Anthropology Ch. 5-8

Prehistory

The period of time before the appearance of written records.

Artifact

Any object fashioned or altered by humans.

Material Culture

The durable aspects of culture, such as tools, structures, and art.

Ecofact

The natural remains of plants and animals found in the archaeological record.

Feature

A non-portable element such as a hearth or a ditch or an architectural element such as a wall that is preserved in the archaeological record.

Fossil

The materialized remains of past life forms.

Taphonomy

The study of how bones and other materials come to be preserved in the earth as fossils.

Soil Mark

A stain that shows up on the surface of recently plowed fields revealing an archaeological site.

Midden

A refuse or garbage disposal area in an archaeological site.

NAGPRA

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a federal law that outlines a process for the return of remains to related native peoples.

Grid System

A system for recording data in three dimensions for an archaeological excavation.

Datum Point

The starting point or reference for a grid system.

Flotation

An archaeological technique employed to recover very tiny objects by immersion of soil samples in water to separate heavy from light particles.

Stratified

In archaeology, a term describing sites where the remains lie in layers, one upon another.

Coprolite

Fossilized excrement material providing evidence of the diet and health of past organisms.

Endocast

A cast of the inside of the skull; used to help determine the size and shape of the brain.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

A technique for amplifying or creating multiple copies of fragments of DNA so that it can be studied in the laboratory.

Relative Dating

Designating an event, object, or fossil as being older or younger than another by noting position in the earth, measuring the amount of chemicals contained in fossil bones and artifacts, or by identifying its association with other plant, animal, or cultural remains.

Absolute/Chronometric Dating

Dating archaeological or fossil materials in units of absolute time using scientific properties such as rates of decay of radioactive elements.

Stratigraphy

The most reliable method of relative dating by means of strata (layers of rock in the ground).

Fluorine Dating

A technique for relative dating based on the fact that the amount of fluorine in bones is proportional to their age.

Seriation

A technique for relative dating based on putting groups of objects into a sequence in relation to one another.

Polynology

A technique of relative dating based on changes in fossil pollen over time.

Radiocarbon Dating

A technique of chronometric dating based on measuring the amount of radioactive carbon (^14C) left in organic materials found in archaeological sites.

Dendrochronology

A technique of chronometric dating based on the number of rings of growth found in tree trunks.

Potassium-Argon Dating

A technique of chronometric dating that measures the ratio of radioactive potassium and argon in volcanic debris associated with human remains.

Continental Drift

According to the theory of plate tectonics, the movement of continents embedded in underlying plates on the earth’s surface in relation to one another over the history of life on the planet.

Molecular Clock

The technique that dates of divergences among related species can be calculated through an examination of the genetic mutations that have accrued since the divergence.

Arboreal Hypothesis

An explanation for primate evolution that proposes that life in the trees was responsible for enhanced visual acuity and manual dexterity in primates.

Visual Predation Hypothesis

An explanation for primate evolution that proposes that hunting behavior in tree-dwelling primates was responsible for their enhanced acuity and manual dexterity.

Bipedalism

A form of locomotion in which the organism walks upright on two feet; also called bipedality.

Abduction

Movement away from the midline of the body or away from the center of the hand and foot.

Adduction

Movement toward the midline of the body or toward the center of the hand or foot.

Ardipithecus

One of the earliest genera of bipeds that lived in East Africa. Ardipithecus is divided into two species: the older, A. Kaddaba (5.2-5.8 MYA), and the younger, A. Ramidus, (4.4 MYA).

Australopithecus

The genus including several species of early bipeds from South Africa and East Africa living between 1.1 and 4.3 MYA, one of whom was directly ancestral to humans.

Rifting

In geology, the process by which a rift (long narrow tone of faulting) results when two geologic plates separate.

Savannah

Semi-arid plains environment with few scattered trees.

Diastema

A space between the canines and other teeth allowing the large projecting canines to fit within the jaw.

Gracile Australopithecine

One member of the genus Australopithecus, possessing a more lightly built chewing apparatus; probably had a diet that included more meat, best represented by South African A. Africanus.

Robust Australopithecus

Living from 1 to 2.5 MYA in East & South Africa; known for the rugged nature of its chewing apparatus (large back teeth, large chewing muscles, bony ridge on skull top to allow for these muscles.)

