idk how comprehensive this is, I tried my best lol
Altamira
Cave in Spain containing Paleolithic art in the form of painted bulls. It was an elaborate scene, painted in a cave using natural bumps of the wall. However, this wasn’t a living space, instead a place where other social events took place.
Cahokia
A very large urban center in the Mississippian. It likely held 10,000 people and contained infrastructure, defensive structures, and evidence of human sacrifice. People may have traveled here to participate in funerary matters. It has iconic mounds like mound 51 and 72
Catal Hoyuk
Site important for the understanding of neolithic, Turkey, Oberved Tells, there are lots of mounds and some are very large. The site controlled the trade of obsidian, rectangular houses, and some evidence of headless people, death, and religious activity.
Durrington Walls
The largest known neolithic henge in the UK, a seasonal settlement near Stonehenge
Folsom Site
A kill site in New Mexico, they found extinct bison remains, and projectile points, pushed back human presence in the Americas by 6-7 thousand ya
Gobekli Tepe
Rise of social complexity, a mound resulting from one large sacred complex, likely the oldest known temple, no found evidence for settlement
Saqqara Pyramid
First pyramid occurred during Old Egypt and belonged to Djoser, “step pyramid”
Meidum Pyramid
Sneferu’s pyramid, has step structure but there were issues with design/building and it partially collapsed, he built more pyramids
Bent Pyramid
Sneferu’s pyramid, it has asymmetrical sides, a step towards the stereotypical idea of a pyramid
Giza Pyramid
Built for Khufu, part of the “great” pyramids, built during Old Kingdom
Stonehenge
a famous megalith, very complex, has sarsen (blue) stones, Trilithon, may have started as cemetery, had 3 phases that went ditch, blue/wood, all stones. could attract seasonally moving people
Craft Specialization (Prime Mover)
V. Gordon Chile. Neolithic revolution, then urban (farming then metallurgy).
Irrigation (Prime Mover)
he who has the water controls everything, created by K. Wittfogel
Warfare (prime mover)
R. Carneiro, competition fuels growth, people compete for the good land and then winners oppress everyone else
Trade (prime mover)
W. Rathje, mesoamerica, small villages give up independence for resources from central power, but not needed in all areas.
Multiprocesses
R. McCormick Adams, satisfactory explanation, put a bunch of stuff together to make it more universal. differential wealth, the rich get richer and form the elite, creat structures and establish power.
bluestones
a part of stonehenge, stones that were brought in during the second phase of building
Trilithon
the thre stones making a pi symbol, put together with lego rock nipple things, there were 5 in a horseshoe shape
Broad-spectrum revolution
following the ice age, hunter-gatherers made a switch to a much larger selection of plants and animals for food with some domestication/manipulation. this led to the neolithic revolution
cities/urbanization, full-time labor specialists, surplus, class structure, state organization, trade, public works, records
Characteristics of State societies
Clovis
prehistoric Paleoamerican archaeological culture, north america’s first culture with distinct arrowhead points
Domestication
the process of changing plants or animals to make them more useful to humans
Sedentism
when people began living permanently in one place instead of moving around to find food
Edge hypothesis
Created by Lewis Binford, People only do stuff when they have to, unfavorable conditions in outlying areas forced agriculture
Effects of the Adoption of Agriculture
creation of surplus which allowed for more complex societies, population growth, technological development, storage such as pottery and silos, sedentism
Egalitarian society
a group based on the sharing of resources to ensure success with a relative absence of hierarchy and violences
stratified society
People grouped according to economic or social class; characterized by the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige.
Halaf period
6000-5400 BCE, mesopotamia, north, circular buildings and painted pottery with female figurines, people occupy a previously sparse area, dryland wheat, barley, sheep, goat, cattle
Ubaid period
5300 - 3600 BCE, mesopotamia, Irrigation agriculture means you can live in dry plains, main site was Eridu, they had Enki the water god, spread influence through pottery styles, centralized, photo-writing system
Uruk period
mesopotamia period, warka temples were big, ziggurat, large jump in population size for a urban settlement (10k people), white temple → anu, temples were more than for religion.
Kennewick
Columbia river remains, bones 10 kya, they were repatriated with no chance to study them caused court case, and scientists won
Cuneiform writing
The earliest writing in Mesopotamia, a picture writing invented by the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets using long reeds.
