ANT100 Archaeology Midterm revision

archaeology fundamentals

time and space

Pliocene

5.5 - 1.8 mya

Pleistocene

1.8 mya to 11.5 kya (Ice Age)

holocene

11 kya to present, beginning of agriculture and cities

culture

human adaptation to social and physical environments based on experience, learning and technology

material culture

physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture

Space

variation across space, scale of analysis

Multidisciplinary archeology

1. anthropology (ethnographies, social theory)
2. sciences (zoology, chemistry, physics and bio)
3. history (oral history, classics, archival materials, historical archaeology in combination with written records)

differences between archaeology and anthropology sub-disciplines

BIO/Evolutionary: emphasis on material, culture, NOT human remains
Social cultural: emphasis on what material culture reveals about human activities rather than through direct observation or interview

Archaeological evidence

artefacts, sites, features, eco facts, (stratigraphy, dates, matrix, chemical signature, settlements and landscape)

archaeological sites

accumulation of artefacts or eco facts representing a place where people carried out certain activities

Chance finds

-Pompeii and Herculaneum
-1709: Prince of Elboeuf found theatre there
-Early excavation sponsored by King and Queen of Naples
-Quarry for masterpieces for palace
-Terra Cotta army, ca. 2 kya, found digging a well in 1974
-Seahenge, bronze-age site in Norfolk, ca. 2049 BCE, primary burial spot

Development

-Templo Mayor, Great Temple, built by Triple Alliance (Aztec), found during subway construction in Mexico City

Field Work

-search for archaeological sites through survey
-testing and excavation of known or suspected archaeological sites
-undertaken due to development, rescue excavation, cultural resource management, as a part of a research project

Survey

-systematic investigation in specified area for archaeological remains
-start with background research, historical documents, documented archaeological sites, maps and aerial photographs, oral histories, talking with locals

Documentary sources

-L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Dates to ca. AD1k
-13th century Greenlanders Saga, later accounts of oral histories, Leif Ericsson and a crew of 30
-Red Bay, Labrador, ad 1543
Basque Whaling Station
Seasonal station to render whale blubber into oil
Referenced in historical documents at Spanish Archives
Set up shore stations

Place names

-tel sites (tel is hill, an artificial mound of refuse representing thousands of years)
-near and middle east

Oral histories

* Erebus and Terror
* Franklin's ships
* 1845 search for the Northwest Passage
* Inuit Oral histories of ships trapped in ice, starvation, and grave locations

Aerial photography

-crop marks (crops grow differently above soils with cultural features than those without culture features)
-climates can heighten curio mark effects (e.g. patch or scorch marks)
-amazon
-benefits: Can understand full extent of sites or how features are related; Wider view of landscape; Historical aerial photographs let you see landscape prior to recent development

Recent research triggered by aerial photography

Shows densely populated settlements, earthworks, and terraforming
Farming and orchards

LIDAR

* light detection and ranging
* great in heavily forested environments
* e.g. Caracol (Mayan city-state)
-ad 550 to 900
-Over 4 billion measurements in 4 days
-Showed full extent of city and city viewed in 3D

Satellite Images

-satellite images pick up on distinctive soil signatures
-"hollow ways" or trackways in Syria
-formed as people walked from settlements to fields/pastures over centuries

Ground reconnaissance

* ground-truthing
* pedestrian survey
* field walking, isolated artifacts on the ground surface, changes in soil/veneration, tree throws, exposed erosional face

Geophysics in Archaeology

* science of the physical properties of the earth and its surroundings
* ex: ground penetrating radar
* helps identify subsurface features prior to excavation
* radar waves sent into ground and bounce back off of buried objects
* e.g. Ness of Brodgar, neolithic sites in Orkney, Scotland
Changed the way people think about the Neolithic (new Stone Age)

excavation

Vertical- Test pits or trenches that reveal stratification
Horizontal- Area excavations, Good for seeing arrangement of features

site grid

* facilities documentation of provenience and mapping
* breaks site up into small units
* site datum

Provenience

* place of origin
* ovation, association, and context, XYZ coordinates, stratigraphic deposit, found in association with what other objects?

artifact

* objects created or modified by human action
* technology - tools, techniques knowledge
* economy - how people sustain themselves
* exchange
* social organisation - arrangements between individuals and groups
* ideology

In situ artefacts

* primary context
* where an artifact was deposited - during use, in refuse midden, accidental deposition

