ANTH: TIME TRAVELERS

first female president of the Society for American Archaeology.
In 1939, at the age of 25, she published the first of several books, Ancient Man in North America,

paleoindian archaeology— the archaeology of pre 8000 year old North America.

An explanation for observed, empirical phenomena. It seeks to explain the relationships between variables; it is an answer to a “ why” question.

A subdiscipline of anthropology that focuses on human language: its diversity in grammar, syntax, and lexicon; its historical development; and its relation to a culture’s perception of the world.

About 1836, a French customs official and naturalist, found ancient axe heads in the gravels of the Somme River. Along with those tools, he also found the bones of long-extinct mammals. To Boucher de Perthes ( as he is more com-monly known), the implication was obvious: “ In spite of their imperfection, these rude stones prove the existence of very ancient man as surely as a whole Louvre would have done.”

“ father of humanism”

went on to explore the West, mount the fi rst expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and hold several important posts in the federal government.

pursued the Moundbuilder issue when, in 1879, he became head of the newly formed Bureau of Ethnology

before Christ

( 1) define a relevant problem; ( 2) establish one or more hypoth-eses; ( 3) determine the empirical implications of the hypotheses; ( 4) collect appropriate data through observation and/ or experimentation; ( 5) compare these data with the expected implications; and ( 6) revise and/ or retest hypotheses as necessary.

Refuse deposit resulting from human activities, generally consisting of sediment; food remains such as charred seeds, animal bone, and shell; and discarded artifacts. .

new archaeology An approach to archaeology that arose in the 1960s emphasizing the understanding of underlying cultural processes and the use of the scientific method; today’s version of the “ new archaeology” is some-times called processual archaeology.

The primary strategy of cultural anthropology, in which data are gathered by questioning and observing people while the observer lives in their society

The observations and interpretations that emerge from hands- on archaeological field and lab work.

A subdiscipline of anthropology that emphasizes nonbiological aspects: the learned social, linguistic, technological, and familial behaviors of humans.

The research perspective that defines ideas, symbols, and mental structures as driving forces in shaping human behavior.

earliest of the antiquarians ( 1778– 1823)

stands out because he bothered to take notes and to make illustrations and observations of the places he visited.

wrote The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.

Before Common Era- The same as BC, but as with CE, it avoids the religious connotation.

Reasoning from theory to account for specific obser-vational or experimental results.

one for which the conclusions must be true, given that the premises are true. Deductive arguments generally take the form of “ if . . . then” statements: If the hypothesis is true, then we will expect to observe the following outcomes.

devised the now well- known typological scheme of Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age

A subdiscipline of anthropology that views humans as biological organisms; also known as physical anthropology

looked to the physical residues of antiquity and things to answer questions about the past.

The degree to which one’s observations and experiments can be reproduced.

The search for universals by means of established scientific methods of inquiry.

AD (“ anno Domini”): Meaning “ in the year of the Lord,” indicates a year that falls within the Christian era ( that is, after the birth of Christ). Given the En glish translation of the phrase, archaeologists place the “ AD” before the numerical age— we say the Norman Invasion occurred in “ AD 1066” rather than “ 1066 AD.” The earliest AD date is AD 1; there is no AD 0 because this year is denoted by 0 BC and double numbering is not allowed.

Any movable object that has been used, modified, or manufactured by humans; artifacts include stone, bone, and metal tools; beads and other ornaments; pottery; artwork; religious and sacred items.

biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology

Originally, someone who studied antiquities largely for the sake of the objects themselves— not to understand the people or culture that produced them.

published On the Origin of Species.

The branch of archaeology that studies the “ classical” civilizations of the Mediterranean, such as Greece and Rome, and the Near East.

established the modern discipline of archaeology

When asked his business, Ciriaco is said to have replied, “ Restoring the dead to life”— which today remains a fair defi nition of the everyday business of archaeology.

Common Era- Basically the same as AD, except that it is intended to avoid any religious connotation or privilege.

The study of all aspects of humankind— biological, cultural, and linguistic; extant and extinct— employing a holistic, comparative approach and the concept of culture.

Among nineteenth century Northwest Coast Native Americans, a ceremony involving the giving away or destruction of property in order to acquire prestige.

