Archaeology Exam 2

Social Archaeology

Examines how past societies were organized, the exercise of power, social relations, and scale[cite: 15, 16].

Scale (in Social Archaeology)

The size or scope of a past society[cite: 16].

Mobile Hunter-Gatherer Groups (Bands)

Small-scale societies typically under 100 people moving seasonally to exploit wild resources, bound by kinship[cite: 16].

Egalitarian Bands

Mobile hunter-gatherer groups lacking formal leaders or marked economic status differences[cite: 16].

Segmentary Societies

Societies larger than bands (less than a few thousand) based on farming/horticulture or nomadic pastoralism, usually with permanent villages[cite: 16].

Chiefdoms

Societies operating on ranking/social status where lineages are graded on prestige and governed by a hereditary chief[cite: 16].

Early States

Complex societies featuring a king with explicit authority, a standing army, class-stratified systems, taxes, and a central capital[cite: 16].

Central Place Theory

Assumes that archaeological sites will vary predictably by size and distance within a region[cite: 17].

Site Hierarchy

The arrangement of settlements within a region based on relative size, function, economic power, and administrative importance[cite: 17].

Network Analysis (Archaeology)

Allows archaeologists to explore trade, exchange patterns, and economic, social, and political networks and nodes[cite: 17].

Ethnicity

An ethnic group defined by shared territory, common descent, common language, community of customs, self-awareness, and shared origin myths[cite: 17].

Ethnoarchaeology

An indirect approach studying past artifact use and taphonomy by observing living societies to generate general analogies[cite: 17].

Off-Site Archaeology

Investigating broad scatters and patches of human activity across vast areas in mobile societies (such as Robert Foley's model)[cite: 17].

Skeletal Studies in Segmentary Societies

Provides critical demographic data, diet profiles, and health records for past populations[cite: 17].

Grave Goods

Items buried with individuals that provide information on wealth and rank disparities in societies[cite: 17, 18].

Craft Specialization

The shift of production from households to workshops, including fine metallurgy, stone working, and ceramics[cite: 17, 18].

Domination Models

Traditional frameworks used to examine relationships between centralized societies, though equal-scale neighbors also interact via warfare and emulation[cite: 18].

Conflict Archaeology

The study of warfare, territorial expansion, status building, and captives using inscriptions, defensive architecture, and burn layers[cite: 18].

Habitus

Socially constituted structuring principles or dispositions operating within each individual (shaping how people act and construct realities)[cite: 18].

Framing

The way people, activities, and objects are set off from others for ritual, non-domestic purposes using unusual objects[cite: 18].

Childhood (in Archaeology)

The life stage where individuals acquire their habitus and become enculturated[cite: 19].

Environmental Archaeology

Views the human animal as part of a broader ecological system or ecosystem[cite: 21].

Deep Sea Cores

The best record of worldwide, long-term climate changes over vast swaths of time[cite: 21].

Geoarchaeology

The study using earth science methods and concepts to examine earth formation processes and soil/sediment patterns[cite: 21].

Pedology

Soil science; studying sediments and soils to provide key information about past terrestrial life and environments[cite: 21].

Microbotanical Remains

Microscopic plant parts including fossil cuticles, phytoliths, pollen grains, and ancient DNA (aDNA)[cite: 21, 23].

Palynology

The study of fossil pollen grains used to reconstruct past vegetation and climates[cite: 21, 23].

Macrobotanical Remains

Visible plant remains like seeds and fruits recovered primarily through water flotation[cite: 21, 23, 24].

Microfaunal Remains

Animal taxa with small home ranges and highly specific habitat requirements used to study past local environments[cite: 21].

Macrofaunal Remains

Animal taxa with larger home ranges and broader habitat preferences used to infer broader past environments[cite: 21].

Faunal Extinctions

Often signal human over-hunting and human impact on local ecosystems[cite: 21].

Theory of Island Biogeography

States that islands are cut off from large landmasses, meaning lost species are naturally reintroduced very slowly, making endemic species highly vulnerable to human over-exploitation[cite: 22].

The Anthropocene

The current geological age viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment[cite: 22].

Subsistence and Diet

The study of what past people ate, how they acquired food, and plant/animal interactions[cite: 24].

Taphonomic Biases (in Subsistence)

Distortions in the archaeological record caused by selective preservation, destruction, or alteration of organic remains[cite: 24].

Paleoethnobotany

The study of past human-plant interactions through the recovery of ancient plant remains at sites[cite: 24].

Neolithic Revolution

The inception and spread of farming and agriculture, transitioning societies from mobile to settled lifeways[cite: 24].

Zooarchaeology

The study of animal remains to understand past human hunting, prey demographics, and animal domestication[cite: 24].