Artefacts analysis and collections management

* each artifact cleaned and catalogued
* might include basic measurements and descriptions photographs, drawings, etc.

classification

* a way of creating order in masses of archaeological materials
* grouping by shared characteristics
* often a first stage in analysis

ecofacts

* plant remains, seeds, charcoal, starch grains
* paleoethnobotanical analysis

Features

* ab immovable structure or layer, pit, or post in the ground having archaeological significance
* can be traces

Stratigraphy

* layers of natural and human-generated deposits that reveal how sites formed and how materials accumulated
* essential for understanding change though time
* stratigraphic sequence shows chronological arrangement of deposits
* a relative chronology

settlement

* comparing characteristics and locations of sites
* hoe are sites distributed across the landscape? Why are they distributed in a particular way?

Relative dating

* a technique used to estimate the age of archaeological materials, based on the association with materials of a known age or simply in relation to other materials
* something is older or younger
* stratigraphy
* seriation - subtle changes in artifact style through time

Absolute dating

* method of assigning archaeological dates in calendar years
* often still an estimate, apart from dendrochronology
* most rely on radioactive decay in certain elements
* radiocarbon dating (C14)
* radio potassium

radio potassium

* used to date volcanic rock or ash deposits not archaeological materials
* vikcanic materials contain potassium
* K40 is unstable potassium isotope
* 1.3 billion Half-Life, a measure of the rat or decay in radioactive materials
* usef to fat Laetoli footprints to 3.5 mya

radiocarbon dating

* good for wood, shell, animal bones, antler
* C14 unstable carbon isotope
* half life of 5730 years
* plants absorb CO2, animals eat plants, when they die the intake of carbon stops, C14 begins to decay

traditional method

-ratio of C14 to other carbon isotopes
-AMS (accelerator mass spectrometer) counts individual carbon atoms by weight
-C14 dates must be calibrated to account for changes in the amount of C14 in atmosphere though time
-Calibrated dates: C14 dates that have been corrected to calendar years

interpretation

* our attempts to explain what took place in the past
* require ideas (theory) and data
* technology, economy, social and political organisations, ideology

Hunter gatherer

pleistocene

typology

Classifying arctic acts by their physical characteristics

derivation

changes in style to specific artifact type over time, putting archaeological artifacts into a relative sequence

flaked stones fundamentals / lithics

* preserves well in archaeological record
* the material culture of the Plio-Pleistocene
* simply put, lithics are comprised of cores and flakes

flintknapping

* the process of making chipped stone artifacts using a hard hammer stone or soft hammer antler billet

Percussion flaking

striking crystalline stone with a hand or soft hammer

pressure flaking

removal of flakes. G applying pressure with a soft hammer

retouch

the sharping or sharpening of stone artifacts through percussion or pressure flaking

earliest stone tools

-lower Paleolithic (early Stone Age)
-Oldowan tool traditoin
-First intensified and named for: Olduvai Gorge, 3.3 to 1.8 MYA, In Tanzania/ Africa

Oldowan

* Direct percussion method
* makes flakes and cores called chopper
* for marrow extraction and woodworking
* homo habilis
* remarkably uniform across stage and time
* probably used for hunting and scavenging
* long-term use of specific tools
* used over and over again

How to determine what stone tools are used for?

- context: found in association with animal bones with cut marks, other marks could signal hunting over scavenging
-use wear: microscopic damage or polish to working edge, to tell the motion of use
-experimentation

First stone tools says:

* problem solving
* manual dexterity
* a technology that becomes critical for adaption - new environments
* abstract idea of tools, but knowledge of steps to make it - learning (social behaviours and communications)

Acheulean

* lithics industry associated with homo erectus - Handaxe
* symmetrical and biracial worked
* 1.8 mya to 200 kya
* multi-purpose tool - cutting, sawing, digging, bashing, boring

Zhoukoudian

* Davison Black 1927
* Sinanthropus pekinensis (homo erectus)
* further excavations revealed remains of multiple individuals dating 700 kya to 200 kya
* no handaxes

Homo Eructus' world

* first Hominin to be able to control the use of fire
Chazan's research: bone burnt at high temp and chemical analysis of soild
* shelter
Terra Amata, France, 400 kya

Hominins in lower paleolithic

* Atapuerca
important for several reasons
1. Homo antecessor (1.3 MYA), earliest evidence for humans in europe
2. Sima de los Huesos "pit of bones", 500 KYA. evidence for defleshing prior to burial; ceremonial burial or cannibalism?

