Learn: ANTH 167 Midterm Chapters 1-4

Archaeology

The study of the ancient and recent human past through material remains. | Archaeologists study Pompeii through its buildings, artifacts, and human remains.

Anthropology

The study of humans and human cultures. Archaeology is one subfield of anthropology. | An anthropologist may compare the beliefs and behaviors of different human societies.

Material Remains

Physical evidence created, modified, or affected by human activity. | Tools, houses, pottery, refuse, and modified landscapes are material remains.

Archaeological Lens

The principles, theories, methods, ethics, and perspectives archaeologists use to interpret the past. | A processual archaeologist may interpret a settlement by focusing on environmental adaptation.

Culture

The learned and shared behaviors, beliefs, ideas, and ways of life of a group.

Society

The actual group of people who live together and share a culture. | The Inca were a society, while their shared beliefs and practices formed their culture.

Cultural Holism

The idea that all parts of a culture are interconnected and should be studied together. | To understand Machu Picchu, archaeologists examine Inca religion, politics, economics, and the environment.

Academic Archaeology

Archaeology conducted mainly through colleges, universities, and research museums for education and scholarly research. | A university professor directing a field school and publishing the results is practicing academic archaeology.

Cultural Resource Management (CRM)

Archaeology required by legislation to locate, evaluate, and protect sites threatened by construction or development. | Archaeologists survey land before a highway is built to determine whether the project would damage a site.

Commercial Archaeology

Archaeological work completed for a client, usually as part of CRM or development compliance. | A construction company hires archaeologists to examine its proposed building site.

Indigenous Archaeology

Archaeology conducted by, with, or for Indigenous peoples, with Indigenous communities helping shape the project. | A Native nation works with archaeologists to study ancestral land and support a territorial claim.

Amateur or Avocational Archaeology

Archaeology performed by nonprofessional archaeologists. A trained local volunteer helps document an archaeological site through a historical society.

Archaeology as a Scholarly Endeavor

Archaeology uses theories and research to produce academic knowledge. An archaeologist publishes peer-reviewed research about an ancient settlement.

Archaeology as a Profession

Archaeology requires specialized training, standards, and ethical responsibilities. | A CRM archaeologist follows professional standards when investigating a site.

Archaeology as a Craft

Archaeology combines intellectual reasoning with physical skills and labor. | An archaeologist interprets soil layers while carefully excavating them with a trowel.

Archaeological Ethics

Principles requiring archaeologists to protect the archaeological record, reduce commercialization, respect human remains, and fulfill responsibilities to stakeholders. | An archaeologist consults a descendant community before studying ancestral burials.

Stakeholders

People or groups with an interest in or connection to archaeological research.

Globalization

The increasing worldwide movement of people, goods, technology, and ideas, which connects cultures and affects cultural heritage. | The international trafficking of looted artifacts is a consequence of globalization.

Archaeotourism

Travel to archaeological sites for education, cultural interest, or recreation.

Overtourism

Tourism so excessive that it threatens a site, its environment, or the local community. | Large crowds and physical wear threaten the preservation of Pompeii.

Ecotourism

Responsible travel to natural areas that protects the environment, educates visitors, and supports local communities. | A small guided tour that funds environmental conservation is ecotourism.

Living Museum

A place where visitors learn through an active recreation of a historical environment. | A reconstructed village where interpreters demonstrate historical crafts is a living museum.

Pseudoarchaeology

Explanations of the past that lack reliable evidence or scientific testing. | Claiming that aliens built ancient monuments without supporting evidence is pseudoarchaeology.

Paleofantasy

The belief that human life was naturally better or healthier in the distant past. | The "paleodiet" is based partly on assumptions about an ideal prehistoric diet.

Reasoning by Analogy

Using something known in the present to interpret something similar from the past. | Archaeologists compare modern tool use with wear marks on ancient tools to determine their function.

Cabinet of Curiosity

A private collection of rare, unusual, artistic, or ancient objects displayed before modern museums developed. | A wealthy Renaissance collector might display fossils, ancient coins, and foreign artifacts together.

Antiquarian

A person who collects and studies ancient objects, often valuing them for appearance or rarity rather than archaeological context. | An antiquarian might collect Greek or Roman objects without recording exactly where they were found.

Science in Nineteenth-Century Archaeology

The growing use of scientific evidence and systematic methods to understand the past.

Three-Age System

A chronological system dividing the past into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. A site dominated by bronze tools might be classified as belonging to the Bronze Age.

Unilinear Theory of Cultural Evolution

The outdated theory that all societies move through the same stages of savagery, barbarism, and civilization.

