ANT304 Final

Antiquarianism

• The collection and study of historical objects, artifacts, and ancient texts

• Mostly wealthy landowners, travelers

• Dates back to 19th century Europe

Cultural Evolutionism

• A belief in uniform, progressive cultural evolution

• Identified by technology:

  • Savagery

  • Barbarism

  • Civilization

• 19th century Europe origins

Historical Particularism

• Cultural practices and characteristics are the result of particular, historical circumstances

• Not determined by race or environment

• Boaz

C. J. Thomsen

• Danish antiquarian, head of national museum

• Developed chronological sequence of artifacts: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age

• Focused on the “find circumstances” and didn’t assume age based on materials

Thomas Jefferson

• “Mound Builders”

• First to conduct excavation in controlled way

• Dug on family land, which had been Monacan land

• Kept careful records and went a little at a time

Franz Boas

• German anthropologist/physicist/geographer

• “Father of American Anthropology”

• Proponent of fieldwork (Lives years with the people he studies)

• Credited for cultural relativism & historical particularism

Culture-history

• Goal: identify prehistoric cultures and describe them

• What happened? Where? When?

• Rejection of cultural evolutionism

• Believed that people are resistant to change

• Each archaeological “culture” is equivalent to a modern “ethnicity”

• Change is external – the result of diffusion and migration (rarely invention)

Processualism

• Goal: explain cultural processes

• Why did societies change? How?

• Culture is an adaptive system

• Culture change is the result of environmental pressure, technological innovation, population dynamics…

• Changes are scientifically predictable if we can understand the relationship between variables

Post-processualism

• Goal: understand the meaning, symbols, power relations, and lived experiences embedded in material culture

• How did people experience and shape change?

• Culture change is historically contingent, shaped by human agency, influenced by ideology, identity, power, gender

• Interested in context-specific relationships

Context

• The complete surroundings of an artifact or feature

• Different types

  • Chronological

  • Historical

  • Cultural

  • Social

  • Geographic

Provenience

• Exact location

• Horizontal & Vertical

Matrix

• The surrounding dirt (sediment)

Artifact

• ’Portable’ objects made or modified by people

Feature

• Non-portable remains of human activity

Organic materials

• Material from living things

• textiles, plant materials, animal materials

Inorganic materials

• Material from nonliving things

• Stone, baked clay, some metals

Good preservation environments

• Totally wet sites

• Totally dry

• Very cold

Bad preservation environments

• Extreme soil chemistry

• Movement

• Change

Swartkrans Cave Complex

• Site in South Africa

• Deep caves in which rocks, dirt, & animal bones accumulated

• Remains of Australopithecus/Hominina

• Stone tools, evidence of regular burning

Olduvai Gorge

• Site in Tanzania

• Lakebed regularly covered by lava flows and ash from nearby volcano

• Remains of several human ancestors & Homo sapiens

• Stone and bone tools

• Evidence of hunting, scavenging, gathering

Natural formation processes

• Erosion: materials leaving site

• Deposition: materials being deposited into site

• Bioturbation: materials being turned up by animals

Cultural formation processes

• Artifacts going into the ground

• Features being created

• Sites being occupied

Primary context

• Where something was first deposited

Secondary context

• Where did it end up after primary context?

Reconnaissance

• First step in any survey

• Have knowledge on site

• Talk to local informants

• Literature review

• Check out environment

Field/ground survey

• Creek bank survey

• Shovel testing

  • Digging hole into ground to see what’s there

  • Done when there’s deposition

• Pedestrian (walking) survey

  • Done if you think artifacts will be on survey

Aerial/remote survey

• Often what archaeologists start with

• Lidar

  • Scanning ground with lasers

  • High resolution, super detailed

• Aerial photography

  • Planes

  • For big, open area

• Satellite imagery

  • Contemporary update to aerial photgraphy

Systematic v. unsystematic sampling

• Systematic: Follows strategy designed to result in representative data

• Unsystematic: Focuses on accessible areas they think are most likely to have sites/based on judgement

Extensive v. intensive

• Extensive: Covers big area

• Intensive: Doing most you can in small area

Probabilistic v. non-probabilistic surveys

• Probabilistic: incorporates chance/randomness

• Non-probabilistic: judgmental/based on previous knowledge

Paleolithic

• Stone age

• 3.3 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago

• Characterized by use of stone tools

• Humans living in small groups

• Hunting, fishing, gathering (Hunter-gatherers)

• Lower, Middle, Upper Paleolithic

Jebel Irhoud

• Inhabited beginning about 315,000 years ago

• Earliest Homo sapiens identified so far

• Site in Morocco

• Challenges earlier assumptions about human origins in East Africa

• “Mousterian” tech

Bizmoune Cave

• Inhabited as early as 150,000 year ago

• Occupied exclusively by Homo sapiens

• Aterian technology

• World’s oldest known personal adornment items (jewelry: shell beads)

Law of superposition

• In any undisturbed sequence, oldest layers are at the bottom and youngest layers are at the top

