Chapter 2 notes

Question 1

Provenience

Answer 1

Location in matrix

Question 2

Primary context

Answer 2

In its original state

Question 3

Secondary context

Answer 3

Moved with natural forces or human activity

Question 4

Ecofact

Answer 4

Not an artifact, but organic/environmental remains

Question 5

What is taken in with site research?

Answer 5

Artifacts, organix remains, environmental remains

Question 6

Tell

Answer 6

A site with tons of layers

Question 7

Simple features can provide evidence for

Answer 7

Complex features

Question 8

Formation processes

Answer 8

How finds enter the archeological record. Includes determining nature of disturbances

Question 9

Cultural formation processes

Answer 9

Disturbances by humans, whether on purpose or not

Question 10

Natural formation processes

Answer 10

Forces of nature that govern burial/preservation (eg pompeii)

Question 11

The types of cultural formation processes are significant- are they the result of

Answer 11

typical behavior then or modern?

Question 12

What are the stages of tool/stuff making? Also used for evidence!

Answer 12

1. Getting raw material
2. Building what you need
3. Using/distributing
4. Discarding once worn out/broken

Question 13

What stage is it most common to find a stone tool in?

Answer 13

Broken/worn out

Question 14

What else gets buries?

Answer 14

Valuables! Especially during conflict. Could be that or as a sacrifice

Question 15

How do we know people believed in life after death then too?

Answer 15

Hoards/burials

Question 16

Does inorganic or organic stuff get preserved better?

Answer 16

Inorganic (never alive)

Question 17

What’s inorganic material?

Answer 17

Neber alive. Stone, clay, metal. Occasionally precious metals, lead, copper, bronze. P

Question 18

What corrupts metal?

Answer 18

Salt water

Question 19

What’s organic material? What gets preserved well?

Answer 19

Animal/plant remains and the materials that are derived from them (leather, textiles, food) Bones and teeth (most common human remains)

Question 20

Taphonomy

Answer 20

The study of what happened to artifacts between deposition and discovery

Question 21

Factors that affect survival

Answer 21

Matrix of surrounding material, local climate, natural disasters, organisms present, ph, waterlogged, etc

Question 22

What does acid destroy?

Answer 22

Bone iron, pottery

Question 23

What was the focus in the 40s-60s?

Answer 23

Creation of a culture history. Who was where when?

Question 24

Gordon Childe, 40s-60s

Answer 24

Wrote extensive chronologies but didn’t know how they were useful

Question 25

What scientific advances helped us understand what caused civilizations to rise and fall?

Answer 25

Carbon dating, material science, pottery. Chemistry stuff

Question 26

What turning point was there in the 60s that changed how we looked at archeology? Who inspired this?

Answer 26

Switched to team science, aka New Archeology (lewis Binford). Asks what it tells us about human condition. Also the worst dude you've ever met in your life.

Question 27

What was processural archeology?

Answer 27

Wanting to explain the past, not just describe it. Scientific, not just historical.

Question 28

What was foraging?

Answer 28

No cultivated plants/animals, constantly moving (residential mobility).

Question 29

How did inuits live?

Answer 29

Collector system. Logigistical mobility, few residentail moves. People would collect all the food they'd need for the year in just a few months- foraging parties get as much food as they can at different camps.

Question 30

What ideas were stolen from ecology?

Answer 30

Optimal foraging theory, spatial patterns of behacvior on landshcape. People will tend to make good choices when it comes to optimization.

Question 31

Ethnoarcheology

Answer 31

Making and testing models to explain behavior

Question 32

What else indicated how well inuits were doing?

Answer 32

How much marrow they harvested from bones- source of fat. If all bones broken, then they were doing poorly. Also, human bones...

Question 33

How is processural archeology conducted?

Answer 33

Start with a hypothesis, give proof for ideas

Question 34

What movement started in the 80s?

Answer 34

Post processural archeology. Looks at how self was organized, beliefs, etc. Bifford hated this.

Question 35

Interpretive archeologists-

Answer 35

Emphasis on varied perspectives of social groups, not everyone experiences the past the same way.

Question 36

Post positivist

Answer 36

We can make relations today better by understanding the past

Question 37

Neomarxist

Answer 37

SOcial awareness, focused on differences in the present world

Question 38

Phenomological

Answer 38

Personal experiences of the individual, with how material world shapes understanding of the world

Question 39

PRaxist (practive)

Answer 39

Role of the human agent and significance of actions in shaping social structure

Question 40

Interpretive and processual archeologists HATED each other- what resolution did they come to?

Answer 40

Both are important.

Question 41

Why does what gets preserved matter?

Answer 41

It shapes our understanding by giving us an incomplete picture what's left

Question 42

Where do we find most preserved remains? What conditions do they tend to be in?

Answer 42

Buried/underwater. Broken or discarded. Except for burials

Question 43

WHat can extend preservation time?

Answer 43

Temperature and humidity and natural disasters

Question 44

Are house types consistent within groups?

Answer 44

Yes

Question 45

WHat are some nonartifactural organic/environmental remains? What do these show?

Answer 45

Bones, plant remains, soils, sediments- what people ate and the conditions they lived under

Question 46

What determined where people lived?

Answer 46

Where they could grow food- food was/is wealth! If they could grow food, population would grow. If not, it stayed small, can't advance like more affluent socieities.

Question 47

What is found at archological sites?

Answer 47

At least one Artifacts, features, structures, organic/environmental remains. Could be one instance to long occupation.

Question 48

How do you determine the scale of a site?

Answer 48

The question you try to answer. Houses for dailu life, etc.

Question 49

What is the MOST important part of a find?

Answer 49

the context

Question 50

Why are some things hard to find?

Answer 50

They were rarely deposited in conditions that would facilitate their preservation

Question 51

How does fossilization in dinosaurs happen?

Answer 51

Minerals in water replace organix matter in bones. If they're not buried and in contact with water they won't fossilize.

Question 52

What body parts last longest and shortest?

Answer 52

Teeth, light, non weightbearing bones

Question 53

What conditions preserve stuff?

Answer 53

Ashfall, anoxic water, burial in sand/ash

Question 54

WHy is the differentiation between natural/cultral formation processes critical?

Answer 54

Need to know whether it was human behavior or not. Also, what gets destroyed/removed.

Question 55

Why are burials so great?

Answer 55

There are caches and hordes too- people like to bury people with a lot of stuff.

Question 56

In normal conditions, do organic or inorganic things get preserved better?

Answer 56

Inorganic. Organic stuff doesn't usually get preserved well unless climate allows for it.

Question 57

What regional materials allow for preservation?

Answer 57

Chalk, asphalt, salt, copper. Acids SUCC

Question 58

What environments/regions see preservation? What don't?

Answer 58

Tropical and temperate are bad. Natural disasters can be good. Organic stuff survives in extremeles with humidity- waterlogged, arid, and or frozen/