Archaeology #2

Jerusalem Toilet

Jerusalem Toilet

• 568 BC

• Two holes, bowl for tossing limes

• found tapeworms and whipworms (undercooked meat, unsanitary conditions, using human feces for fertilizers), undigested grains from weeds

• supports idea of siege as described in the Bible

Homo Naledi, Rising Star Cave

• South Africa

• 2013: discovered by Lee Burger, excavated by Underground Astronauts (all women)

• 1500 bones, as old as 2.8 Ma

• Bones were found way far back in cave = put there, intentional burial/afterlife/religion

• also found possible carvings/art (would be the earliest), not confirmed

Laetoli Footpirnts

• Tanzania

• 3.5-3.8 Ma

• 1978-1979: found my Mary Leakey

• 3 individuals (4’8, 4’8, and 4’0) walked across recently fallen ash over 70 yards

• Most likely Australopithecus africanus, two walked ahead, one behind

• Also found animal footprints

Lucy

• Ethiopia

• 2.9 Ma

• 1974: Donald Johanson (chance discovery, just happened to go back a different way to camp and saw the bones)

• 20 years old, 4’, probably Australopithecus africanus

• named after Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (The Beatles)

Piltdown Man

• Charles Dawson “discovered” fragments 1908-1915 (two skull pieces, jawbone, tooth)

• Proven forgery in 1953, chemical analysis showed 600 year human skull and orangatang jawbone

Mount Carmel/Carmel Caves

• Israel

• Dorothy Garrod excavated in 1920s-1930s (first woman named professor at Cambridge)

• Inhabited 500,000 to 20,000 years ago (before modern humans)

• first evidence of homo sapiens and Neanderthals coexisting

• five caves total

Lascaux Caves

• France

• 15000 BC (middle)

• 1940: found by four kids and their dog Robot

• 650 feet long, 600 paintings, and 1500 engravings

• never excavated floor, immediately opened for tourism which damaged paintings, now only model is open to the public

Altamira

• Spain

• 12000 BC (youngest)

• 1868: found by land owner Don Marcelino, called a fraud, proven right after death

• 300 m long, polychrome ceiling

• also had too many tourists, closed to public in 1979, opened and closed in 2002

• also has replica, 5 people let in for 37 min weekly

Chauvet Cave

• France

• 35000 BC (oldest)

• 1994: found by Jean-Marie Chauvet

• 8000 sq m, 4000 artifacts and animal bones, 13 species painted on walls

• oldest cave painting in Europe

• Closed! Also has a replica

Jericho

• West Bank, Isreal/Palestine

• 7500 BC (pre-pottery Neolithic A), oasis

• excavated on and off for 100 years

• J Garstand (1876-1956): linked destruction to Battle of Jericho (Bible) and determined it was multi-leveled

• Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978)

  • brought in to look at pottery, wanted to dig more, dug for 10-20 years

  • Garstang’s Joshua’s Jericho was too old

  • found tower, 7500 BC (defensive, astronomy or **grain-storage**)

  • Foudn tombs or graves (multifamily, intramural, separate)

• Jericho skulls: removed skull from body, plastered with mud and seashelled sockets, put in living rooms = ancestor worship?

Catalhoyuk

• Turkey

• 6500-5600 BC (pre-pottery Neolithic B)

• 1958: found by James Mellaart (1925-2012) - faker

• interconnected houses, no doors or windows → got in and out through ladders and roofs

• Probably protection from predators, were obsessed with bulls

  • wall paintings, bull horn decoration

• FAKE art of village and volcano, maybe all fake (found sketches), he did Hallucinate (Dorak Affair)

• Ian Hodder: put a roof on it, found burials with ocher, grain bins, knives, bottle opener

• Catalhoyuk female figures → mother goddess? queen?

Gobekli Tepe

• Turkey

• 9600 BC

• 1993: looked at by Klaus Schidmt (German)

• 2007: actually excavated

• carved stone circle structures (temple?), one of the oldest pre-pottery Neolithic

• BEFORE DOMESTICATION: proof of settlement before domestication

Minoan Crete

• 2000 BC, seven palaces found so far

• no fortification walls

Knossos

• 1st palace: 2000-1700 BC, destroyed by earthquakes

• 2nd palace: 1700-1300 BC, destroyed by Greeks

• 3rd palace: 1300-1100 BC, Mycenean, feel when Bronze Age ended

• Also bull lovers, possibly came from Catalhoyuk(?), horns of consecration

• no fortification walls, high tech engineering, running water, redistribution center (lots of storage jars, no money)

• theories: island was ruled by family or women, strong navy

• excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900

  • reconstructed paintings badly (Priest King of three different people, dolphins, bull-leaping)

Atlantis

• Santorini/Thera and Akrotiri

• Volcano erupted in 1628 BC, middle of island disintegrated and water rushed in

• Akrotiri was completely covered in ash, Pompeii of the Aegean

• Remains showed as ash washed away, lots of wall paintings including ship captain’s blue monkeys