Historical Particularism

Franz Boas's theory that every culture has its own unique history and should not be placed on one universal evolutionary path. Two societies may develop similar tools for different historical and cultural reasons.

Deep Time or Deep Antiquity

The extremely long history of Earth and humanity. Human history extends millions of years beyond the time covered by written records.

Law of Superposition

In an undisturbed deposit, lower layers are generally older than the layers above them. A pottery fragment in the bottom layer of a site is usually older than one in a higher layer.

Uniformitarianism

The principle that natural processes operating today also operated in the past. | Modern erosion can help archaeologists understand how erosion changed an ancient site.

Stratigraphy

The study of a site's layers and their chronological relationships. | The many settlement layers at Troy represent different periods of occupation.

Provenience

The precise three-dimensional location of an archaeological object within a site.

Culture History

The reconstruction of when and where particular cultures existed and how they changed chronologically. | Archaeologists arrange pottery styles into a sequence to track cultural change through time.

Processual Archaeology or New Archaeology

A scientific approach that seeks general explanations for how and why cultures change, emphasizing group behavior, environmental adaptation, and cultural systems. | Lewis Binford studied how environmental conditions influenced settlement and subsistence patterns.

Lewis R. Binford

A major leader of processual archaeology during the 1960s. | Binford promoted scientific explanations of culture change rather than merely describing artifacts.

Cultural Process Approach

The study of how cultures change and how different parts of a cultural system affect one another. | A climate change may alter food production, settlement patterns, and political organization.

Systems Theory

The idea that a culture consists of interconnected parts that influence one another. ex A change in agriculture can affect a society's economy, population, politics, and settlement patterns.

Post-Processual Archaeology

An approach that criticizes strictly objective and scientific interpretations and emphasizes politics, symbolism, identity, individual action, and researcher bias. | A post-processual study may examine how gender influenced the meaning of grave goods.

Feminist Archaeology

An approach that identifies gender bias and studies the roles of women, gender, and sexuality in the past. | Researchers reconsider the assumption that all ancient hunters were men.

Middle-Range Research

Research that connects physical archaeological evidence with broader explanations of past human behavior. | Studying how animal bones are altered after death helps archaeologists interpret bones found at ancient sites.

Experimental Archaeology

Recreating past technologies, behaviors, or natural processes to determine what results they could produce. It provides possible explanations rather than absolute answers. | Archaeologists make stone tools to compare the resulting waste flakes with ancient lithic debris.

Ethnoarchaeology

Observing contemporary people and their material culture to develop models for interpreting the past. | Studying how a living community disposes of trash may help explain an ancient midden.

Archaeometry

The application of physical and natural sciences to archaeology.

Decolonizing Archaeology

Removing colonial assumptions from archaeology and giving Indigenous and descendant communities greater authority over research and interpretation. | Sonya Atalay

NAGPRA

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, which requires certain institutions to return Native American human remains and cultural objects to affiliated groups.

Archaeology in Industry

Client-based archaeological work usually performed because heritage legislation requires it. | Archaeologists evaluate the effects of a pipeline before construction begins.

Gray Literature

Archaeological reports that are produced outside traditional academic publishing. | A CRM survey report submitted to a government agency is gray literature.

Shovelbum

An informal term for a field archaeologist who moves between temporary excavation or survey jobs.

Prehistoric Archaeology

The study of human societies before written records existed. | Studying a Stone Age campsite is prehistoric archaeology.

Historic or Text-Aided Archaeology

The study of periods for which written documents are available. | Archaeologists studying a colonial settlement compare artifacts with tax records and diaries.

Classical Archaeology

The archaeological study of ancient Greece and Rome.

Paleoanthropology

The study of early human biological and cultural development. | Researchers examine early hominin fossils and stone tools.

Lithic Studies

The analysis of stone tools and stone-tool production. | An archaeologist studies flakes from obsidian toolmaking.

Ceramic Studies

The analysis of pottery and other objects made from fired clay. Changes in pottery decoration can help identify different time periods.

Geoarchaeology

The use of geological methods to understand archaeological sites and sediments. | A geoarchaeologist examines river deposits to determine how a site was buried.

Bioarchaeology

The archaeological study of human remains. | A bioarchaeologist examines a skeleton for evidence of age, diet, or disease.

Archaeobiology

The study of plant and animal remains from archaeological sites. | Researchers analyze seeds and animal bones to reconstruct an ancient diet.

Garbology

The archaeological study of modern garbage. | The Garbage Project studied modern trash to compare what people reported consuming with what they discarded.

Space Archaeology or Exoarchaeology

The study of material remains associated with human activity in outer space.Equipment left at Tranquility Base on the Moon is part of the archaeological record.