evidence to hunting

Schoningen, Germany 400 kya
Box grove, England 500 kya

Middle Paleolithic

200 to 40 kya
H. Neanderthalensis (Europe)
H. Denisova (Asia)

H. neanderthalensis

Mousterian, named for La Mouster, France retouched flakes made using Levallois technique
Flakes retouched into many tool types: Sidescrapers, points, dentidultes

Neanderthal culture

* buried people in graves
* some burial have offerings such as flowers
* e.g. shanidar Cave in Iraq, 80-60000YA, first discoverer

upper paleolithic Europe

* sea levels some 90 metres lower in places
* UK linked with mainland Europe
* Polar desert
* 50 kya in Africa (but modern humans evolved much earlier - 200 kya)
* 42kya in Southwest Asia and Europe
* modern humans - in Europe, originally called Cro Magnon
* technology:
blades: an elongated flake; length 2 times its width; elaborate core preparation; mass production of blanks which can be retouched into different tools; more efficient use of raw materials

stone tools made from blades

* backed blade (knife)
* end scrapers
* burins
* projectile points
* hafted tools, blades easily replaced
bone, ivory, antler, and wood artifacts
* eyed needles
* spear thrower or atlatl
* Harpoons
* ropes and nets
* bow and arrow
* easy to maintain
* By the end of the Upper Paleolithic composite tools are found throughout

upper paleolithic in Europe

40 kya to 10 kya
Chatelperonnian (40 to 33)
Aurignacian (36 to 22)
Gravettian (33 to 22)
Solutrean (22 to 18)
Magdalenian (18 to 10)

modern humans and art

* portable art
* mural art
* in Africa as early as 77 kya
* cave art, earliest is in Chauvet cave 30kya
* art in the dark, mostly animals depicted, some human-animal figures, handprints, eg Lascaux 17kya

explanation for upper paleolithic cave art

* art for art's sake ceremonial purposes
* success in the hunt
* to promote partiality in the herd
* initiation rites for youngsters
* Depictions
* depictions of trance experiences, painted after the fact
* Shamanism - cave are luminal spaces, they can enter other worlds through art

portable art

* carved bone, antler, ivory. Beginning 35kya
* Venus figurines, 25kya, fertility? Amulets to ensure successful birth?
* more often found at larger settlements representing aggregations of hunter-gatherers

upper paleolithic settlement

* dolni vestonice - Czech Republic, 25 kya, Gravettian - two kilns, 2300 clay figurines, clay pellet and slabs, bird bone flutes
* Mammoth hunting
* bones used for fuel, architecture, tools, ornaments

Peopling of the Americas

people arriving in north America from northeast Asia
* in Beringia by at least 20 kya

Clovis First Hypothesis

A theory that maintains that the Clovis culture represents the initial human settlement of the Americas.
First people after 13.5 kya

Pre-Clovis

-holds that human occupation of the Americas predates 13,500 years ago
- Monte Verde 14.6 kya

geological epochs

Pliocene: 6 mya to 1.8 mya
Pleistocene: 1.8 to 10 mya, Ice ages, series of glacial and interglacial periods
First stone tools appear late Pliocene

Basal Paleolithic

3.3 to 2.6 mya

Lower Paleolithic

2.6 mya to 200 kya

Middle Paleolithic

200 kya - 40 kya

Upper Paleolithic

50 to 10kya
time period associated with modern humans in Europe and Middle East

domestication

A relationship between humans and plants and animals
* humans required for protect, reproduction
* genetic and morphological changes

neolithic

"new Stone Age"
an economy based on food production

food production

managing, harvesting, and processing resources in large quantities
* storage and sedentism
* changes in how hand, infrastructure and resources are owned

Evidence for domestication for plants (cultivars)

* loss of natural seed-dispersal mechanisms
* through axis and rachis
* brittle husks
* larger seeds
* example: eastern agricultural complex plants

phytoliths and starch grains

phytoliths are fossilized particle of plant tissue, made of silica

evidence for domestication for animals

* smaller body size
* reduction in size of horns
* docile behaviour
* age and sex profiles of zooarchaecology assemblages
* high proportions of males and young
* found outside natural range

when and where did farming first begin?

