Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hannah Sfreddo
1. Absolute Dating
-eg: RC dating, dendrochronology, Thermoluminescence,
2. Acheulean
-bifaced; light; arrows and hand axes; homo erectus; precision; repairable; 1.7 mya,
coexist with Oldowan; not found in East Asia
-more complex than Oldowan; variety of materials and tool types depending on function
3. Achieved Status
-earned by merit; hunter-gatherer context
4. Aerial vs. Terrestrial Remote Sensing Methods
-remote = from afar/not at site
eg: satellite; LiDAR (light detecting and ranging)
vs: Ground Penetrating Resonance (active); magnetometry (passive)
5. Antiquarian
-not systematic; collecting artifacts as hobby
6. Archaeology
-systematic study of human lives
7. Arkaim
-russian Stonehenge, massive settlement, bronze age
8. Artifacts
-portable objects created or modified by humans
9. Ascribed Status
-status given at birth or later in life; sungir burials showed children w/ status
10. Australopithecus afarensis
Lucy, Ethiopia; Leitoli footprints in ash; Awash valley; fully bipedal; stone tools; was
hunted (no tooth adaptations for eating meat; small size, many large predators)
11. Australopithecus africanus
Taung child; South Africa; dead end in lineage
12. Aztec
13. Bamiyan Buddha
14. Bipedalism
Short pelvis, long legs (shorter arms); angled femurs; foramen magnum directly under
skull, non-opposable big toe; grinding teeth (instead of sheering); larger brains
-carrying; energy efficiency over long distance; better heat loss; seeing in field
15. Cahokia
-largest urban center of Native Americans at time period, planned city with 4 plazas and
grand plaza, constructing to be level; large mounds (monk mound = largest in North
America); complex civ.
16. Calibration of radiocarbon dates
-important bc ratio of C14/C12 changes over time; converts RC to years
17. Caral
-largest settlement in Andes; in Peru; urban, ceremonial plazas, pyramids; mounds,
irrigation
18. atalhyk
-Turkey, crowded Neolithic city; houses very close, ladders to roof for public life;
evidence of trade (obsidian) and religion, no evidence of hierarchy (except food surplus)
or labor division; agricultural
19. Chavin de Hunatar
-South American Civ/ Peru; elites were priests (religious) and kings/chiefs (political)
-underground tunnels for elite
-elite controlled trade
-Puna zone: high up, herders lived here, slaughter here, ate limbs and skull
-llama meat (better parts) brought down to elites
-agriculture (maize/potatoes)
20. Civilization
-characteristics: large population density; food surplus; formal government; labor
specialization; record keeping; monumental works; social stratification
21. Clovis first
-believes Clovis people were first to inhabit North America; crossed Beringia landbridge
from Asia
-clovis points = technology for big game hunting
-earliest artifacts would be in Alaska; found in Clovis, NMexico
22. Collapse
-eg: the Maya
23. Context
-most important archeological concept = provenience (3D location) + matrix (medium
around artifact) + association (what artifact is found with)
-primary context = in situ; where it was originally deposited into record
-secondary context = moved from original position
24. Cultural-historical archaeology
-19th century present day thought; dividing societies into distinct cultural/ethnic groups
by material culture
-chronologies and distributions; descriptive
25. Direct dating
-dating the artifact itself, not associated materials
26. Djenn-Djeno
-Mali; earliest urban center in Sub-Saharan Africa
-started with trade between hunters/fishermen agriculture (rice)
-egalitarian (no evidence of temples, palaces)
-Islam religion
27. E. Services Bands, Tribes, Chiefdom, State Model
-unilinear progression from simple to complex socity
-Band: small; egalitarian; division of labor and pooled resources; achieved status
-Tribe: small/medium, social differentiation by religious roles and kinship; leadership is
achieved, or assumed by kinship
-genealogical organization > warfare, marriage
-Cheifdom: larger; hierarchy via religious roles/kinship/divined leadership
-social roles; acquisition of prestige tools, sacrifices enforced roles.