Hieroglyph writing
Used by ancient Egyptians, were pictures representing things
Martin’s Overkill/Blitzkrieg Hypothesis
Hypothesis for the extinction of megafauna, humans travelled south through the Americas killing whatever they came upon (they did not)
Mastaba
Arabic, "bench." An ancient Egyptian rectangular brick or stone structure with sloping sides
Megaliths
Big rocks, usually associated with rituals and burial practices
Menhirs
Megalith, giant standing stones
Henges
Megaliths, patterned ritualistic complexes
Dolmens
Megaliths, tombs
Mesopotamia
A region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that developed the first urban societies. In the Bronze Age this area included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires, In the Iron Age, it was ruled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires.
They could have came by boat, hopped along West Coast, came through the ice gap, travelled north from South America
Migration routes into the Americas
Mississippian
First society in North America, was a Chalcolithic (copper age) mound-building Native American culture that flourished in the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1500 A.D., varying regionally.
Oasis Theory
V. Gordon Childe', domestication occurred where the environment was right for it
Natural habitat hypothesis
Robert Braidwood, Jarmo excavation in Iraq found signs of agriculture → Fertile Crescent. domesticates occur where their wild ancestors lived
Coevolution hypothesis
David Rindos. The proximity of humans and plants modifies the environments of proto-domesticates which causes change, humans pick the plants they like
Scheduling model
Kent Flannery, modeled on edge hypothesis, hunter-gatherers move upland seasonally, they transplanted plants to new environment cause population pressure
Social Hypothesis
Barbara Benders, pressure for food production came from social stratification, individuals want to get surplus to get an advantage over their neighbors.
Monte Verde
A site in Chile where evidence of human occupation 15,000 years ago supports the argument that Clovis culture does not represent the first occupation of the Americas.
NAGPRA
Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act; Native American have rights to the remains of ancestors and sacred objects.
Narmer Palette
Ancient Egypt, shows Narmer was the one who united Ancient Egypt and that it was Chaos before he did so, he was seen wearing evidence of both north and south Egypt
Nome-nomarch
regions in pre-dynastic Egypt ___ were ruled by ___
Pastoralism
A type of agricultural activity based on nomadic animal husbandry or the raising of livestock to provide food, clothing, and shelter.
They were built to house the tomb of the pharaoh, as monuments, and to define their authority
Roles of the Pyramids
Shamanism
The practice of identifying special individuals who will interact with spirits for the benefit of the community, sometimes through animals, theory of paleolithic art
Sumeria
One of the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the name of the first culture in the world to develop cities.
Tells
Mounds where many levels of artifacts are found
Teosinte
The wild ancestor of maize
The Fertile Crescent
an area of rich farmland in Southwest Asia where the first civilizations began, Mesopotamia
Homo floresiensis
Nicknamed “Hobbit”, A distinct species closely related to Homo erectus and only found on the Indonesian island of Flores. They are tiny, with cranial capacities of about 380cc.
E. Piette
believed paleolithic art was created for the heck of it and because it fills free time created by hunting
Hunting magic
People have an image of an animal or plant with symbolism and then they create that animal, ritual killings of animals
lower/upper Egypt
The Nile Delta is called ___. The land upstream, to the south, is called ___. United by Narmer
Zigguraut Temple
massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mudbricks. It is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but its function is unknown.
David Lewis-Williams
South African archaeologist. He is best known for his research on southern African San rock art, shaman trance hypothesis
Djoser
had the very first (step) pyramid built at his tomb in Saqqara
Imhotep
Architect who designed the very first (step) pyramid for Djoser
King Scorpion
There’s a highly decorated mace head showing a ruler with a crown, his enemies are shown defeated below him, he seems cool
Lewis Binford
Creator of the edge hypothesis, “new age” archaeologist
Maria Sanz de Sautuol
an eight-year-old Spanish girl who discovered the first known prehistoric cave paintings in 1879 while working with her father in Altamira Cave
Narmer
The uniter of lower and upper Egypt, wears both crowns
Robert Braidwood
“Hilly flanks” hypotesis, excavation at Jarmo, agriculture began in hilly flanks of Taurus and Zagros mountains, significant for evidence of early agriculture
Sneferu
Egyptian king who built the first true pyramid, one collapsed and one was bent though. red pyramid?
Vere Gordon Childe
Creator of the Oasis Theory