World Heritage Site

A cultural or natural place recognized by UNESCO as having outstanding universal value. | Mesa Verde and Chaco Culture are World Heritage Sites in the United States.

World Heritage Convention

The 1972 international agreement that created a framework for protecting globally important cultural and natural heritage. | The relocation of the Abu Simbel temples helped inspire international cooperation in heritage protection.

Cultural Heritage

Places, objects, traditions, and knowledge inherited from the past and valued in the present. | An ancestral burial ground is cultural heritage for its descendant community.

Repatriation

The return of human remains or cultural objects to their community or country of origin.

Archaeological Record

All physical evidence of past human activity, including sites, artifacts, features, ecofacts, structures, and landscapes. | Pompeii's buildings, streets, pottery, food remains, and human remains form part of its archaeological record.

Archaeological Site

A location containing physical evidence of past human activity. | A campsite containing hearths, tools, and food remains is an archaeological site.

Artifact

A portable object manufactured, modified, or used by humans. It may be organic or inorganic. | A stone tool, ceramic pot, or carved bone needle is an artifact.

Feature

A nonportable object, deposit, or arrangement created by human activity.

Structure

A constructed space or building made by humans; structures are often treated as large constructed features. | A house, wall, storage chamber, or temple is a structure.

Ecofact

An unmodified natural remain that provides information about people or their environment. | Seeds and animal bones found in a hearth can reveal what people ate.

Cultural Landscape

A geographic area shaped by long-term interaction between people and the environment. | The Chilkoot Trail, Machu Picchu, and the Bamiyan Valley

Tell

An artificial mound created through centuries of repeated settlement, destruction, and rebuilding. | Tell Jokha, the ancient city of Umma in Iraq, was formed through repeated occupation.

Midden

An accumulation of discarded human refuse. | A trash deposit containing broken pottery, animal bones, and ash is a midden.

Shell Midden

A refuse deposit containing a large amount of shell. | A coastal community's discarded oyster shells can form a large shell midden.

Petroform

An intentional arrangement of stones created by people. | Stones arranged into a large outline or alignment across a landscape form a petroform.

Megalith

A very large stone used in a constructed arrangement.

Cairn

An intentionally constructed pile of stones.

Earthwork

A deliberately constructed mound, ditch, or embankment made from earth. | An Indigenous burial mound or defensive embankment is an earthwork.

Pictograph

Rock art painted or drawn onto a stone surface.

Petroglyph

Rock art carved, scratched, or pecked into stone. | An animal image carved into a rock face is a petroglyph.

Culturally Modified Tree (CMT)

A living tree showing physical evidence of past human modification. | A tree bearing marks where Indigenous people removed bark is a culturally modified tree.

Lithic Scatter

A concentration of stone tools or debris produced by stone-tool manufacture.

Lithic Debitage

Waste flakes and fragments produced while manufacturing stone tools.

Context

The location of archaeological material and its relationship to surrounding artifacts, features, ecofacts, soil, and layers.

In Situ

Latin for "in place"; material found in its original, undisturbed location. | A stone tool discovered on the floor where it was used is in situ.

Matrix

The soil, sand, clay, gravel, or other sediment surrounding archaeological material.

Site Formation Processes

Cultural and natural processes that create, bury, preserve, or transform archaeological sites. | People discard pottery, and later flooding covers it with sediment.

Cultural Formation Processes or C-Transforms

Human actions that create or change an archaeological site. | Discarding trash, burying a person, abandoning a building, or recycling materials are cultural formation processes.

Natural Formation Processes or N-Transforms

Natural forces that create, bury, preserve, or alter a site. | Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii beneath volcanic material.

Primary Refuse

Material discarded directly where it was used.

Secondary Refuse

Material moved away from where it was used and deposited elsewhere. | Household trash carried to a midden is secondary refuse.

Cache

Food, tools, or valuables intentionally hidden for later retrieval. | A container of food buried for future use is a cache.

Abandonment

The process of people leaving a settlement or activity area. |

Taphonomy

The study of natural and cultural processes that affect organic remains from death until archaeological discovery. | An archaeologist studies whether animal bones were altered by scavengers, weather, soil, or humans.

Preservation Bias or Differential Preservation

The unequal survival of materials in the archaeological record. ex Stone tools usually survive longer than wooden tools, making stone appear more common.

Material Bias

The tendency of durable inorganic materials to survive better than organic materials. | Ceramic pottery may survive while a woven basket from the same site decays.

Organic Material

Material originating from living organisms. | Wood, textiles, seeds, bone, and soft tissue are organic materials.