-State: large territorial control; urban centers; center/periphery relationships (trade)
-hierarchy; specialization of labor; institutionalized leadership
-hegemony
-agricultural/material surplus trade
28. Flotation
-separating seeds (less dense) from dirt and rocks thru water
-Dorian Fuller and Patty Jo Watson
29. Four methods to shape the pot
-pinch (limited size); slab (4 walls); coil (natural fragments); wheel (most
efficient/symmetrical)
-type and dcor reflcting group identity
-open air kiln = least effective (no temp control)
30. Gbekli Tepe
-worlds oldest megaliths built by hunter gatherers
-ritual site
-complex societies existed before agriculture
31. Ground Stone Tools
-formed from courser grain rocks
-grind other plants/rocks
-neolithic
32. Ground-Penetrating Radar
-radar pulses sent out to image subsurface
-shows depth
-expensive, not usable in heavy vegetation/wet soil
33. Harappan
-site in Pakistan; ruins of Indus Valley Civ
-organized/complex society
34. Heterarchy
-unranked organization; horizontal postion of power
35. Hierarchy
ranked social org.
-eg: Uruk seals on clay tablets show administrative presence
-eg: Egypt divine kingship; laborers (treated better than slaves)
36. Hominin
-including modern humans, Homo, Australopithecus; Paranthropus, Ardi
-bipedal, short pelvis, angled knees, longer legs, bigger brains, foramen magnum under
skull, non-opposable big toe, grinding not shearing teeth
-Hominid = all modern and extinct great apes/ includes humans, chimps, gorillas
organgutans
37. Homo erectus
-direct ancestor of homo sapiens
-Acheulean tools (1.7 mya)
-pleistocene, 1.8 mya 300 kya
-Java man, Peking man
-used fire (better nutrition; meat eating)
-migrated from Africa to East Asia then South Asia, and Europe
38. Homo habilis
-Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; requires federal agencies
to return remains and cultural artifacts affiliated with extant indigenous groups; report
holdings to affiliated tribe
-often requires burials be preserved in situ
-led to cataloging and analysis of thousands of artifacts in the backlog
-difficult for scientific advances; reburial may damage objects
-Kennewick Man: indigenous laying claim to his remains
56. Neanderthals
-Neander Valley in Germany: 20-40kya
-larger brains than H. Sapiens; intelligent
-buried dead with flowers (ritual)
-lived in caves and rock shelters
-took care of injured and elderly (bone remains prove this)
-stone/wood hunting tools; carnivorous
57. Number of Individual Specimens (NISP)
-counts all fragments of individuals; eg: 86 pieces of antelope = 86 individuals
58. Out of Africa, or Replacement Model
-supported by genetic diversity in Africa; people most likely originated in Africa
-modern humans from homo erectus; then left Africa to other parts of world
-opposes multiregional hypothesis
-races evolved 100kya independently
59. Palynology
-study of pollen, a micro plant artifact
-help date/reconstruct environment
-if found in poop or guts, reconstruct diet
-Otzi the iceman was dated via pollen in digestive tract
-some plants produce more pollen/more durable overrepresented
-easily bioturbated; difficult to date
60. Phytolith
-tiny silica crystals from cells of plants
-inorganic, very durable in archaeological record
-environmental reconstruction; domestication studies; tool use studies
-not very diagnostic; some plants have same kind; small and mobile like pollen; cant
directly date
61. Post-processual archaeology
-1980s to present; humanistic; individuals and agency; past cannot be value-free
-rejects processual archeology because no one perceives the past objectively because
we create the past
62. Poverty Point
-Louisiana; massive concentric shape earthworks with core inside of 500 acres; large
mounds built quickly
-stone imported from places all over the country
-artifacts carved from stone that originated elsewhere
-ritual site and pilgrimage center, but no evidence of burial at this site
-earlier than Cahokia
-big workforce; dense population
63. Primary Context
-artifact in situ; same place and position as when it was deposited into arch. record
