Archaeology Midterm 1 review

The past is

a social construction.

Archaeology is:

the scientific study of humanity's past through the analysis of material culture.

Equifinality means

that more than one interpretation is possible.

Anthropology is:

the scientific study of the origin, behavior, physical variation, and cultural change of human beings.

One tradition of archaeology developed out of anthropology in:

North America.

The goals of archaeology include:

-preservation of cultural heritage.

-documentation of archaeological data.

-greater understanding of the past.

-Dissemination

Looting:

-damages archaeological sites.

-removes contextual information from artifacts.

-is illegal in most countries.

Pseudoarchaeology

-series of nonscientific-based speculations of archaeological data.
-uses the past for the personal beliefs
-manipulate data for their goal
-limits human potential

Legislation that stipulates that the human remains of Native Americans must be returned to descendant populations is called the:

Native American Graves and Repatriation Act.

The earliest known person who purposefully excavated a mound site in the United States to explore its origins was:

Thomas Jefferson.

Uniformitarianism has to do with:

the formation of geological deposits; James Hutton

The concept of Darwin's Natural Selection explains that:

an individual who fits a local environment survives.

Evaluating other cultures based on preconceived notions originating in one's own culture is known as:

ethnocentrism.

Assigning ethnicity to archaeological cultures through the use of material culture is associated with:

Culture historical archaeology

Hyper-diffusionism assumes that cultural traits like pyramids:

originate from a single source.

Franz Boas:

-was a champion of a four-field anthropology.

-was a champion of historical particularism.

-argued cultural relativism.

The New Archaeology is associated with:

processualism

The means that directly lead archaeologists to gather and examine specific data in order to resolve their questions is called:

research design.

The study of indigenous people through historical records and ethnographic data is called:

ethnohistory.

Extracting a subset of elements from the population in order to make inferences about the entire population is called:

sampling.

Sampling based on statistical criteria that enable archaeologists to evaluate how close a sample represents the population is called:

probablistic sampling.

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?

Free Egyptians who were well treated

Which human groups have more free time than the other?

agriculturists

After the advent of agriculture, human society became

stable

What is an artifact in archaeological research?

a portable object made or modified by humans

The origins of archaeology lie in the work of:

Antiquarians

site

a spatial cluster of artifacts, ecofacts, features, and/or structures.

The Culture History approach places an emphasis on:

rules and norms that guide the reproduction of culture

SID; descriptive categories which cannot be ordered

nominal

Elevation of California Cities

Interval

How many subfields are in American Anthropology?

4

You find a shell with a design carved into it

artifact

5000 BP =

3000 BC

CRM/ contract archaeology stands for

Cultural Resource Management

Northern American Archaeology developed as a part of...

Anthropology

Cultural Ecology

Body of theory associated with "New Archaeology" or processualism

Non-portable facilities that were created by humans are

features

Archaeology claiming that aliens assisted in building the Pyramids of Giza is a form of...

Pseudoarchaeology

Paleontology

Study of fossils of plants and animals (including dinosaurs)

European Archaeology developed through; An interest in the past, usually involving collection, where individual facts or objects are discussed without reference to their broader context

Antiquarianism

Ecofacts

Unmodified remains of biological materials recovered from archaeological contexts

Elman Service's classification of societies included:

Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, States

Archaeologists are interested in looking at change over time through

Diachronic analysis

Laws that deal with the protection of cultural heritage include:

Unidroit, NHPA, NAGPRA

Provenance

Where an artifact was made

Rosetta Stone

Used to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics

'Survival of the Fittest' was coined by

Herbert Spencer

Lithics

oldest documented artifact class

A trash deposit is...

-a midden

-useful to archaeologists for understanding daily behaviors

-often related to an activity area

A measurable characteristic of a population is a...

Variable

Unilinear Cultural Evolution and other systems of cultural classification are now considered to be...

ethnocentric

ratio

Continuous data with a true zero; score of baseball team

ordinal

ranked data. (small, medium, large); ranking of employees by # of sales

ratio

amount of money in a savings account

Formation processes

Archaeological context, why things changed when found compared to originally put

biological anthropology

Study of both behavioral and biological facets of humans, hominins, and non human primates

cultural anthropology

The study of contemporary cultural variation, including changing social hierarchies, ideologies, and contested meanings, practices, and identities

Ethnography

the study of individual contemporary cultures

Ethnology

the comparative analysis of various living societies

Linguistic anthropology

The study of how languages, an integral part of culture, shape social life; ancient languages

Paleoanthropology

out of geology 

Classical Archaeology

out of history

bipedalism

use of only 2 legs (humans, primates, etc)

Synchronic analysis

short period of time

Stratified random sampling

layers

systematic sampling

grid/pattern

adaptive sampling

next one is based off the finds of the last one

Tensions over heritage

International > national > local

Early laws/protections

• First monuments act - Sweden 1666

• First museum in Russia - 1718

• Fines for unauthorized excavations in Peru - 1822

Charles Lyell (1797-1875)

• Principles of Geology (1830-1833)

• Fused the idea of biological change to deep time

Georges-Louis Leclerc (1707-1788)

Argued for biological change and for an older world than biblical narratives accounted for

Contributions of Naturalists

Evolution - biological change in heritable traits in a population over time

Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)

• Argued that extinctions had occurred 

• Series of creations followed by catastrophes

Jean-Baptiste Lamark (1744-1829) “Lamarkian”

• Biological change must have occurred due to some sort of natural laws 

• Evolution happened at the level of the individual not populations 

• Individuals could change themselves physically through necessity

Edward Tylor

Application of evolutionary ideas to culture; cultural evolution

Lewis Henry Morgan

• Three stage system - Savagery, Barbarism, Civilization

• Ethnocentric 

• Linear sequence of cultural stages

Service

• Bands 

• Tribes 

• Chiefdoms

• States

Fried

• Egalitarian 

• Rank 

• Stratified 

• State

C.J. Thomsen (1788-1865)

• Recorded stratigraphic provenience 

• Three Age system (Stone, Bronze, Iron) 

Jens Worsaae (1821-1885)

• First formally trained professional prehistoric archaeologist

• Denmark’s Inspector for the Conservation of Ancient Monuments (1847)

UNESCO 

• Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict - 1954

• UNESCO convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property - 1970

UNIDROIT

Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects - 1995

United States

• Antiquities Act - 1906

• National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) - 1966

• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) - 1990

Dangers facing material culture

Natural processes (weather/decay) and cultural process (modern development/looting)

Cluster sampling

clustering analyzed units around a smaller subset of randomly sampled units

Spatial units

Non arbitrary (natural boundaries) and arbitrary (artificial boundaries)