• Spyridon Marinatos excavated and died there

Cape Gelidonya

• Turkey

• 1200 BC

• published by George Bass in 1967, was his first dive and dissertation

• Originated from Canaan, had tools, weapons, oxhide ingots (pure copper), tin

• probably belonged to a tinker

  • no one believed it was tin or from Canaan, Bass vowed to prove them wrong

Uluburun Shipwreck

• Turkey

• 1330 BC

• 1982: oxhide ingot found by sponge diver on his first dive

• excavated by Bass in 1984

• Canaanite ship with fancy stuff, possibly gift between kings

• 330 oxhide ingots (and tin to fit 300 soldiers), raw glass, ivory (hippo and elephant)

• 14 stone anchors, big jars for storage, Canaanite, Mycenaean, and Italian swords (prob from crew), pottery for dating, gold chalice, 8 royal cups, wooden folded tablet

• gold scarab with Nefertiti’s name (helped to date: name she used in first five years, had to leave after her rule in 1340 BC)

Olympia

• Greece

• original site of Olympics 776 BC to 393 AD

  • footraces, long jump, discus, chariots

  • winners got laurels and huge jars of olive oil, Nero was obsessed

• discovered in 1766, excavated by French in 1829, by Germans in 1875-81, 1937-42, 1952-67, 1985-…

• used Pausanias book to find it, buried under 20 feet of Earth from flooding

• Temple of Zeus/Statue: 5th century BC (classic), colorful, 40 ft, gold and ivory, ancient wonder all gone

  • made by Pheidias (workshop nearby, “I belong to Pheidias” cup)

• Lots of training facilities and housing facilities for athletes, delegates, and admin

• stadium: earth embankment for stands, spears with armor engraved and dedicated to Zeus

Delphi

• Greece

• excavated in 1892-1903 by French (moved entire village)

• Temple for Apollo: priestess/oracle was in basement with chasm ox noxious vapors and laurel drug leaves (she was hallucinating and losing it)

• Required money to “translate” oracle’s prophecies, had treasuries for dedications to Apollo and oracle for different city-states

• statues of Kleobis or Biton, Bronze Charioteer

• Phythian Games, phythian = snakes (Apollo’s land)

Pella and Macedonia

• 1977-1978: Andronikos found tombs of Alexander the Great’s father (Phillip II), brother, maybe son

• Sarcophagus of maybe Phillip II’s ashes, shin armor of two sizes (for Phillip), gold laurels

Rome

• Pope Pius VII (sponsored first excavation), Victor Emmanuel II (also sponsored), Mussolini (also sponsored, used for a lot of his fascism stuff, fasces = Roman judges hold)

• Romulus and Remus: sent down river, found Rome, Romulus kills Remus = foundation myth

• structures: villas/houses of emperors, apartment buildings, dining halls/kitchens (communal spaces for social stuff), Roman Forum (spot for emperors to put stuff)

• Engineering: all roads do lead to Rome, aqueducts, public baths

• Res Gestae fragments: Augustus’s authobiography

• Ara Pacis/Altar of Peace: finding pieces since 1568

  • built in 13 BC (1st century BC)

  • pumped in CO2 so water would stop flowing into site

  • put it together wrong the first time, had to disassemble and reassemble

  • dedicated to Augustus and the prosperity he brought to Rome

Megiddo

• Jezreel Valley, Israel

• at the crossroads, right in the middle of everything

• 34 battles fought there: Thutmose the Third, Napoleon, General Allenby, Crusaders, Romans, Greeks

• Maybe where Armageddon will happen: Har Megiddo = mountain of Megiddo → Harmageddo → Armageddon

• first excavated in 1903, has been excavated since then

• 110 feet tall, 20 layers over 5000 years: 5000 BC to Persian period

• Stables of Solomon: maybe stables, definitely not Solomon’s (wrong time)

• water tunnel: built to get water without leaving inside of city during siege

• Seal from Shema, Servant of Jeroboam (missing)

• Cartouche of Sheshonq: proved he conquered Megiddo, but Schumacher threw it into the back dirt (can’t find out which strata it’s from)

• looked at by Edward Robinson, Conder and Kitchner, Schumacher, U of Chicago, Yadin, Tel Aviv Consortium

• James Henry Breasted, John D. Rockefeller, Lord Edmund Allenby

  • Lord Allenby (the hero of the Battle of Megiddo in 1918) suggested to Breasted after WWI that he should excavate Megiddo to look for Solomon and Thutmose III. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. agreed to fund the first five years