64. Processual archaeology (New archaeology) came before prost-processual
-1960s to present; focused on why and used scientific methods to turn archeology into
a science; past is neutral and value-free; archaeologists can be ovjective
65. Quipu
-recording devices; Incan civ (no writing system)
-knotted string records record tax obligations, cencus, calendrical info, military
organization
66. Radiocarbon Dating
-known halflife of C14 and amount of C-14 in dead organism; finds when org. was alive
-limitations include context, assuming atmosphere consistency; max date of 40,000
years ago
67. Relative Dating
-sequencing, relative to each other; indirect; ceramics, stone tools
eg: stratigraphy (law of superposition)
-seriation (arrange objects so that those adjacent are more alike than those farther apart);
culturally dependent, not applicable to all artifacts
-pollen dating (palynology); unsteady rate of accumulation; compare data between sites
68. Remote Sensing Survey
-measurements of ground surface or subsurface; remotely
aerial: -satellite photography, satellite spectrometry, LiDAR; plane sensors have higher
resolution
ground: -magnetometry, electrical resistivity/conductivity, ground penetrating radar
(GPR)
69. Reverse stratigraphy
-one layer is unearthed by human or natural actions; cant use stratigraphy reliably
anymore
70. Rosetta Stone
-196 BC; hieroglyphic Egyptian to greek to demotic Egyptian; deciphered by
Champollion
71. Sahelanthropus tchadensis
-hominid sp. 7mya; closest to ape-hominin split
-Chad; small brain like chimp; could be common ancestor between chimps and apes
-broader flatter teeth, flatter faces, more forward foramen magnum than chimps (but far
from modern)
72. Secondary Context
-moved from deposition
73. Seriation
-relative dating method; arranging objects so that those adjacent are more alike than
those farther apart; Flinders Petrie; dont need context, change in styles are gradual
74. Stratigraphy
-relative dating; sequence of soil/strata
75. Taphonomy
-study of decaying organisms and how fossils are formed
76. Teotihuacan
-mesoamerican city in Valley of Mexico
-mesoamerican pyramids; largest city in pre-columbian America, 100 BC until 8th
century
-Aztecs later claimed to be descended from them
-religious center; where the gods are made; Aztecs name it this and made it
pilgrimage site
-interacted with maya; all urban, no rural
77. Uniformitarianism
-James Hutton and Lyell; assume the same processes observed presently have been at
work in the past; so slow that the formation of the earth must be ancient
78. Uruk
-Sumer civilization on Euphrates river; King Gilgamesh
-ziggurats (white temple, monumental works w/ administrative and ideological
functions; control; hierarchy
-cylinder seals demarking goods; central regulation of trade
-administrative texts and record keeping; writing systems
79. Venus Figurines
-oldest ceramics in world; Czech republic; pregnant women
oldest = venus of Dolni Vestonice 27,000 BCE
-magdalenian culture of Europe had venus figures
80. Warfare Hypothesis in Civilization
-competition over goods, lands, led to conflict; communities formed walled settlements
cities; military leaders become rulers/integrated with religious authorities
81. Wolfs Law
-bone in healthy being will adapt to physical stress
82. Woodhenge
-timber; located in Stonehenge World heritage site close to stonehenge; circular postholes for sun calendar; 5 different constructions; celebration of equinox and solstice
83. Younger Dryas
-geological period from 12,900-11,700 BP (early Holocene)
-sharp decline in temperature in N. Hemisphere
-break in gradual warming of earth since last glacial maximum
-vegetation replaced with those of colder climate
-Childes Oasis hypothesis: warming flooded coastlines; habitable ecosystems sharnk
and forced people/animals/plants together agriculture and domestication
-against hypothesis: climate doesnt force this to happen, only allows the possibility
84. Ziggurat
-Uruk; temple square pyramids from Babylonian ties; religious; enforcing hierarchy
Categories of questions in the final exam: