Archeology > Chapter 1 > Flashcards

Chapter 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

Who’s credited with the first scientific excavation?

A

Thomas Jefferson- excavated burial mound

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2
Q

What did Jefferson find when he excavated the burial mound?

A

Human bones, tools. Saw that it was probably not a mythical race (lol) but NAs.

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3
Q

Pompeii (What erupted when? When was it discovered?)

A

Erupted in 79, Vesuvius erupted. Whole city remarkably well preserved. Rediscovered in 1748, art taken. Then archived

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4
Q

How were body forms preserved?

A

Filling cavities with plaster of paris

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5
Q

When was archeology truly established?

A

About 1850

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6
Q

WHat fields contributed to the birth of archeology?

A

Geology

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7
Q

Who created the theory of stratification?

A

James Hutton

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8
Q

Uniformitarianism

A

The idea that deposition of layers was due to an ongoing process

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9
Q

How did archeology start out? What change was there at the end of the 19th century? and who made this change?

A

Broad generalizations (Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Tylor) to more detailed descriptions (Franz Boas- historical particularism)

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10
Q

What happened after Historical particularism was rejected?

A

Leslie White and Julian Steward tried to find explanations for change

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11
Q

What does combining questions and methods create?

A

A chronology

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12
Q

What does the history of archeology entail?

A

History of ideas and ways of looking at the past and the history of employing those ideas and investigating questions

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13
Q

What were the common beliefs about how old the world was?

A

Until 200 years ago, most western people thought it was <6k years old

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14
Q

How long have humans been around? How long have we used tools for?

A

6 million years, 3 million

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15
Q

Homo erectus lived…

A

2 million years ago to a couple hundred years ago

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16
Q

What is homo erectus known for?

A

Simple stone tools

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17
Q

What is cumulative culture

A

What separates humans from animals- building up on the advances of others to create something complex enough no individual could do it on their own

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18
Q

Wgat is a universal of all cultures?

A

An origin story

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19
Q

What is an early precursor to a musuem?

A

Curio cabinet- collectoin of stuff that’s been collected as you’ve traveled.

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20
Q

Who did the first true excavation?

A

Thomas Jefferson

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21
Q

What was the first excavation of?

A

A native Amerivcan burial mound- wanting to see what was in it. Mounds looked manmade, tools found inside. Led to rejection of giants and tribe of israel creating them because nothing to support it.

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22
Q

When was archeology really settled as a field of study?

A

19th century. Advances made people able to study and ask about the past

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23
Q

What are 2 major advances that led to archeology ?

A

Acceptance of prehistory and natural selection as a means for evolution (knew about change over time already). Also that humans evolved! We wanted to know where we came from.

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24
Q

What were some of Darwin’s ideas in a nutshell?

Study These Flashcards
A

A population can expand infinitely, but environment limits frowth by the amount of available resources.
Organisms within a populatoin vary in their ability to survive and reproduce, and the ones that are able to do so well will pass their traits onto their offspring

25
Nomothetic research
Simple statements being applied generally
26
What was the 3rd major advance in archeology?
3 age system created by Thomsen. Used hills to show Danes ahve been in Denmark for a VERY long time. FOund lauers (old to new) of stone, bronze, and iron tools and created a chronology of them
27
Ethnography/geography
The study of ancient cultures to exploit indigenous groups. led to interviewing as a legitimate technique.
28
Classificatory historical period-
1850-1960, by Franz Boas. Focused on studying the development of chronologies and rapid advances in aids for archeology. Especially in dating.
29
How did the first archeologists work?
Picked a country and assembled general chronology
30
Idiographic archeologists
Specific topics of study. Unique, contingent, cultural/subjective phenomena of specific cultures. (Humanities style). Ideas, concepts, theories.
31
Nomothetic archeologists (sciences or humanities?)
General principles/laws. Sciences style
32
What was one of the most significant intellectual developments of the 19th century? WHo figured it out? What evidence was there?
That we have been around since before biblical times- Perths. Found human bones with bones of extinct animals
33
What discoveries led to the development of archeology as a science?
the antiquity of humankind, Darwin’s principle of evolution, and the Three Age System
34
What were the stages of human evolution, as proposed by Tylor and Morgan in the 1870s?
Savagery (primitive hunting) --> barbarism (simple farming) --> civilization ("highest" forms of society- super racist)
35
What did the rosetta stone do?
Provided the key to understanding egyptian heiroglyphics
36
Where was cuneifirom used?
Mesopotamia
37
Who found Troy? How?
Schliemann, Iliad.
38
What did Schliemann's techniques show? What was wrong with them?
Interpreting stratigraphy in a mound could let you show the past, but his methods were crude and cavalier
39
Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers field techniques
Making models, taking EVERYTHING
40
Wheeler technique
Created grid suqare method (square pits to keep layers intact)
41
1800s-1960
Classificatory historical period
42
What did Gorgon Childe ask?
To what period do the artifacts date? And with which other materials do they belong?
43
Diffusionist approach
richness of early urban societies being uncovered in West Asia means all advancements supposedly, had spread, or diffused, to Europe from West Asia by trade or by migrations of people
44
Who discovered Radiocarbon dating?
Willard Libby
45
Trace element analysis- what it is and who came up with it
Measures small amounts of trace elements- identifies materials they came from. Pittoni
46
What changes were there in hte 1960s with processural archeology?
Explaining the past, how changes happen, scientific approach (not jigsaw puzzle), answering specific, useful questions, quantitative useful data,
47
The knew archeology is aka
processual archeology
48
What change was there in the view of "influences" with the new archeology?
Treating each system (subsistence, etc) as its own field
49
What question did ethnoarcehology lead to?
To what extent should modern groups control archeological work on their forebears? Even if it goes back 20k years?
50
Post-positivist
Scientific method isn't inherently objective- it can accidentaly normalize one perspective and treat others as not the default
51
The phenomenological approach
Stresses individual experiences and how encountering material world shapes understanding of it.
52
The hermeneutic (or interpretive) view
Focuses on uniqueness of each society and culture and how we need to fully understand each. And everyone is entitled to their own perspective
53
The neo-Marxist element
We need to use what we find to change the present world.
54
Do interpretive approaches focus more on the individual or groups?
Individual- how different aspects of identity shaped who they were
55
Agency
Diversity of human motives shaped by social positions and roles
56
Postcolonial theory
Investigate the effects of European colonization on people across the globe, problematizing these encounters and examining local expressions of resistance and response.
57
Indigenous archaeologies
Include indigenous ethics, values, and agendas in theory and practice through collaboration and dialogue.
58
Materiality approaches recognize
Relationship between people and artifacts
59
Gender approaches are central to archaeological research on a wide range of topics from
identity and personhood in the past to crafting and the division of labor.
Archeology
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