1. middle East (Syria, Jordan, turkey, Israel, Iraq, Iran)
2. Europe
3. Egypt
4. china and spread of rice to japan
5. mesoamerica and the spread of maize agriculture into north a
6. eastern agriculture complex

Upper mesolithic

* ca 15 to 10 kya
* microlithics
* broad spectrum revolution
* examples: natufians, early Jomon, Mesolithic Europe

Middle East

Pre-Neolithic:
* Natufians
* ca. 15-11jya
* Hunter-gatherers (gazelles)

Natufians

* collected wild cereals, especially wheat and barley
* bladelets for sickles
* groundstone for grain processing
* settlements have stone foundation, usually circular, roofed with thatch or wood
* example: Abu Hureyra
* they have new mortuary traditions such as being buried close to their settlements

neolithic in the Middle East

* fertile crescent
* starting ca. 11000 years ago
* Holocene (ie. post ice age)
* HG domesticate plants in piedmont steppe (planting outside optimal zones)
* first plants being domesticated: wheat and barley
* started heading sheep and goats
* a process over several thousands years
* larger settlements
* "tell" sites ( Mud brick architecture)
* ex. Ali Kosh

Mesolithic in Europe

* 12-10kya
* increasing sedentism
* Hunting solitary animals e.g. roe deers
* fishing
* shell middens
* a mound of shells accumulated from human collection, consumption and disposal
* Star Carr in UK

farming in Europe

* Cyprus - 10600 years ago
* southeastern Europe: 8500 years ago
* C and W Europe: 7500 years ago
* Britain and Northern Europe: 6000 years ago
* rates in radiocarbon are not calibrated
* distinctive settlement
* distinctive pottery
* middle eastern plants and animals
* monumental architecture

population replacement

* DNA: migration of peoples from what is today Turkey
* later peoples form Russian Steppe
* Gök4 (farmer) versus Gotland burial (HG)

Neolithic in Africa

Nabta Playa
* first inhabited 12 kya
* cattle herders by 11kya, African cattle complex, wild plants and animals
* year round villages by 9 kya, wild plants, later pottery and sheep/goat from Middle East
* new settlers by 7500 years ago
* Nabta Playa - a regional ceremonial centre
* cattle cult
* calendar circle

pre-neolithic in China

* earliest pottery in the world
* 20k years ago
* separates pottery from farming and sedentism
* 12.5k to 9k years ago: sedentary Hunter gatherers
* village life, groundstone, bone tools
* pottery: new roles in processing, serving, storage, and social relations

neolithic in China

* 10k years ago
* Yellow River
* Millet farming (dry farming)
* possible pig domestication
* zooarchaelogical assemblages with high proportions of young pig
* Peiligang Culture: settlements indicate egalitarian social organization, lots of pottery and grain harvesting and processing tools
* rice domestication - wet farming
* Yangtze river
* Pengtoushan culture
* ca. 8400 years go
* large villages, distinctive pottery

late paleolithic Japan

Jomon
* sedentary or semi- psendentary Hunter-gatherers
* village life - shell maddens, fishing, nut collection and processing

earliest American domestication

* squash and Gourds in Coastal Ecuador
* beginning around 10k years ago
* identified through phytoliths
* also in highland Mexico (ca,10k years ago)
* Maize, first domesticated in Mesoamerica, tropical lowlands of Mexico 8k years ago
Maize in South America
* 8k years ago
* seasonal cultivation of cereals by people who are otherwise HG

3 sisters

maize, beans, and squash
* don't disperse together but are central to many indigenous diets in the Americas
* potatos are first domesticated in America

animal domestication in America

* fewer domesticatable animals
* so fewer domesticated animals
* Llama, largest animal domesticated in the Americas, for meat and as pack animals
* Alpaca: wool

eastern culture complex

* first evidence about 4500 years ago in Tennesse
* Knotweed, goosefoot, little barley and maygrass
* plants high in carbohydrates
* oil and fats - squash, sumo weed and sunflower
* Hopewell- southern Great Lakes
Crawford et el. 2019
* Domesticated Chenopodium ( goosefoot seeds) in Southern Ontario 3k years ago

maize farming in the eastern Woodland

* about 2.2k years ago, maize appears in archaeological sites in the eastern woodlands
* 1.5k years ago in Ontario
Wendat village sites underneath your city

Costs and. Benefits of farming

Benefits:
* lots of cheap calories
* grains is high in carbohydrates
* easy storage and can feed lots of people
costs:
* increasing labour demands-herding, managing gardens/fields, infrastructure
* less varied diets
* more disease and more dental caries