Determining Animal Sex and Age

Sex is determined through physical features; age is determined through dental eruption and wear[cite: 24].

Indicators of Animal Domestication

Size reduction, increased docility, altered sex/age ratios, and evidence of tools of traction (like plowing)[cite: 24].

Broad Spectrum Revolution

The archaeological concept marking the emergence of an increased dietary breadth across multiple food sources[cite: 24].

Seasonality Data (Marine/Aquatic)

Obtained by studying shellfish growth rings and fish otoliths[cite: 24].

Direct Evidence of Human Diet

Stomach contents, feces, tooth decay, dental microwear, and phytoliths trapped in dental calculus[cite: 24].

Technology (Archaeological Definition)

Both physical objects (tools, pots) and the underlying concepts, ideas, embodied dispositions (habitus), and operational sequences (chaîne opératoire)[cite: 25, 27].

Chaîne Opératoire

The operational sequence; the specific order and steps involved in the production, use, and disposal of an artifact[cite: 25, 27].

Oldowan Industry

The earliest stone tools featuring simple choppers and flakes, dating from ~2.6Ma (such as Gona, Ethiopia)[cite: 27].

Acheulian Industry

Characterized by symmetrical, sharp-edged hand-axes evolved over hundreds of thousands of years using a bone hammer[cite: 27].

Levallois Technique

Introduced ~100,000 years ago, involving the careful preparation of a tortoise-shaped core so that a single usable flake could be struck from it[cite: 27].

Upper Paleolithic Stone Technology

Utilized a punch and hammerstone to remove numerous parallel-sided blades from a single core, which were then retouched into specialized tools like burins and scrapers[cite: 27].

Experimental Archaeology

A methodology used in processual and Middle Range archaeology to replicate past manufacturing processes and test tool functions[cite: 25, 27].

Refits

Reassembling tens or hundreds of jumbled stone flakes and core fragments to reconstruct the manufacturing sequence[cite: 25, 27].

Heat Treatment of Stone

Heating materials like silcrete (e.g., at Pinnacle Point ~70-120ka) to increase compressive strength and make them easier to knap[cite: 27].

Baked Clay Figurines

Early pyrotechnological artifacts produced at Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov (Czech Republic) around 26ka by firing at 500-800°C[cite: 27].

Bread Ovens & Early Metallurgy

Appeared around 8000 BC in the Near East; achieved 1000-1200°C, which was sufficient to make pottery and melt copper[cite: 27].

Iron Smelting vs. Working Temperatures

Iron can be smelted from ore at 800°C, but working it hot requires 1000-1100°C with careful temperature and oxygen control (reducing conditions), while casting iron requires 1540°C[cite: 27].

Pottery Appearance in the Neolithic

The widespread appearance of pottery in the Neolithic generally reflects decreasing residential mobility[cite: 27].

Pottery Analysis Attributes

Key points of study include tempers (fillers), forming techniques (coil vs. wheel), and firing temperatures[cite: 27].

Faience

A "pre-glass" material known from Egypt (~3000 BC) made by coating a core of powdered quartz with a vitreous alkaline glaze, used primarily for beads[cite: 27].

Glass Manufacturing

Invented in Mesopotamia by 2500 BC, manufactured by melting sand with a flux (like soda and lime) at very high temperatures (~1500°C)[cite: 27].

Non-Ferrous Metals

Metals of early importance due to low melting points and abundances: lead (327°C), silver (960°C), gold (1063°C), and copper (1083°C)[cite: 27].

Evolution of Metalworking Techniques

Progressed from cold shaping native copper -> annealing (heating and hammering) -> smelting and producing slag -> casting -> alloying with tin -> "lost wax" casting[cite: 27].

Alloy

A metal made by combining two or more metallic elements to give greater strength or corrosion resistance (e.g., arsenic-bronze and tin-bronze)[cite: 27].

Lost-Wax Casting (Cire Perdue)

A metalcasting method involving a core model, a layer of wax carved with details, an outer clay mold, heating to melt/drain the wax, and pouring in molten bronze[cite: 27].

Gold Properties in Antiquity

Prized for its shiny appearance, lack of tarnishing, and ease of working, leading to its near-universal use in fine goods and jewelry (though making it vulnerable to looting and recycling)[cite: 27].

Iron and Steel Technology

Limited to the Old World, appearing in abundance in the Near East ~1000 BC; steel (iron + carbon) is malleable and capable of hardening by cooling[cite: 27].

Wood in Prehistory

Locally abundant, light, strong, buoyant, and easy to work; earliest evidence includes wooden spears from ~400ka and watercraft from ~60ka[cite: 27].

Plant and Animal Fibers

Used to produce containers, fabrics, and cords from skins and bark; reflects deep-rooted skill and significant time/labor investment despite being taphonomically obscured[cite: 27].