Archaeological Practice: Historical and Theoretical Shifts

Unit 1

• Deals with major historical and theoretical shifts that shaped archaeological practice from the 17th through the 20th centuries
• Focuses on the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the 19th century
• Studies the relationship between theory and method in 19th and 20th century archaeology

Key Words

• Enlightenment Paradigm: Philosophical movement in the 17th-18th century, which called for systematic reasoning in all fields and recognized human culture and society as legitimate subjects of rational inquiry
• Science of Nature: Applied field geology and uses natural sciences like geology, biology, physics, and chemistry to study past environments and human interactions
• Stratigraphy: The study and interpretation of layers and deposits at a site, involving analysis to understand the chronological sequence of events and the context they provide about human activity, climate, and construction techniques
• Law of Superposition: States that sedimentary layers are deposited in a time sequence, with the oldest layer at the base and the youngest at the top, essential for reconstructing chronological patterns
• Law of Uniformitarianism states that deposits form via processes observable today, suggesting natural processes behave similarly to the past and will continue to do so
• Material Culture and Culture Change is the belief that ancient Greece and Rome held the key to social order, leading to discoveries about history and culture of the Mediterranean
• Antiquarianism is the study of antiquities by antiquaries (gentlemen scholars) through collecting antiquities and curiosities, paralleling natural science's rise
• Three Age System: Divides prehistory into Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, interpreted through the lens of Western technological progress
• Antiquity of humankind: 19th-century scholars connected tools with extinct animals
• Brixham Cave, UK: Royal Society of Antiquaries tested the association between stone tools and extinct fauna; a stalagmite layer sealed archaeological deposits, establishing human "pre-history"
• Darwinian Evolution explains evolution by natural selection; retention of beneficial traits leads to change
• Cultural Evolution theorizes that all human societies progress through fixed stages, such as Savagery-Barbarism-Civilization-Decadence
• Moundbuilders: The Cahokia tribe in Illinois built mounds and earthworks; there was an attempt to recast Native American burial mounds as a "non-indian race" from Europe/Asia
• Theory: Intellectual frameworks archaeologists use to interpret data
• Culture Historical Archaeology assumes similar artifacts in different sites indicate one culture and groups historical societies into cultural/ethnic groups based on material culture to establish chronologies/migration patterns, where culture changes by migration/diffusion
• Cultural Relativism indicates there is no universal standard to judge human progress
• Historical Particularism: Each culture is a product of unique historical circumstances
• Migration: The movement of people from one geographic location to another
• Diffusion: The process where cultural traits, ideas, or material items spread from one society to another
• Time/Space systematics: Organizes cultural units within a temporal and spatial framework, interpreted as migration or diffusion of ideas
• Processual Archaeology studies objects reflect social/ecological processes and seeks to understand cultural change through its causal variables
• Culture/Adaptation: Culture is the shared beliefs, practices, and material items defining a group at a time/place; adaptation describes changing to better suit an environment
• Post-Processual Archaeology embraces theoretical viewpoints: material culture as symbolic, individuals/agency, and societal categories embedded in power relationships
• Primary goals of archaeology: To define Time, Space and Form

Unit 2

• Focuses on the importance of "context" in archaeological research
• Details the major methods applied in regional survey and archaeological excavation
• Studies how archaeologists make inferences about the past using middle range theory

Key Words

• Archaeological context: 3D relationship of material remains
• Association: Things found together in the same context were used together, and record a pattern of behavior, thus non-random - patterned human behavior
• Assemblage: Reflect patterned human activities found within the same archaeological context
• Site: Location of past cultural activity; a defined space with more or less continuous archaeological evidence
• Region: Defined area containing multiple archaeological sites, sharing a degree of cultural, environmental, or historical connection
• Regional Survey: Records distribution of artifacts and features across the landscape
• Pedestrian Survey: Done on-foot/horseback to record visible sites; if not clear, use sample units (surface collections, test pits, auguring)
• Remote Sensing: Uses different methods to detect sites from above, such as aerial photos, drones with sensors and satellite images
• Site Survey: Following the discovery of a site, this is employed to reveal its horizontal structure
• Sub-Surface Testing: When visibility is difficult, use indices of human activity to evaluate sites prior to excavation, such as Artifact densities, Soil chemistry, and Ph, phosphate
• Site survey methods: Surface survey methods like mapping surface features, 3D scanning, aerial photogrammetry and LIDAR
• Geophysical Survey: Features cause small disturbances in the earth's magnetic field, detectable with magnetometers
• Soil resistivity: Measuring electrical resistance in the soil to affected features and then mapping it
• Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR): Sending a radar signal into the ground, subsurface features reflect signals back to a receiver
• Excavation: Undertaken to reveal the subsurface configurations
• Arbitrary Levels: 10-20 cm, used when Invisible stratigraphy is used
• Natural Levels: Unit excavated according to archaeological stratigraphy i.e. real deposition units
• Shovel Test Pits: Quick assessment via 0.5 m or less test holes
• Test Units/ Trenches: Squares/trenches archaeologists dig into to examine a site's subsurface to identify changes through time
• Block Excavations: Provide a snapshot of activities across a site at one point in time
• Sampling: Archaeologists rarely excavate or survey site in their entirety, hence seek a sample of data that is representative
• Judgement Sampling: Focused on a series of key features characteristic of classic cities
• Systematic Sampling: Units evenly spaced. Useful for identifying patterns in artifact distributions
• Random Sampling: Units randomly spaced. Best method for gaining “representative” sample
• Formation Processes: Studying how things move, and are transformed as they move, from systemic contexts to archaeological contexts.
• Archaeological Context: Static material record in the present
• Systemic Context: Dynamic human actions in the past.
• Behavioral Processes: Represent stages of behavior, what specific kinds of behavior the data/material reflect
• Site Formation Processes: Conditions/events that affect material remains, from termination of use, to recovery
• Natural Actions: Differential preservation: Extremely wet conditions, dry, or cold climates encourage preservation
• Human Actions: Reclamation: Neo-druids at Stonehenge, UK. Reuse: House made from two old shipping containers
• Archaeological Inference: Establishing bridging arguments that link the dynamic actions of the past to their material correlates in the present