Lewis Binford

• processual archaeology

• 1931-2001

Ian Hodder

• post-processual archaeology

• 1948-

• also excavated Catalhoyuk

Lee Burger

• discovered Homo naledi/Rising Star Cave

• put together Underground Astronauts: small women archaeologists

Dorothy Garrod

• 1892-1968

• Excavated Mt Carmel Caves

• first woman to be named professor at Cambridge

Louis and Mary Leakey

• 1931-1959 and beyond, found skull and jaw via Dalmatian found Laetoli footprints

Richard Leakey

• husband of Meave

• found Turkana Boy (1.6 Ma, 7-15 at death)

• wrote “origins”

Louise Leakey

• daughter of Richard

• youngest ever to find a hominid fossil at 6 years old

• found 3.5 Ma with her mom, worked at Koobi Fora with GWU

J Garstang

• 1876-1956

• linked destruction of Jericho to Bible (got wrong time), found it was multi-leveled

Kathleen Kenyon

• 1906-1978

• brought in at Jericho for pottery but wanted to dig, dug for 10-20 years

• proved what Garstang thought was Joshua’s Jericho was too old

• found defense/astrology/grain tower (thought defense), tombs, and graves

James Mellaart

• 1925-2012

• found Catalhoyuk

• Faked art/volcano landscape (found sketches for art)

• Dorak Affair: he maybe hallucinated a girl leading him to site and treasure

Sir Arthur Evans

• self-financed excavations and books (riches to rage) 1899-1900

• found Knossos from people selling milk stones and tracing it to the site

• named Minoans after King Minos (labyrinth)

• Reconstructed as he excavated BAD (red pillars, dolphins, priest-king)

George Bass

• the father of underwater archaeology

• excavated Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya

• Founded Institute of Underwater Archaeology, taught for awhile

Pheidias

• built statue and temple of Zeus

Androkinos

• found tombs at Pella and Macedonia

Pope Pius VII

• excavated Rome 1800-1823

Victor Emmanuel II

• excavated Rome 1849-1861

Mussolini

• excavated Rome 1922-1943

• Ara Pacis

Edward Robinson

• Megiddo, 1838 and 1852, couldn’t find it because he was standing on it

Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener

• British “surveyors,” first to identify Megiddo

Gottlieb Schumacher

• from Ohio, worked with Germans, dug poorly like Schliemann

• U of Chicago: lead by Breasted, used local workers and quftis, innovative (aerial photography via balloons, Munsell color chart, put everything into code)

  • horizontally excavated first 3 layers until they ran out of money, then vertical down to bedrock

  • sold site to the state of Israel for $1

Yigael Yadin

• 60s and 70s

• used Megiddo to train grad students

• no published studies

Ancient Diet

• objective of archaeology: establish how people obtained their food but also to reconstruct their actual diet

• we use: environmental data, animal bones (faunal remains), plants remains (floral remains), human bones, feces (coprolites), artifacts, rock art

Zooarchaeology

• study of animal bones found in the archaeological records, specialized expertise that requires a background in paleontology/zoology

• number of identified specimen = number of bones for one species

• minimum number of individuals = number of individuals to account for bones

pollen analysis/palynology

• way to study ancient environments and human impacts on vegetation

  • begins in field with floating or sifting, botanists collect samples and examine

  • count grains per species and what strata they were found in

long-term and short- term climate change

• via pollen

• Kaniewski discovered plants got more arid = 300 year drought

• collapse of Bronze Age

Low, Middle, and High Ranges of Archaeology

• observations from fieldwork vs general, overarching theories or strategies (middle gets knowledge needed to relate archaeological facts to general behavior theories)

Processual Archaeology

• 60s and 70s

• Lew Binford: scientific/anthropology-based

• figure out the how and why

• went to far: tried to come up with universal laws, hard sciences, unbiased/objective

Post-processual Archaeology

• Ian Hodder

• the post-processual critique rejects cultural evolutionary generalizations

• the post-processual critique rejects the processual search for universal laws

• the post-processual critique rejects explicitly scientific methods

• the post-processual critique rejects the processual emphasis on objectivity and ethical neutrality

U of Arizona Garbage Project: garbologists

• goal: to reconstruct where the garbage came from and the way of life, and test the validity of interview and survey techniques

• conclusion: people lie about what they do (ie alcohol usage), determined family income

• methodological objective: how material remains relate to behavior that produced them

• substantive objective: workable explanations of specific and recurrent patterns observed in the archaeological record

Experimental Archaeology

• studying the archaeological process through experimental reconstruction of earlier conditions, the origins of this approach can be traced back to Saxton Pope, a surgeon at Uni and California Medical Center (San Francisco)

Agricultural Theories

• started by gathered (women), garbage heaps/restrooms grew seeds on accident, bag of seeds fell out to make a path

  • agriculture or settlements first? (Gobekli Tepe = settlement first)

Underwater Archaeology

• worry about pressue and decompression sickness

• have to swipe one way to clear stuff, can’t wear shoes

• invented glue to transport falling-apart ignots

• harder to transport stuff: needed to vacuum to get rid of sand and had to heave things up