Archaeology & Human Evolution: Key Concepts and Epochs

Archaeology

The study of past human life through material remains.

Artifacts

Portable human-made or modified objects (tools, pottery, etc.).

Features

Non-portable evidence of human activity (hearths, postholes).

Sites

Places where past human activity is found (villages, camps, caves).

Upper Paleolithic

The last part of the Old Stone Age (~50,000-10,000 years ago) with advanced tools, art, and symbolic behavior.

Pleistocene Epoch

The "Ice Age," from 2.6 million to ~11,700 years ago.

Holocene Epoch

The current warm period, beginning ~11,700 years ago.

Anthropocene Epoch

Proposed new epoch where humans significantly shape Earth's systems.

Anthropological subdisciplines

The four fields: cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology.

Lion-headed man statue

A 40,000-year-old ivory figurine from Germany, showing symbolic thought.

Venus figurines

Small prehistoric statues of women, often linked to fertility.

Upper Paleolithic cave art

Paintings and carvings in caves, often of animals, from 40,000-10,000 years ago.

Chauvet Cave

Famous French cave with some of the oldest cave paintings (~36,000 years old).

Rapa Nui

Also known as Easter Island, known for its giant stone statues (moai).

Norse Settlement of Greenland

Viking colonies in Greenland (10th-15th centuries CE).

Homo floresiensis

A small human species ("hobbit") from Indonesia, lived ~100,000-60,000 years ago.

Sahul

Ancient landmass that included Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania.

Sunda

Ancient landmass that connected Southeast Asia's islands to the mainland.

Wallacea

Group of islands between Sunda and Sahul that humans crossed to reach Australia.

Mungo Lake

Australian site with some of the earliest evidence of humans (~40,000 years ago).

Mungo Lady

Cremated remains at Mungo Lake, earliest evidence of cremation.

Herto site

Ethiopian site with fossils of early modern humans (~160,000 years ago).

Blombos Cave

South African site with early symbolic artifacts (beads, engravings).

Survey

Searching for archaeological sites on the landscape.

Excavation

Digging to uncover artifacts, features, and sites.

Horizontal excavation

Exposes large area of a single layer.

Vertical excavation

Digs deep to see layers of time.

Stratigraphy

Study of soil layers to understand chronological order.

Provenience

Exact location where an artifact is found.

Context

Relationship of artifacts and features within a site.

Matrix

Physical material (soil, sand, etc.) surrounding artifacts.

Terraforming

Altering landscapes for human use.

Technofossils

Human-made materials (plastics, metals) preserved in Earth's record.

Anthroturbation

Human disturbance of soils and sediments.

Climate Change

Long-term shifts in Earth's climate, natural or human-driven.

Extinction

Permanent disappearance of a species.

Megafauna

Large Ice Age animals (mammoths, giant sloths, etc.).

Archaeological theory

Frameworks for interpreting the past.

Archbishop James Ussher

1600s scholar who calculated the Earth was created in 4004 BCE.

Catastrophism

Idea that sudden disasters shaped Earth's history.

Three-Age System

Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age sequence for prehistory.

Uniformitarianism

Geological processes we see today also occurred in the past.

Culture history

Early archaeology focusing on describing cultures and sequences.

Processual Archaeology (New Archaeology)

1960s movement stressing scientific methods and systems.

Lewis Binford

Leader of Processual Archaeology.

Positivist philosophy

Belief knowledge should come from observable, scientific evidence.

Postprocessual archaeology

1980s movement stressing human agency, symbolism, and interpretation.

Ian Hodder

Key Postprocessual archaeologist.

Anatomically modern humans

Humans with physical features like us (~200,000 years ago).

Culturally modern humans

Humans with symbolic, creative, and complex behavior.

Clovis

Early North American culture (13,000 years ago), known for fluted points.

Fluted point

Stone spear point with distinctive grooves, used by Clovis people.

Multiregional hypothesis

Modern humans evolved in multiple regions from earlier humans.

Out of Africa hypothesis

Modern humans evolved in Africa and spread worldwide.

Solutrean Hypothesis

Controversial idea humans from Ice Age Europe crossed to the Americas.

Hybridization hypothesis

Modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc.

Younger Dryas

Sudden cold period ~12,900 years ago that affected early humans.

Neanderthals

Human species in Europe/Asia (400,000-40,000 years ago).

Denisovans

Human group known from DNA and a few fossils in Asia.

Evidence for Pre-Clovis

Archaeological finds showing humans in the Americas before 13,000 years ago.

Bering Land Bridge

Land connection between Asia and North America during the Ice Age.

Ice Free Corridor

Route through glaciers that early people may have taken into the Americas.

Cultural Concepts

Australian dreamtime

Aboriginal belief system about creation and ancestral beings.

Ethics

Moral principles guiding archaeology.

Stakeholders

Groups affected by archaeology (descendant communities, public, scholars).

Archaeology as anthropology

Archaeology is one of the four fields of anthropology (in addition to linguistic, biological, and cultural).

The Origins of the Anthropocene

250,000 BP. Debate about when humans began to significantly alter Earth systems. Some refer to it as the latest geologic age, where humans have become the dominating environmental force.

Robert Kelly and the origins of culture

Archaeologist Robert Kelly's ideas on how culture developed. (4 tipping points - beginnings of technology, beginning of culture, beginning of agriculture, beginning of the state (political organizations).)

Modern human origins debate

Competing models: Out of Africa, Multiregional, Hybridization.

Clovis-first vs. Pre-Clovis models for the peopling of the Americas -

Whether Clovis was the first culture in the Americas or if earlier peoples existed.

Clovis-First Model (Traditional View)

The Clovis culture (~13,000 years ago, c. 11,000 BCE) represents the earliest human occupation of the Americas.

Evidence:

Distinctive Clovis spear points (fluted, finely crafted stone tools) found widely across North America.

Association with big-game hunting (e.g., mammoth, mastodon).

Migration theory:Clovis people were thought to have migrated from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge (Beringia) during the Ice Age, then moved southward through an ice-free corridor between glaciers into the rest of North America.

Key claim: Humans came to the Americas only after the last glacial maximum, no earlier than 13,000 years ago.

Pre-clovis model

Humans were in the Americas before Clovis, perhaps thousands of years earlier.

Evidence:

Sites older than Clovis (examples):

Monte Verde, Chile (~14,500 years ago)

Buttermilk Creek Complex, Texas (~15,500 years ago)

Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pennsylvania (possibly 16,000–19,000 years ago)

Bluefish Caves, Yukon (bone tools possibly 24,000 years old).

Artifacts include stone tools, butchered animal bones, hearths, and plant remains.

Migration theory: Humans may have arrived via multiple routes:

Coastal migration down the Pacific coast using boats and marine resources.

Earlier crossings from Beringia during the Last Glacial Maximum (or even before).

Key claim: Clovis was not the first culture in the Americas—rather, one among several later traditions.

Ethics of the Mungo Lake archaeology project

Issues of studying remains (like Mungo Lady) with respect to Aboriginal communities. Debate of the ethics of repatriation vs. scientific advancement.

Do the Dead Have Rights? - Ethical debate on whether ancient human remains should be studied or reburied.

scientific advancement and education vs respect to descendants and deceased individual.