Sagittal Crest *

A crest running from front to back on the top of the skull along the midline to provide a surface of bone for the attachment of the large temporal muscles for chewing.

Law of Competitive Exclusion

When two closely related species compete for the same niche, one will outcompete the other, bringing about the latter’s extinction.

Oldowan Tool Tradition *

An early stone tool industry, beginning between 2.5 and 2.6 MYA.

Percussion Method *

A technique of stone tool manufacture performed by striking the raw material with a hammerstone or by striking raw material against a stone anvil to remove flakes.

Lower Paleolithic

The first part of the Old Stone Age beginning with the earliest Lomekwian tools spanning from about 200,000 to 250,000 years ago to 3.3 MYA.

Lomekwian Tool Tradition

The earliest stone tools dated to 3.3 MYA, discovered in 2015 in Kenya.

Experimental Archaeology

The recreation of ancient lifeways by modern paleoanthropologists in order to test hypotheses, interpretations, and assumptions about the past.

Homo Habilis *

The first fossil members of the genus Homo appearing about 2.5 MYA, with larger brains and smaller faces than Australopithecines.

Gender

The cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differentiation between the sexes.

Marrow

The fatty nutritious tissue inside of long bones where blood cells are produced.

Tertiary Scavenger

In a food chain, the third in line to get something from a carcass after a predator killed the prey.

Homo Erectus *

”Upright human.” A species within the genus Homo first appearing just after 2 MYA in Africa and ultimately spreading throughout the Old World.

Acheulean Tool Tradition

The prevalent style of the stone tools that are associated with Homo Erectus remains; represented by the hand-axe.

Hypoglossal Canal

The opening in the skull that accommodates the tongue-controlling hypoglossal nerve.

Archaic Homo Sapiens

A loosely defined group within the genus Homo that “lumpers” assign to fossils with the combination of large brain size and ancestral features on the skull.

Levalloisian Technique *

Toolmaking technique by which three or four long triangular flakes are detached from a specially prepared core; developed by members of the genus Homo transitional from H. Erectus to H. Sapiens.

Neandertal *

A distinct fossil group within the genus Homo inhabiting Europe and Southwest Asia from approximately 30,000 to 125,000 years ago; today’s genetic evidence extends their range both forward and back in time.

Denisovan *

A newly discovered group of archaic Homo Sapiens from Southern Siberia dated between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Middle Paleolithic

The middle part of the Old Stone Age characterized by the development of the Mousterian tool tradition and the earlier Levalloisian traditions.

Mousterian Tool Tradition

The tool industry of the Neandertals and their contemporaries of Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa from 40,000 to 125,000 years ago.

Cro-magnon

A European people of the upper Paleolithic after about 36,000 years ago.

Upper Paleolithic

The last part (10,000 to 40,000 years ago) of the Old Stone Age, featuring tool industries characterized by long, slim blades and an explosion of creative symbolic forms.

Multi-regional Hypothesis *

The hypothesis that modern humans originated through a process of simultaneous local transition from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens throughout the inhabited world.

Recent African Origins Hypothesis *

Modern humans are all derived from one single population of archaic Homo Sapiens who migrated out of Africa after 100,000 years ago, replacing all other archaic forms due to their superior cultural capabilities (also called the Eve hypothesis and Out of Africa hypothesis).

Aurignacian Tradition

Toolmaking tradition in Europe at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.

Blade Technique *

A method of stone tool manufacture in which long, parallel-sided flakes are struck off the edges of a specially prepared core.

Pressure Flaking *

A technique of stone tool manufacture in which a bone, antler, or wooden tool is used to press, rather than strike off, small flakes from a piece of flint of similar stone.

Burin

A stone tool with chisel-like edges used for working bone, horn, antler, and ivory.

Sahul

The greater Australian landmass including Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania. At times of maximum graciation and low sea levels, these areas were continuous.

Sunda

The combined landmass of the contemporary islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Bali that was continuous with mainland Southeast Asia at times of low sea levels corresponding to maximum glaciation.

Paleoindian

The people who were the earliest inhabitants of the Americas.

Cognitive Capacity

A broad concept including intelligence, educability, concept formation, self-awareness, self-evaluation, attention span, sensitivity in discrimination, and creativity.