Accepted principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of secure knowledge.

program of survey and excavation took 12 years and resulted in a massive compilation of data on some 2000 sites in 21 states. He published a 700 page final report in 1894 that began with an explicit question: “ Were the mounds built by the Indians?”

To the casual observer the growing list of unanswered questions regarding the ancient inhabitants of North America may seem appalling; actually it should be regarded as encouraging. With a new subject the tendency is to oversimplify through lack of knowledge. Only with increased knowledge comes the realization of the complex-ity of the problem, for with each solution which is reached new fields are opened and new perplexi-ties arise. To fi nd an answer one must first have suffi cient knowledge to formulate the question.

argued that only through controlled excavation and analysis could researchers draw inferences about such anthropological subjects as acculturation, social orga-nizations, and prehistoric religious customs

His intensive artifact analysis, done before the advent of radiocarbon dating or tree ring chronology established the framework of Southwestern prehistory, which remains intact today.

Fragment of pottery

Edwin Davis ( 1811– 1888) an Ohio physician and Ephraim Squier ( 1821– 1888) a Connecticut civil engineer, surveyor, and journalist. They wrote __?

Relevant observations made on objects that then serve as the basis for study and discussion.

The study of the past through the systematic recovery and analysis of material remains.

hypothesis should ...

Founder of Anthropological Archaeology

A research perspective that emphasizes technology, ecology, demography, and economics in the definition of human behavior

The testability of a hypothesis is critical. It is testable

if...

An integrated system of beliefs, traditions, and customs that govern or influence a person’s behavior. Culture is learned, shared by members of a group, and based on the ability to think in terms of symbols.

The first two tasks ( Steps 1 and 2) involve defining a relevant question and translating it into an appropriate hypothesis. The idea is to build upon a simple description of the known facts and create a hypothesis to account for them. Such hypotheses are generated through inductive reasoning.

The First Professional Archaeologist

(“ Before Present”): Most archaeologists feel more comfortable avoiding the AD/ BC split alto-gether, substituting a single “ before present” age estimate ( with AD 1950 arbitrarily selected as the zero point; By this convention, an artifact from the Hastings battlefield would be dated 884 BP ( AD 1950 – AD 1066 884 BP). We will primarily use this system in the text, or we will use the more colloquial “ years ago.”

How does one test a hypothesis ( Steps 4 and 5)?

A proposition proposed as an explanation of some phenomenon.

Charles Lyell's book establishing the idea that humans had lived with now-extinct animals in the far distant past

culture is 3 things:

Navajo people wish to be known as Diné a traditional name meaning “ The People”

How does one test a hypothesis ( Steps 4 and 5)?

A proposition proposed as an explanation of some phenomenon.

Charles Lyell's book establishing the idea that humans had lived with now-extinct animals in the far distant past

culture is 3 things:

Navajo people wish to be known as Diné a traditional name meaning “ The People”

A site’s physical structure produced by the deposition of geological and/ or cultural sediments into layers, or strata.

Working from specific observations to more general hypotheses

The kind of archaeology practiced mainly in the early to mid-twentieth century; it “ explains” differences or changes over time in artifact frequencies by positing the diffusion of ideas between neighboring cultures or the migration of a people who had different mental templates for artifact styles.

documenting how material culture changed over time and space

first archaeologist because, unlike antiquarians, who excavated to fi nd things, Worsaae took to the fi eld and excavated to answer questions.

A language that develops among speakers of different languages to permit economic exchanges

Ques-tions are scientifi c ( a) if they are concerned with the ______ and ( b) if the result of observations designed to answer a question cannot be predetermined by the biases of the observer.

Ques-tions are scientifi c ( a) if they are concerned with the ______ and ( b) if the result of observations designed to answer a question cannot be predetermined by the biases of the observer.

_____links some specifi c set of archae-ological data with the human behavior or natural pro-cesses that produced them.

Ques-tions are scientifi c ( a) if they are concerned with the ______ and ( b) if the result of observations designed to answer a question cannot be predetermined by the biases of the observer.

_____links some specifi c set of archae-ological data with the human behavior or natural pro-cesses that produced them.

Mid level theory studies ______relevant human behaviors or natural processes of the past

_____links some specifi c set of archae-ological data with the human behavior or natural pro-cesses that produced them.

Mid level theory studies ______relevant human behaviors or natural processes of the past

Low level theory studies the ____

Low level theory studies the ____

Mid level theory studies ______relevant human behaviors or natural processes of the past

Hypothesis that links archaeological observations with the human behavior or natural processes that produced them.