Grid system

• Part of recording the process

Datum

• Origin point for grid

  • Everything measured from this point

• Arbitrary but should be something permanent

Types of excavation records

• Field forms

  • Primary record of excavation details

• Maps

  • Detailed record of relationships in horizontal plane

• Profiles

  • Detailed record of relationships in vertical plane

• Photography

  • Visual record of excavation details

Map v. profile

• Maps: detailed records of horizontal plane

• Profile: detailed records of vertical plane

Screening

• Filtering objects through dirt

Relative dating

• Dating by comparison and establishment of a sequence

Absolute dating

• Also called chronometric dating

• Determining a specific numerical age in calendar years for artifacts/features/sites

• Uses Gregorian (solar) calendar

Stratigraphy

• Study of stratification

• The deposition (laying down) of strata (layers/deposits)

Stratigraphic sequence

• Relative chronological sequence of the strata/layers/deposits

• Usually described by soil type, color, inclusions

Typology

• Classification system

• Based on shape, decoration, etc.

• Used to create timeline

Radiocarbon dating

• Used to determine the age of organic materials (wood, bone, shell, plant)

• Up to about 60,000 years old

• Carbon-14 decays

• Carbon-12 doesn’t decay. Used for comparison

Correlation

• Aligning and comparing sequences and chronometrically dated artifacts, features, and layers (strata)

Homo sapiens

• Complex language, abstract reasoning, music, spirituality, warfare, group identity, etc.

• c. 300,000 years ago

• Only remaining ones on our “family” tree

Hominini/hominins

• Moving upright on two legs

• Broad flat face

• c. 7 million years ago

Trends in hominin evolution

• Bigger brains

• Flatter faces

• Smaller jaws

• Increased reliance on tools

Out-of-Africa

• Followed a southern route beginning about 70,000 years ago

Qafzeh Cave

• Israel site

• Rock shelter/cave site

• 28 skeletons (up to 92,000 years old)

• Dated using thermoluminescence

• Middle-Paleolitihic / Mousterian tools

• First excavated in the 1930s

• Early excavations didn’t use grid

• Site bombed during Palestinian Revolution (1936-39)

• Excavations restarted in 1950s, continue through 1970s

Qafzeh Cave Significance

• Oldest known intentional burials of modern human

  • 28 individuals (majority children)

• They cared for the sick and injured

• Double burial of young adult and child

Band

• Smallest unit of human social organization

• Small, kin-based group

• 20 to 50 individuals

• Primary social organization for most of human history

• Associated with nomadic or semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers

Hunter Gatherer

• Societies which forage for wild food

• Hunting, fishing, gathering plants

• Primary means of subsistence for most of human history

• Associated with nomadic “bands”

Social organization:____ :: Mode of subsistence: _______ ___ _________

Band, Hunting and gathering

Common misconceptions about hunter-gatherers

• “No property”

  • Limited accumulation of property, high residential mobility

• “No hierarchies”

  • Social mechanisms which suppressed hierarchy

• “One with nature”

  • Lower populations, some resources over-exploited

Ethnic group

• A group of people with:

  • Shared territory or land

  • Common descent, or “blood”

  • Common language

  • Community of customs

  • Community of beliefs or religion

  • Self-awareness, self-identity

Culture

• Shared set of beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and material that define a group

• Often intangible, but some tangible

Archaeological culture

• Recurring set of material traits

• Found grouped by region and/or time

Archaeological culture is/is NOT the same as Ethnic Group?

Is NOT

Sunghir, Russia

• 200km east of Moscow

• Quarry site

• Excavated 1957-1977

• 30-34,000 year old remains

• One of the oldest burial sites in Europe

• Multiple kinds of burials

  • In graves, on surface, partial

• Earliest evidence of prestige status?

Achieved status vs. ascribed status

• Status you worked toward vs. status you were born with

• Different statuses resulted in different labor rules, access to knowledge, etc.

Agency

• Individuals act within social systems to navigate and shape their social world

• Ability to make decisions and act independently

Beringia

• The land bridge formed during last glacial maximum

• 18,000 years ago

• Water 120m/400ft below current

Kelp Highway hypothesis

• People arrive to the Americas 16-17,000 (or more?) years ago via the Pacific Ocean

Clovis-First hypothesis

• People arrive to the Americas 13-14,000 years ago via Beringia

• Clovis is a tool

Page-Ladson, USA

• Underwater site

• Human-altered mammoth remains

• Dated to 14,500

• Challenged Clovis-first hypothesis

• Submerged sinkhole

  • Relatively calm pocket with flowing river above

• In bend of rivers

  • Materials accumulate

• Excavated in “steps”

• First investigated from 1983-1997

• 8 stone artifacts associated with butchered mastodon remains from a deposit radiocarbon dated to ~14,400 BP

Palynology

• Study of pollen grains

• Dates artifacts

• Page-ladson had grasses, herbs (seed bearing plant with no woody stem), and pine

Phytolith

• Minute particles of silica in plant cells that survive after the rest of the plant has decomposed

Microbotanicals

• Pollen grains 

• Phytoliths (silica structures from plants)

