidence of warfare)

Large Scale

a region (Ex: the Silk Road 202 BC- 202 AD Han Dynasty)

Finding Sites

-Surface Survey: detect and record archaeological evidence present on the ground by direct inspection

-Historic Texts: Troy

-Environment : Sites are often located in a particular environment

-Local Informants

-Aerial Remote Sensing: aerial photography and survey

Aerial photography

started after WW1 aerial photos were used to survey enemy positions. Photos represent different features during different hours, days, seasons, years.

1. Oblique angle: used to find sites

2. Vertical angle: used to make plans on it (vertical is better)

Crop marks

Satellite Imagery

LANDSAT (infrared vs. thermal)

1. Infrared: infrared wavelengths, e.g. health or vegetation

2. Thermal: how heat flows through a material

Aerial survey and photography

UVA(unmanned aerial vehicle) Balloons, Drones, Planes, Helicopters

Google Earth

Georeferenced Data

LiDAR

Light Detection and Ranging, an airborne remote sensing technique that can "see through" even dense vegetation to reveal architecture and other modification to the landscape.

-Light Detection and Ranging, Laser-based aerial mapping, Measure return signals of laser (point cloud), Accurate Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Forest canopy.

-Problems with LiDAR: different types of vegetation, no single visualization method, ground verification

Digital Elevation Model (DEM)

red= highest area, blue= lowest area (Ex: El Palmar, jungle, clearing costs a lot) visibility analysis, different layers

Subsurface Probe

a. Core and auger surveys

b. Shovel test surveys

Subsurface Remote Sensing

1. Active: uses energy and measures a response

2. Passive: measures physical characteristics w/o the use of energy (ex: magnetism)

Earth Conductivity Survey

1. Electromagnetic (EM) Survey

2. Active: Electrical current

3. Measure: Conductivity of the current

4. Two stationary probes

5. Soil contrasts and no depth

Resistivity Survey

1. Active: electromagnetic energy

2. Measure: Resistance of the matrix

Ground penetrating Radar (GPR)

1. Active: Radio pulses into the ground

2. Echo

3. Two dimensional vertical or horizontal time slices

Magnetic susceptibility

Passive: provides a measure of the ability of a material to be magnetized when a magnetic field is applied

Magnetometer survey

1. Measure: Magnetic intensity of the field

2. Features exposed to heat 700 ॰C or higher such as hearths, pits, and ditches, or iron objects.

3. Distortion in the magnetic field.

Mapping

-Topographic vs Plan View

-Pace and compass

-Tape and compass

-Transit and level

-Total station

-Gps

-Remote sensing data

-Reasons to use different techniques surface collection

Types of Excavations

Each site has different context.

-Coring and augering

-Test pit

-Trench

-Horizontal stripping (clearing excavations)

-Stratigraphic excavations

Documentation

-Grids and provenience

-Wheeler box grid (balks)

-Horizontal control

-Provenience: three dimensional location of archaeological data (levels:grid and datum: measuring pole)

-Vertical control

Stratigraphy: profile or cross section

Matrix

the material that surrounds and supports archaeological data.

Association

two or more artifacts that occur in the same matrix, Wari, Peru

Context

the final evaluation of the significance of the provenience, association and matrix of archaeological data.

-Importance of good documentation

-Problem of unprovenienced artifacts

Primary Context

Naturally and culturally are relatively undisturbed deposits Ex: Pompeii

Secondary Context

The provenience, association, and/ or the matrix are disturbed.

-Use-related secondary context related to human actions Ex: burial in secondary context

-Natural secondary context related to cultural processes.

Collecting Artifacts

-Dry-Screening

-Wet Screening

-Floatation: Light fraction, Heavy fraction, looking for Microartifacts

-Documentation: tags, bags, excavation forms, and field notes

Hunting and Overkill, Climate Change

Why did Ice-Age (Peistocene) Megafauna become extinct?

Megafauna

ex: Mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, savel tiger, reindeer

Popular images of the stone-age

-Caveman

-Savages

-Natural being

-Hairy images

-Hide, axes, etc.

1. How is !Kung's lifeway?

-Arranged marriages,young marriages rituals (trance), traveling around, hunting and gathering so many things, they moved and left sickness behind.

-N!ai, !Kung: "we gathered so much things." "Nobody told us what to do." "When we moved, we left sickness behind."

2. What kind of physical characteristic (ie. A large brain and tools vs. bipedalism) is critical for hunting large mammals?

Lean, tall, bipidal locomotion (habitually walking on two feet), hunting by tracking

3. What is !Kung's principal diet?

Insects, sweet berries, boba fruit, cucumbers, water, a deep root, any meat they can find (giraffe).

Earliest evidence of Bipedalism

Australopithecus afarensis footprints at Laetoli in tanzania 3.6 mya

Physical appearance (Modern vs. Ancient)

Past:

-upper paleolithic "Venus" figurines

-Elaborate hairdos or hair nets

-Textiles, baskets, ropes

Our notions of the body:

-Our fascination with the body

-Attracting mates, identities, self-image

-Notion of being civilized

-Upper paleolithic

Portable art

symbolic expressions beyond function

Varve Analysis

Places: cores (sea, lake, and ice), varve forms levels of sediments every year, up to about 53,000 B.P.

Limitations: requires a specific environment condition (ex: smooth ocean or lake, surrounded by mountains, deep water depth, ect.)

Phytolith analysis

microscopic silica bodies that form in living plants and provide a durable floral ecofact that allows the identification of plant remains in archaeological deposits.

Australia

-45,000 B.P.