Anthropology 1500: Paleolithic Art, Archaeological Methodology, the Neolithic Revolution, and Early Civilizations

Vocabulary flashcards covering Upper Paleolithic art and modernity, archaeological methods, socio-political types, theories of domestication and the Neolithic Revolution, and the rise of complex civilizations and early states.

Chauvet Cave

An Upper Paleolithic cave site located in France that features some of the earliest known cave artwork and raises questions regarding human use versus occupation.

Lascaux Cave

A famous Upper Paleolithic cave site in France known for its elaborate artwork, notably featuring The Hall of the Bulls.

Blombos Cave

An archaeological site in South Africa that provides early evidence of non-utilitarian objects, symbolism, and modern human behavior prior to the European cultural explosion.

"Venus" Figurines

Late Upper Paleolithic portable anthropomorphic carvings depicting female forms, commonly hypothesized to represent fertility or other symbolic functions.

Lewis-Williams and Dowson

Researchers who proposed that Upper Paleolithic cave paintings were products of shamanism, vision quests, altered states of consciousness, and symbolism.

Archaeology

The study of past human societies from their material culture, centrally concerned with issues of sampling and preservation.

Site Formation Processes

The natural and cultural factors that affect, modify, and bury archaeological deposits after a site is abandoned, demonstrating that sites are dynamic and constantly changing.

Alluvial Deposits

Water-borne sediment deposits that accumulate over abandoned archaeological remains through natural site formation processes.

Colluvial Deposits

Sediment deposits moved down slopes by gravity that bury archaeological sites and features over time.

Eolian Deposits

Wind-borne sediment deposits that settle over time, naturally covering and burying abandoned archaeological sites.

Ethnographic Analogy

A comparative archaeological interpretation method that uses observations of recent or living human groups to interpret past material culture.

Experimental Archaeology

A methodological approach to interpreting the archaeological record through replicating ancient tools, materials, techniques, and processes.

Bands

Small, nomadic, kin-based, and egalitarian hunter-gatherer (forager) groups representing the simplest level of cultural complexity.

Tribes

Societies that are the same size or larger than bands, characterized by simple subsistence farming or foraging, more sedentary village settlements, and informal leadership such as a "big man."

Chiefdoms

Societies characterized by larger settlements arranged in a hierarchy, social stratification, an economy of redistribution, and hereditary rulership under chiefs.

States

Complex, centralized political organizations characterized by urban cities, intensive food production, taxation, labor specialization, and pronounced social stratification.

Natufian Culture

A Mesolithic culture in the Near East (~13,000–11,700 BC, specifically Israel, Lebanon, and Syria) that established some of the world's first permanent villages with houses, storage, and burials.

Broad Spectrum Revolution

The transitional foraging period following the end of the last Ice Age (~11,000 BC) where human groups broadened their subsistence base in response to a changing climate.

Neolithic Revolution

The transformative era beginning around 8000–10,000 BC characterized by the spread of domesticated plants and animals, more permanent settlements, and new technologies like microliths, groundstone, and pottery.

Domestication

An unplanned evolutionary process where genetic changes produce physical changes in plants and animals, reflected archaeologically in morphology, specific tools, and animal sex ratios.

Original Affluent Society

Marshall Sahlins' concept challenging whether food production was an improvement over foraging, arguing that hunter-gatherer bands enjoyed sufficient food and substantial leisure time.

Oasis Theory

V. Gordon Childe's theory proposing that post-glacial environmental drying forced humans, plants, and animals into concentrated oases, leading to the development of domestication.

Nuclear Zone Theory

Robert Braidwood's theory stating that agriculture originated in natural habitats where wild plant and animal ancestors flourished as humans gradually acquired intensive knowledge of them.

Marginal Zone Theory

Binford and Flannery's theory suggesting that population pressure in nuclear zones forced human groups into marginal zones where cultivating plants became necessary.

The Fertile Crescent

A Near Eastern region extending into areas like the Zagros Mountains, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon, where some of the earliest plant and animal domestications occurred.

Abu Hureyra

A Neolithic archaeological site in Syria displaying evidence of rye cultivation around 9000 BC and skeletal indicators of women processing grains.

Harris Lines

Lines of increased bone density visible in skeletal remains that serve as archaeological evidence of physiological stress, illness, and periods of interrupted growth.

Enamel Hypoplasia

Linear defects or pitting in tooth enamel resulting from developmental nutritional stress or metabolic illness during tooth formation.

Civilization

A complex and unstable form of social organization defined by V. Gordon Childe's trait list: cities, specialization, social stratification, surplus, and a state form of political organization.

Tikal

A prominent ancient Maya urban center in Guatemala used as an archaeological case study for the emergence of an early city and centralized state.

Hydraulic Theory

Karl Wittfogel's theory (exemplified at sites like Choga Mami) proposing that early states and complex civilizations developed to manage large-scale centralized irrigation works.

Circumscription Theory

Robert Carneiro's theory proposing that state-level societies emerge through warfare when growing populations are bounded by environmental or social circumscription.

Action Theory

A theory of complex society emergence associated with Robert Drennan and others that highlights the active roles of human agents, leadership, and religion.

Ecological Diversity and Trade Theory

A model proposing that states and complex social institutions emerged to coordinate, manage, and facilitate trade between environmentally varied ecological zones.