Topic 7: Reconstructing Environment

Question 1

Why do we reconstruct past environments? How do we do it?

Answer 1

• reconstruct past environments to know what people were adapting to, to know where to look for sites, and to reconstruct site formation and disturbance processes
• we do this with geoarchaeology

Question 2

What is sedimentology?

Answer 2

• the study of natural forces that explain how and why sediments move
• through things such as glacial till, fluvial movement, and eolian movement

Question 3

What is geomorphology? What do we need to recognize about the landscape?

Answer 3

• The study of landforms and the processes that shape them (broadscale changes over time)
• we need to recognize that the landscape is always changing, and that the landscape of the present is not the landscape of the past!
• this could be due to natural processes and human activites.

Question 4

what is paleoarchaeology? What are some of the proxies used?

Answer 4

• the study of plants and animals found in the past, and how they operate at a global and local level
• uses microfossils, macrofossils, animals (small and large)

Question 5

What is tree growth dependent on? Why is this information useful?

Answer 5

• tree ring growth is dependent on climate (temperature, sunlight, ect) and environment.
• this information is useful to determine tree age, and the climate and environment reconstruction of the area.

Question 6

What is palynology? Why is it important, what can it tell us?

Answer 6

Microbotanical study of pollen from the past.
- useful as it preserves very well in most environments, and can tell us the relative abundance on vegetation history and climate.
- can tell us the general trends in landscape over time, including when farming or agriculture was introduced to an area

Question 7

What are some examples of macrobotanicals?

Answer 7

• Seeds and fruits, plant residues, and remains of wood

Question 8

what is zooarchaeology?

Answer 8

• study of animal remains in the past
• it is the living landscape, and a key portion of processual archaeology

Question 9

What are microfauna? What are they good indicators of? why?

Answer 9

• microfauna= small animals such as rodents, birds, fish, insects ect.
• they are very good indicators of climate and environmental change, because many birds are migratory and show variation over time. Snail shells can be tested for calcium carbonate, indicating the environment, and insect entomology can show climatic and seasonal change over time

Question 10

what are macrofauna? Why ae they important?

Answer 10

• study of large animal remains.
• important cause it can provide a picture of past human diet

Question 11

What is subsidence and diet? what is the focus?

Answer 11

• subsidence studies plant or animal remains based on what communities ate- essentially what humans ate in the past based on social structure (agriculturists, hunter gatherers, ect)
• diet refers to long term eating habits.
• there was no “one” common diet in prehistoric times, what humans ate reflected where they lived and what resources were available to them.

Question 12

differences between generalized foragers (hunter-gatherers), specialized foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture

Answer 12

Generalized foragers = subsistence based on wide variety of plants and animals. No reliance on any particular source
Specialized foragers = subsistence based on wide variety of plants and animals, but primary dependence on a single resource
Pastoralism = subsistence based on the herding of animals
Horticulture = subsistence based on plant cultivation, using only hand tools
Agriculture = intensive plant cultivation, often with the aid of animals and irrigation

Question 13

What are the 5 pieces of evidence we use to reconstruct diet?

Answer 13

1. plants remains in cultural context
2. animal remains in cultural context
3. residues on artifacts
4. human waste
5. human soft tissue

Question 14

What is domestication? some of the characteristics of domesticated plants?

Answer 14

• domestication is the selected breeding of plants to produce desirable traits
  characteristics include: indehiscence (seeds remain on stalk), gigantism, synchronous maturation, ect.

Question 15

What evidence of faunal remains can tell us if domestication occurred/what kind of domestication occurred?

Answer 15

• Prescence of animals outside their normal range
• large numbers of young suggest culling
• different ratios of male: female tells us milking vs. meat herds
• teeth crowding is often a sign of domestication
• overall size, smaller animals are signs of domestication

Question 16

What are some of the ways humans use animals?

Answer 16

• nutritional needs (diet, meat, milk, ect)
• non-food parts (wool, hide, fur) to provide clothing, shelter, tools, ect
• labor (“working animals”) for hunting, gathering, fishing, herding, transport
• pets!
• cultural attributes, such as ritual use

Question 17

Why are coastlines and caves important sources of information for archaeologists?

Answer 17

• Caves are very good at conserving evidence of human activity and local climate and environment
• coastlines are effected by isostatic uplift, can tell us where we can find site locations

Question 18

How do archaeologists reconstruct climate?

Answer 18

• Palynology (pollen study) can tell us climate history in an area
• Tree-rings can tell us climate and environment, as it is dependent on climate.
• cave sediments can also tell us about changes in climate.
• microfauna (small animals) are also good indicators of climate and environmental change

Question 19

How do archaeologists reconstruct the plant environment?

Answer 19

• using palynology! Pollen study preserves well and provides relative information on the vegetation history and climate.

Question 20

How does site bias influence how we interpret diet?

Answer 20

• in all societies there are differences in diet from one part of the group to another.
• dietary difference provides information about class structure or political structure
• we have to make sure we are not just using one sample to interpret the diet of the entire society.

Question 21

What is isostatic uplift?

Answer 21

When sea levels are low and water is locked up in continental glaciers, land beneath the sea ice sheets is depressed by the weight of the glaciers. When glaciers melt, sea levels rise, but so do the land where it was once depressed. This is a type of N-transform!

Question 22

what is paleoecology?

Answer 22

the ecology of fossil plants and animals.

Question 23

What is flotation?

Answer 23

type of macrobotanical recovery, where in water light materials will float and is caught in sieves, and heavier material’s are caught in mech.

Question 24

What is Seasonality?

Answer 24

• how the availability of certain plants and animals can vary along seasons

Question 25

What is Bloomplaas cave?

Answer 25

- cave in south Africa, with human occupation dating back 70 thousand years. Shows us some of the worlds earliest cave drawings

Question 26

What is paleoethnobotany?

Answer 26

- combines information from the archaeological record with information from modern uses of plant remains - use modern human behaviour to model prehistoric human behaviour

Question 27

Mercader et al. (Chimp study)

Answer 27

- study that proved crude stone tools excavated in Africa were made by chimps, not humans

Question 28

What is indehiscence? Gigantism? Rachis?

Answer 28

Indehiscence: Seeds remain on stalk (tougher rachis, so the seeds do not burst and scatter) Gigantism: Larger seeds produced