What is anthropology?
Study of humans and related species.
Biological variation is influenced by…
Genetics
Environmental forces
Bio cultural/cultural
What are the 4 major evolutionary forces?
- Gene flow
- Random genetic drift
- Natural selection
- Mutation
What is cultural variation?
The by product of learned behaviours
What are the 4 major subfeilds of anthropology?
- Social cultural
- Linguistics
- Physical/biological
- Archaeology
What are the 5 types of archaeology?
Prehistoric - related to prehistory
Classical - Rome and Greece
Historical - uses written records
Ethnoarchaeology - material cultural production
Zoo-archaeology - focused on living animals
What are the interests on archeologists?
- time period of human past
- recovery/analysis of artifacts etc
- special attention to context or provenience of artifacts
- material culture/sites used to enterprise culture variation and culture change
What is an artifact?
Any object modified by humans (stone tools, pottery)
What is an Eco fact?
Natural objects used or effected by humans (bones, seeds, pollen)
What is a feature
Artifacts too big to move/ soil disturbances, discolour from humans
What is a sight?
Geographic place showing evidence of past human activity
What is the process that archaeologist use
- locate potential site
- survey and map the site
- devise a sapling plan and excavate sample units
- after sample excavation can begin
- use a grid system
What is a datum point?
The point that everything is mapped off of
When does an excavation end?
When you hit sterile layers of ground
What kind of stuff can be a problem for archaeologists?
Intrusion of a soil, natural events, animal behaviour
What preserves and what doesn’t?
Preserves- stone, fired clay, bone, metal (less fragile)
Doesn’t- wood, plant fibres, leather (fragile)
What are extreme climates?
Very Hot dry Very cold dry Oxygen free sites -volcanic eruption -mudslides -peat bogs -under water
All are really good for preservation of artifacts
What is relative dating? And what are some problems of it
Conspiring on artifact to another to determine a timeline of which ones are older and younger (relative to each other)
Problems : doesn’t indicate: how long ago sequence began/how long it lasted
What is absolute dating?
Lab analysis of artifacts
Assigns a date in years
Consider absolute (give or take)
What kind of info can anthropologists use to reconstruct life in the past?
- Artifacts etc
- Environmental evidence and reconstruction
- human soft tissue and skeletal remains
Why is the human skeleton a good way to reconstruct past life?
Bone undergoes change and we live and age
What are osteoblasts? Osteoclasts?
Blasts- bone forming cells
Clasts - bone resorption cells
What can a human skeleton tell us about past life?
- Disease
- physiological stress, injury, violent death
- physical activity
- demographic history
- diet nutrition
Physical anthropologists can tell is what about the human skeleton
- age
- sex
- pre/post Mortem
