p1 archaeology exam.2

Culture history

The timeline of who lived where and when

Relative date

Older or younger than something else, no years given

Absolute date

An actual age in years (e.g., 9,500 cal BP)

Law of superposition

Deeper layers are older (if undisturbed)

Time marker:

An artifact style that only existed in a certain time period

Seriation

Putting sites in order by how artifact styles rose and fell in popularity

Dendrochronology:

Dating wood by matching tree-ring patterns; exact year

Radiocarbon dating

Dating once-living things by how much carbon-14 is left; up to ~50,000 years

Half-life

Time for half to decay; carbon-14 = ~5,730 years

BP

Before Present; present = 1950 (1,000 BP = AD 950)

De Vries effect

Carbon-14 levels in the air went up and down over time

Calibration

Correcting a radiocarbon date into real calendar years using tree rings

Radiocarbon BP vs cal BP:

Raw lab age vs corrected calendar age

AMS:

Radiocarbon method that counts C-14 atoms directly; tiny sample, more precise

Conventional radiocarbon

Older method that counts decay; needs grams of sample

Typology

A system for sorting artifacts into groups

Type

A group of artifacts that share traits

Attribute

One trait of an artifact (size, shape, material)

Morphological type

Grouped by shape

Functional type

Grouped by use (scrapers, knives, drills)

Calendar scale

A timeline in real years

Temporal type

Grouped by time period; used as time markers

Good typology

Mutually exclusive, exhaustive, replicable

Taphonomy

What happens to remains after death (rotting, gnawing, weathering)

Flora

plants

Fauna

Animals

Carcass transport

Hunters carry the valuable parts (meaty legs) to camp and leave low-value parts (skull, feet) at the kill site

Lake Mojave model

Climate → wetland size → food patch richness → where/how people moved