Archaeology
How and what do we know about the human past?
Archaeology - cultural anthropology of the human past focusing on material evidence of human modification of the physical environment
Study material remains left by our ancestors to interpret cultural variation and change
Archaeological record - all material objects constructed by humans or near-humans revealed by archaeology
Encompasses artifacts like pottery, metalwork, and nonportable material culture like architecture and ancient farm lands
Processual archaeology - explains the cultural processes that led to ways of life and material cultures
Archaeology is objective, an empirical science
Mathematics to examine distribution of material remains
Emphasizes human adaptations to different environments
Neglects human agency
Cultural ecology - cultural processes being understood in the context of climate change, the variability of economic productivity, demographic factors, and technological change
Postprocessual archaeology - stresses the symbolic and cognitive aspects of social structures and social relations
Emphasizes human agency
Examines power and domination within societies based on archaeological records
Sites - precise geographical location of remains of past human activity
Artifacts - portable objects that have been deliberately and intelligently shaped by human or near-human activity
Ecofacts - plant or animal remains that are the byproducts of hominin activities
Features - nonportable remnants from the past such as house walls or ditches
Matrix - gravel, sand, or clay in which the artifact is found in
Association - two or more objects found in same matrix
Provenance - precise 3D position of the find within the matrix
Context - evaluation of what happened to an object after it entered the archaeological record
This contextual emphasis reveals holistic nature of archaeology
Ethnoarchaeology - study of how present-day societies use artifacts and structures and how these objects become part of the archaeological record
Just because certain artifacts from different species are found together, doesn’t mean they’re related
Ex: hyena bones, human bones, and stone tools in same location; doesn’t mean humans ate hyenas
Influencers of preservation
Organic remains do not last long as inorganic material
Cold, dry, or wet climates preserve organic remains
Ancient DNA in teeth, bones, or hair can survive thousands of years
transformational processes like looting or natural disasters affect preservation
How do archaeologist find sites?
Survey archaeology - physical examination of a geographical region in which promising sites are most likely to be found
A lot of information and can be repeated
Archeologists decide to do field-surveys based on previous work
Aerial photography is oldest type of survey; then, false-color Landsat imagery; now satellite imaging
Pedestrian surveying involves walking systematically across ground looking for surface remains
LiDAR - light detection and ranging technology; uses laser beams to penetrate heavy forest vegetation, granting high-resolution images of hidden archaeological features
Some machines detect buried features through echo sounding and electrical resistivity
Ground penetrating radars (GPR) reflect pulsed radar waves below the surface to understand different materials below the surface
Geographic information systems (GIS) - computer aided system for collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, and presentation of spatial data of all kinds
Generates map of nearly anything in space
Good for digitizing features of natural environment, hard to account for social and cultural modifications
Excavation - systematic uncovering of archaeological remains through removal of deposits of soil and other material
Form of destruction, once excavated, site is gone forever
2 kinds of information:
Contemporary activities - take place horizontally in space and changes in those activities that take place vertically over time
No human occupation or disruption
Occupational activities - disruption from subsequent humans on a site
Steps of cleaning, classifying, and analyzing
Most of the labor of cleaning, classifying, and analyzing usually takes place in laboratories after the dig is over
Clean artifacts
Classify artifacts according to materials, shapes, and surface decoration; then, arrange them in typologies
Analyze records to understand distribution of time and space
Assemblage - artifacts and structures from a particular time and place in a site
Archaeological cultures - groupings of similar assemblages from many sites
Digital archaeology
Digital Heritage - digital information about the past available on the internet. Includes a range of materials from digitized documents and photographs of artifacts
Difficulty connecting digitized records with one another
Some documented sites like TCP have richer data online than written
How to interpret the past
Subsistence strategies - different ways people in different societies go about meeting basic material survival needs
Foragers - food collectors who gather, fish, hunt
Food producers - depend on domesticated plants, animals or both
Split into food collectors and food producers
Different farming methods (intensive or extensive agriculture)
Pastoralists herd animals
4 types of cultural range:
Band - characteristic form of social organization found amongst foragers; usually small, labor is divided based on sex and age; all adults have roughly equal access to whatever materials are available
Tribe - larger than a band, members farm/herd for a living; social relations are relatively equal, although there may be a chief who speaks for group or organizes activities
Sodalities - special-purpose grouping based on age, sex, economic role, and personal interest; popular in tribes
Mens sodalities have more individuals and more organization than womens
Chiefdom - social organization in which the chief and close relative are set apart from rest of society, allowed privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige
First representation of unequal status
Larger than tribes and more craft production
Some developed into states
State - stratified society that possesses a territory that is defended from outside enemies with an army; separate set of governmental institutions designed to enforce laws, collect taxes and tribute; run by an elite that possesses a monopoly on the use of force
Barbaric and unstable
May develop into empire
Modern anthropologists do not use these terms; theoretical constructions of evidence
A single social group may fluctuate between these terms
Whose past is it?
Sometimes, archeological findings do not coincide with what modern individuals expected or believed
Contrasting views on archaeological findings
Ex: finding human remains; archeologists want to explore to find underlying meanings, some people may find that disrespectful
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) - requires federal agencies to deem American Indian and Native Hawaiian human remains as sacred; protects cultural objects on tribal land
WIIN Act (2016) - more progressive, in favor of returning remains to native tribes
Kennewick Man -8,500 year old skeleton found in 1926; Umatailla tribe claimed the skeleton, anthropologists sued for permisssion; remains are in Burke Museum
Taliban Attacks
Anti-heritage movement - negates the idea of heritage
Ex: Taliban destroying Afghan Buddhas
Taliban attacking World Trade Center on 9/11/2001
Others loot and market stolen antiquities
Critical issues
Gender
Feminist archaeology - research approach exploring why women’s contributions have been systematically written out of the archeological record and suggests new approaches to human past
Examines stone tools and reveals that most flakes were probably made and used by women
Rejects biological determinism of sex roles
Gender archaeology - draws insights from contemporary gender studies to investigate how people come to recognize themselves as different from others, how people represent these differences, and how others react to such claims
Begs questions about binary gender models
Sex wasn’t a significant bias to ancestors
Historical archaeology - study of archeological sites associated with written records, frequently the study of post-european contact sites in the world
Gaining permission from tribes inhabiting there working sites
Collaborative archaeology - projects seek to study the past by working with descendent communities
Civic engagement - approach to seek an understanding of the past to address modern social justice issues
Cosmopolitan Archaeology
Cosmopolitanism - being able to move with ease from one cultural setting to another
Focus of multi sited ethnographic research
Evolution of archaeology’s goals
Initially focused on reconstructing material remains of past
Then strived to reconstruct the lifeways (culture) of past people
Next tried to explain the cultural processes that go into creating a culture (processual archaeology)
Now, focus on interpretive or postprocessual archaeology