• Diatoms (silica structure from algae)

• But must be in certain contexts to be specifically tied to people

  • On the cutting edge of blades

  • In the grooves of grinding stones

  • In tartar-built up on teeth

  • In stomach contents

• Collected in specialized sampling procedures

Subsistence Method

• Hunting and gathering

  • Primary means of subsistence for most of human history

Diet

• Differences can indicate inequality

• Can be detected through human remains

Macrobotanicals

• Paleoethnobotany - study of past human-plant interactions through plant remains

• Best cases:

  • Desiccated

  • Waterlogged

  • Mineralized 

  • Carbonized/charred 

• Collected in soil samples

Flotation

• Soil (matrix) sample is placed in water 

• “Light fraction” (carbonized plant remains) float 

• “Heavy fraction” (rocks, heavy soils) sink

Hearth

• Evidence of cooking/processing

Coprolite

• Evidence of consumption

• Aka fossilized feces

Zooarchaeology

• The study of human-animal interactions through animal remains

• Animal remains collected during screening

Faunal Remains

• Animal remains

• Studying animal bones:

  • Identification

  • NISP (number of identified species)

  • MNI (minimum number of individuals

  • Age & sex

  • Meat weight

  • Taphonomy (post-mortem alterations)

• Collected during screening

Osteoarchaeology

• Study of human skeletal remains to reconstruct past lifeways, health, diet, and demographics

  • Typically teeth, (long) bones (like femur), skull, and pelvis

  • Mostly tells sex and age

• Ex. Thomas Jefferson v. the mounds: digging for human remains

Fa-Hien Lena, Sri Lanka

• Reflection of human capacity for adaptation

• By end of Ice Age, people are in arid environments, arctic settings, high-altitude environments, and tropical forests

Neolithic Revolution vs. Neolithic Transitions

• Neolithic Revolution

  • Also known as the Agricultural Revolution

  • Shift to reliance on domesticated plants and animals

  • Began 12,000 years ago

  • Traditionally associated with Middle East/Southwest Asia

  • Coincided with end of the Ice Age

• Archaeologists have had different perspectives through time:

1. Revolution, led to civilization!

2. Revolution, led to pain and struggle!

3. Transition, both good and bad

• Transition = Multiple origins, Long-term processes, Unevenly adopted

Domestication

• Adapting wild plants and animals for human use

• Neolithic Revolution caused a shift to reliance on domesticated plants and animals

• Intensive plant use does not equal domestication

Agriculture

• The intensive production of crops and livestock

• Consequences of agriculture for human societies:

  • Increase in

    • Population

    • Sedentism

    • Social inequality

    • Specialization

    • Risk of famine

    • Infectious disease

  • Decline in nutrition

  • New technologies

• Agriculture does not automatically produce hierarchy

Sedentism

• Living/settling somewhere for a long period

• Can precede agriculture

• Tied to emergence of ceramics

Hierarchy

• Not automatically produced by agriculture

Abu Hereyra, Syria

• Tell Abu Hereyra, Syria

• Occupied 11,300-5,850 BCE

• Earliest known farmers

• Excavated in 1972-73 as salvage operation (now under a lake!)

• Pioneers of flotation!

Sannai-Maruyama, Japan

• Occupied 3900-2200 BCE

• Jomon site- earliest pottery in the world!

• Storage pits and above-ground storage

• Large long-houses

• First excavated in 1623!

• Identified again during survey for baseball stadium (1992)

• Settled, large hierarchical society without agriculture

Catalhoyuk, Turkey

• Occupied 7500-5600 BCE

• Tell site - “proto-city”

• First excavated in 1958- early data fabricated?

• Work in 1990s and on embraced digital/progressive methods

• Layers of houses

• Ritual surrounding agriculture

  • Female figurines

  • Domesticated sheep

• Evidence of egalitarianism

  • Men and women buried the same

  • Even distribution of traded goods

• Agriculture but very little hierarchy

Stone tools

• Rock deliberately shaped by humans

• Used to make the oldest and most durable artifacts

Reductive Technology

• Desired form is created by removal of material

• Requires planning

Percussion flaking

• Oldowan (2.6 mya)

• Acheulean (1.7 mya)

• Prepared cores (300 kya)

• Blades (50 kya)

Oldowan (2.6 mya)

• Percussion flaking

• Breaking one rock with another

Acheulean (1.7 mya)

• First tools people were making that’d fit in people’s hands more easily

• Requires more breaking/careful flaking

• Takes more time to produce

Prepared cores (300 kya)

• Gradually breaking pieces off in sequence

• Ready to go/use

Blades (50 kya)

• Flaking off long, thin pieces of rock

Ground/Polished stone (10 kya)

• Ground (versus flaked)

• Gradually wearing surfaces smooth

• Agriculture = more ground stones, axes, increased standardization

Clay

• Used to make the most durable artifacts (after stone)

• Fine grained sediment, moldable when wet, hard when fired or dried

Temper

• Non-plastic material added to clay

Pottery

• Vessels/containers made from clay

Ceramics

• Pottery, figurines, bricks…