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Question 1

Understanding Human-Environment Interaction In Ancient Mongolia

Answer 1

• Lisa Jazz

Question 2

Mongolia

Answer 2

• Btw Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China
• Climate: harsh extreme (-40 in winter to 100 in summer)
  > Dramatic change
• Population: 10 years ago 30% lives in cities > increase now

Question 3

Agriculturalists, herders, and hunter-gatherers in East Asia

Answer 3

• Nomadic Pastoralists (beginning 3300 BC)
  
  • Moving settlements seasonally (1-2 times / yr)
  • Domesticated wheat + barley
  • Domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, horses
  • Milk + milk products
  • Wild sheep, goats, gazelle, deer, rabbits, birds, fish
  • Wild fruits, nuts, grains + tubers
• Gobi Desert Hunter-Gatherers (until 1500 BC)
  
  • Moving settlements regularly
  • Wild horses, cattle, deer, sheep, goats, gazelle
  • Wild rabbits, birds, frogs ?
  • Wild greens, fruits, nuts, grains + tubers
  • Wild grass seeds
• Agriculturalists (beginning 6000BC)
  
  • Large settlements in 1 place
  • Domesticated millet + rice
  • Domesticated pigs + chicken
  • Wild cattle, gazelle, deer, rabbits, birds, fish
  • Wild fruits, nuts, grains + tubers
    > Know the environment > Diet choice + eating habit

Question 4

Gobi-Steppe Neolithic Project

Answer 4

• Excavation include: burials, habitation sites

- Aim: how human adapt to environment change + how human change the environment as well

Question 5

Mongolian Neolithic

Answer 5

Period | Dates | Tech | Land-use
Oasis 1 | 11500-6000BC | Pottery after 7700BC, microblades | High residential mobility, increasing use of wetlands
Oasis 2 | 6000-3000BC | Pottery, Microblades, grinding stones | Wetland-centric, logistic mobility
Oasis 3 / Bronze Age | 3000-1000BC | Pottery, microblades, bifaces, polished axes | Wetland-centric, mixed mobility?

Question 6

Pleistocence (Ice Age) Ecosystems

Answer 6

• 2.5 million to 11700 years ago
• Fluctuation of climate since 120,000 years ago
• Mammoth, giant beaver, Irish elk
• Africa: covered by grassland > human = part of the grasslands (in the ecosystem)

Question 7

Holocene (Post-Glacial) Ecosystems

Answer 7

• 11700 years ago to present
• Wetlands
  > Change types of food ppl ate

Question 8

Human environmental impacts

Answer 8

1. Wild fire
2. Harvesting (e.g. wild rice)
3. Human produce garbage for raccoons to eat
4. Landscape engineering: the intentional way human modifying lands
   (E.g. coastal California landscapes were created by fire to suit the needs of indigenous hunter-gatherers; Australian indigenous gps use fire to improve environmental carrying capacity)

Question 9

Anthropogenic (human modified) Landscapes

Answer 9

-

Question 10

Human and landscape palaeoecology

Answer 10

3 important methods:

1. Geoarchaeology
2. Species identification
3. Ecological modeling

Question 11

Geoarchaeology

Answer 11

1. Stratigraphy and soil types (e.g. river cut, wet-dry cycles)
2. Dating sediments
3. Microbotanical remains
4. Mapping landforms

Question 12

Zooarchaeology and Palaeoethnobotany

Answer 12

1. Species (taxonomic) list (e.g. hare bones, grass seeds)
2. Species identification
3. Taphonomy
4. Weights and counts
   - In dry cave, only burned seeds can survive

Question 13

GIS-Based Ecological Modelling

Answer 13

1. Compiling NASA satellite imagery
2. Creating GIS-based hydrological models
3. Modelling species interactions (community ecology)
4. Modelling species distributions (MaxEnt)
5. Refining models based on field tests
6. Mapping on archaeological data
   * Many of them based on hydrology

Question 14

Site: Zaraa Uul

Answer 14

- Getting bones in this landscape
> Hunting animals that are extinct today
> Suggest the environment is different
> Wetlands + grasslands > grasslands
> ? Former lake basin at Zaraa Uul > compared to HUla wetlands in Israel

Question 15

Lecture

Answer 15

-

Question 16

***Site formation (VERY IMPORTANT!!)

Answer 16

= Product of:
1. Material deposited:
  A. Type of material
  B. Process of deposition
       - accidental, e.g. loss
       - intentional, e.g. burial or trash
2. Environment
  A. Climatic variables
       - Acidic, e.g. NE Woodlands
       - Arid, e.g. American SW; highland Andes
       - Wet, e.g. Submerged, frozen
  B. Depositional setting

Question 17

Depositional environments

Answer 17

1. Non-depositional (e.g. lakeshore)
2. “Accretions” (e.g. rockshelter)
3. Alluvial (e.g. floodplain)

Question 18

1. Non-deposition environment

Answer 18

Non-depositional (e.g. lakeshore)
E.g. typical non-depositional sole profile
- “O” horizon 0-5cm below ground surface = zone of organic (dark)
- “A” horizon 5-15cm = zone of leaching, organic breakdown
- “B” horizon 15-38cm = zone of accumulation, chemical alteration
> Iron ores (Colors)
- “C” horizon >38cm = zone of inactive sediment, “parent material”
> Most of the things wont get burial in depth > close to surface
> <10% artifact distribution 40cm below the ground surface
- Fire-cracked rock: heat up the rocks > put into water > rocks crack > disposal
- Postholes > how ppl are organized

Question 19

2. Accretional

Answer 19

Accretional (e.g. rockshelter)

- Little separation btw occupation

Question 20

3. Alluvial

Answer 20

Alluvial (e.g. floodplain)
- Winooski - Burlington bridge @1928 taken by a flood
- Anthropogenic: generally made by human / human activities
> e.g. dark lines in btw light soils layers > human activities
- Site: Milo, Maine, perfect floodplain per 5 hundred years
- Better preservation: preserved by sand layers
- Site Howe Farm, Winooski River Intervale: Logs down > erosion