Hypothesis that links archaeological observations with the human behavior or natural processes that produced them.

Low level theory studies the ____

Hypothesis that links archaeological observations with the human behavior or natural processes that produced them.

the archaeological ____ is the contemporary evidence left by people of the past.

Strictly speaking, the archaeological record is com-posed only of static objects—___ ____ ____that have survived the passage of time. Th ose objects are the products of both human behavior and natural processes.

Archaeologists conducting research at the middle level seek situations in which they can observe__ and _________.

________ is necessary to infer human behavior and natural processes from archaeological data.

________ is what allows archaeologists to create the “ if . . . then” statements in Step 3 of the scientifi c method discussed earlier.

High- level theory is archaeology’s ultimate objective; ______research are necessary steps to attain this goal.

Theory that seeks to answer large “ why” questions.

A Western philosophy that advocated ideas of linear prog-ress, absolute truth, science, rational planning of ideal social orders, and the standardization of knowledge. It held that rational thought was the key to progress; that science and technology would free people from the oppression of historical traditions of myth, religion, and superstition; and that the control of nature through technology would permit the development of moral and spiritual virtues.

The overarching framework, often unstated, for understanding a research problem. It is a researcher’s “ culture.”

_______ are not open to direct empirical verification or rejection; they simply turn out to be useful or not.

Th e two basic paradigms in modern archaeology— _____ AND _____ closely mirror the adaptive and ideational approaches previously discussed.

evolutionary gen-eralizations and regularities, not historical specifics down-plays the importance of the individual.

Rejects the search for univer-sal laws and regularities.

Views culture from a systemic perspective and defi nes culture as adaptation

Rejects the systemic view of culture and focuses on an ideational perspective

Explanation is explicitly scien-tifi c and objective.

Less enthusiastic about scien-tifi c methods and denies pos-sibility of objectivity.

Attempts to remain ethically neutral; claims to be explicitly nonpolitical.

Argues that all archaeology is unavoidably political

John Locke ( 1632– 1704), Immanuel Kant ( 1724– 1804), Th omas Jeff erson ( 1743– 1826), Sigmund Freud ( 1856– 1939), Karl Marx ( 1818– 1883), and Charles Darwin ( 1809– 1882) were all important ___________ _________-.

Sociologists refer to the late- nineteenth- cen-tury manifestation of the _______ as “ modern,” and what followed has been called “ postmodern.”

The paradigm that explains social, economic, and cul-tural change as primarily the result of adaptation to material conditions. Exter-nal conditions ( for example, the environment) are assumed to take causal priority over ideational factors in explaining change.

A paradigm that rejects grand historical schemes in favor of humanistic approaches that appreciate the multiple voices of history. It seeks to see how colonialism created our vision of the world we occupy today; it eschews science and argues against the existence of objective truth.

The____ _____reflects the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment. It includes the new archaeology of ____ ____ and his generation

Processual archaeologists search for a “___ ____” about how culture changes.

Sociologists refer to the late- nineteenth- cen-tury manifestation of the _______ as “ modern,” and what followed has been called “ postmodern.”

The paradigm that explains social, economic, and cul-tural change as primarily the result of adaptation to material conditions. Exter-nal conditions ( for example, the environment) are assumed to take causal priority over ideational factors in explaining change.

A paradigm that rejects grand historical schemes in favor of humanistic approaches that appreciate the multiple voices of history. It seeks to see how colonialism created our vision of the world we occupy today; it eschews science and argues against the existence of objective truth.

The____ _____reflects the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment. It includes the new archaeology of ____ ____ and his generation

Processual archaeologists search for a “___ ____” about how culture changes.

Th e processual paradigm has several key character-istics. First, processual archaeology emphasizes _ ___, not historical specifics, and downplays the importance of the________

Second, processual archaeology views _____ from a systemic perspective and takes an ____ approach to the study of human culture.

An effort to describe the properties by which all systems, including human societies, allegedly operate. Popular in processual archaeology of the late 1960s and 1970s.

A paradigm that focuses on humanistic approaches and rejects scientific objectivity. It sees archaeology as inher-ently political and is more concerned with interpreting the past than with testing hypotheses. It sees change as arising largely from interactions between individuals operating within a symbolic and/ or competitive system.

____ _____focuses attention on tech-nology, ecology, and economy and takes an adaptive rather than ideational perspective on culture.

Processual archaeology tends to focus on _____ rather than on the cultural ideas, values, and beliefs that stand behind that behavior

In processual archaeology Religion and ideology are seen as “______”— cultural add- ons with little long-term explanatory value.

Third, explanation in processual archaeology is explicitly _______.

Procedures in processual archaeology depend on deductive models grounded in the hard sciences ( math, chemistry, physics) and emphasize the importance of being objective. By objective, we mean that processual archaeologists believe that they can see the world _____________

Fourth, ____ _____attempts to remain ethically neutral and claims to be explicitly nonpolitical.

First, ________ rejects the processual search for universal laws and emphasizes the role of the individual.

The ______holds that universals of human behavior simply do not exist and that scientific explanations are inadequate because they downplay historical circumstances in their search for universals.

Second, postprocessual archaeology rejects ________and focuses more on the ideational approach to culture.

Th ird, postprocessual archaeology sees knowledge as “ ____ _____ and not as objective as proces-sual archaeologists argue. By “ historically situated,” postmodernists mean that our understanding of the world refl ects the specifi c time and place in which we live.

Coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida ( 1930– 2004), ______refers to efforts to expose the assumptions behind the allegedly scientifi c search for knowledge.

A primary tool of postmodernism.

Stone monuments erected by Maya rulers to record their history in rich images and hieroglyphic symbols. These symbols can be read and dated.

Processual- Plus Is there a middle road? Absolutely. Intellectual change occurs through the process of “ ___ ____ ____.”

An explanation for observed,

It seeks to explain the relationships between variables; it is an answer to a “ why” question.

A common type of archaeological site, consisting of a rock over-hang that is deep enough to provide shelter but not deep enough to be called a cave ( technically speaking, a cave must have an area of perpetual darkness).

_______theory involves the observations that emerge from archaeological fi eldwork; this is how archaeologists get their “ data,” their “ facts.”

______ theory links archaeo-logical data with human behavior or natural pro-cesses; it is produced through experimental archae-ology, taphonomy ( the study of natural processes on archaeological sites), and ethnoarchaeology ( the study of living peoples to see links between behavior and material remains).

the study of natural processes on archaeological sites

the study of living peoples to see links between behavior and material remains

______ theory provides answers to larger “ why” questions.

______ are frameworks for thinking that interre-late concepts and provide research strategies. They apply to intellectual inquiry in general and are not specific to archaeology.

Two major paradigms in modern archaeology are ____ ______

takes a scientific approach and focuses on the material factors of life;

emphasizes sym-bolic meanings, power relationships, individual actions, and gender.

A_____________shows how the diff erent levels of theory, paradigms, and the public presentation of results help to ensure that our under-standing of the past continually improves over time and overcomes the biases presented by the archaeologist’s particular cultural context.

____ _____archaeology transcends the single site to determine the overarching relationships among the various contemporaneous sites used by a society.

The ______precludes assuming that single sites are typical of a given culture; instead, the emphasis is on variability among sites within the settlement pattern

In some places, archaeological remains have simply lain on stable ground surfaces rather than becoming buried by sand, silt, and gravel. We can sample such areas using one or more ______ designs to minimize bias in recovering settlement pattern data.

Where natural processes such as deflation are demonstrably significant, archaeologists should adopt the ______approach.

The ___, ____, and ____ all depend on the question the archaeologist seeks to answer, the time and resources available, the topography, and the specific character of the archaeology

___Any place where material evidence exists about the human past. Usually, “____” refers to a concentration of such evidence.

this fieldwork entails mapping and collecting archaeological materials found on the ground.

A set of strategies for arriving at accurate descriptions of the range of archaeological material across a landscape.

Hunter- gatherers’ pattern of movement between different places on the landscape, timed to the seasonal availability of food and other resources

The distribution of archaeological sites across a region.

The movements and activities reconstructed from a set-tlement pattern.

inferred from the sites that make up the settlement pattern

a seasonal round is one type of ____ _____

The goal of ___ ____, then, is not just to find deep sites full of interesting artifacts. Instead, its goal is to document the range of archaeological remains that occur across a landscape to avoid a ___ ___of the lives of ancient peoples.

A fist- sized, round, flat, handheld stone used with a metate for grind-ing foods.

A large, flat stone used as a stationary surface upon which seeds, tubers, and nuts are ground with a mano.

The principles that underlie sampling strategies that provide accurate measures of a statistical population.

A set of counts, measurements, or characteristics about which relevant inquiries are to be made. Scientists use the term in a specialized way ( quite different from “ population” in the ordinary sense)

The region that contains the statistical population and that will be sampled. Its size and shape are determined by the research question and practical considerations.

The best way to ensure unbiased results is through judicious use of ___ ____

The size and shape of a ___ ___ results from the research question and practical considerations.

Doing ___ ____ in such places means that you simply spot an artifact, plot its location in your fi eld notes, pick it up, and label it no digging!

A sample drawn from a statistical population such that every member of the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample.

The percentage of the sample universe that is surveyed. Areas with a lot of variability in archaeological remains require larger sample fractions than do areas of low variability.

___ ____ provides the only way for archae-ologists to collect meaningful negative evidence.

Survey units of a standard size and shape, determined by the research question and practical considerations, used to obtain the sample.

a grid system in which north and east coordinates provide a location anywhere in the world, precise to 1 meter.

mapmakers divide the world into a grid of 1x1 meter squares; each intersection in that grid has north and east coordinates.

A survey universe divided into several sub-universes that are then sampled at potentially different sample fractions.

A conical structure made of poles or logs laid against one another that served as fall and winter homes among the prehistoric Shoshone and Paiute.

A unique catalog number given to sites; it consists of a number ( the state’s position alphabetically), a letter abbreviation of the county, and the site’s sequential number within the county.

takes the sample universe and stratifies it into sub- universes.

A geologic process whereby fine sediment is blown away by the wind and larger items— including artifacts— are lowered onto a common sur-face and thus become recognizable sites.

This approach focuses not on the arti-facts collected from a single site, but on regional patterns in artifacts— patterns manifested on a scale of kilometers or hectares

Analysis of archaeological patterns manifested on a scale of kilometers or hectares, rather than of patterns within a single site.

Handheld devices that use triangulation from radio waves received from satellites to determine your current position in terms of either the UTM grid or latitude and longitude.

GPS con-sists of ____________ that circle the earth in 12- hour evenly distributed orbits at an altitude of about 14,000 kilometers. These orbits repeat the same ground track ( because the earth turns beneath them) _____ each day. Each satellite carries a ______and very accurate _______.

The upper portion of a soil profile that has been disturbed by repeated plowing or other agricultural activity.

A sample survey method used in regions where rapid soil buildup obscures buried archaeological remains; it entails digging shallow, systematic pits across the survey unit.

The application of methods that employ some form of elec-tromagnetic energy to detect and measure characteristics of an archaeologi-cal target.

A remote sensing technique that mea-sures the strength of magnetism between the earth’s magnetic core and a sensor controlled by the archaeologist. Magnetic anomalies can indicate the presence of buried walls or features.

_______ measure the strength of magnetism between the earth’s magnetic core and a sensor controlled by the archaeologist. If hundreds of these readings are taken across a system-atic grid, a computer plotter can generate a___ ____ ____reflecting both the shape and the intensity of magnetic anomalies beneath the ground surface.

A remote sensing technique that monitors the electri-cal resistance of soils in a restricted volume near the surface of an archaeologi-cal site; buried walls or features can be detected by changes in the amount of resistance registered by the resistivity meter.

A remote sensing technique in which radar pulses directed into the ground reflect back to the surface when they strike features or interfaces within the ground, showing the presence and depth of possible buried features.

With transducers ( devices that convert electrical energy to electromagnetic waves) of various dimen-sions, a researcher applying GPR can direct the great-est degree of resolution to the depth of specifi c inter-est. A pulsating electric current is passed through an antenna, inducing electromagnetic waves that radiate toward the target and return in a fraction of a micro-second to be recorded. Th e dimensions of the trans-ducer infl uence the depth and detail that are desired in any specifi c archaeological application. As the antenna is dragged across the ground surface, a continuous profi le of subsurface electromagnetic conditions is printed on a graphic recorder. Th e location and depth of subsurface targets can be inferred from, and tested against, this graphic record