Unit 3

• Focuses on the importance of chronology and dating in archaeology
• Details the main methods associated with "relative" dating
• Details the main methods associated with "absolute" dating

Key words

• Time-Space Systematics: Chronology building
• Relative Dating: Places artifacts/contexts in a relative context
• Stratigraphy: Involves analyzing deposits at a site to understand the chronological sequence of events
• Sequences: Chronological sequence- the arrangement of events or artifacts in the order they occurred
• Typologies: Artifact typologies based on visible or measurable differences in form, material or decoration
• Morphological Types: Typology category grouped based on physical characteristics and external features
• Index Fossils / Temporal Types: A time-sensitive morphological type ie. Artifacts typical of a limited “span of time”
• Cross-Dating: Determining age of an artifact/site by comparing its characteristics with those of other artifacts/sites whose ages are known
• Nels Nelson at San Cristobal: Stratigraphic excavation through undifferentiated midden trash
• Traditions: Artifact assemblages that are enduring over time
• Horizons: Artifact assemblages that are brief in time, but spread quickly across large areas
• Stylistic Seriation: Orders artifacts and attributes according to similarity in style
• Flinders Petrie at Diospolis Parva: He excavated hundreds of prehistoric tombs to invent stylistic seriation to order the tombs in time
• Frequency Seriation: Assumes that frequencies of temporal types change over time in response to changing fashions
• Deetz & Dethlefson's Gravestone Seriation: 1970s, a test of seriation that looks at stylistic change in colonial grave markers
• Limits on Relative Dating: In seriation, which end is up: Stratigraphy or absolute dating needed to determine this
• Absolute Dating: Various methods to find the specific age of an object
• Historic Dates: Pinpoint a specific calendar year for an archaeological site, using written historical records/dated artifacts
• Terminus Post Quem: The date after which a layer must have been deposited
• Terminus Ante Quem: The date before which a layer must have been deposited
• The Egyptian Standard Chronology: Egypt’s historical references regarding each king allows historical chronology reconstruction
• Cross-Dating in the Mediterranean: Mycenaean Greek pottery found in Egypt
• Historic Artifact Dating: Historical archaeologists often excavate sites that are shallow stratigraphically or single component
• Stan South Ceramic Dating: Using TPQ/TAQ, the earliest date of the latest artifact + latest date of the earliest artifact to date a feature
• Tobacco Pipe Dating: It was observed that bowl shapes in the Americas and elsewhere changed over time, thus methods to absolute dates using pipestems
• James Deetz at Flowerdew Hundred: Focused on pipe stems
• Dendrochronology: Trees lay down annual growth rings; sensitive species rings are variable width related to amount of rainfall and climate
• Dendrochronology at Betatakin, AZ: Houses constructed with pine and fir beams allows chronological control of building phases
• Radiocarbon Dating: Dating with radiocarbon, an unstable radioactive carbon isotope
• C14 Half life: Each isotope decays at a specific rate: Half-life
• BP vs BC/AD: BP - years before present. “Present” is fixed at 1950
• The Bristlecone Pine Calibration: Assess if carbon dioxide had been the same in the past 10k years
• Colin Renfrew and the European Megaliths: Radiocarbon dating indicated building was earlier than expected
• Potassium - Argon Dating: Measures ratio between argon and potassium in rocks allows the calculation of the last date of heating
• Thermoluminescence (TL) Dating: Reheated radiation is released proportionally to how much from when was last fired

Unit 4

• Focuses on the importance of archaeology for reconstructing human-environmental relationships in the past
• Details the different approaches of methodologies associated with environmental archaeology like zooarchaeology, paleoethnobotany and etc
• Focuses on how environmental archaeologists quantify biological remains

Key Words

• Zooarchaeology: Focuses on the study of animal remains with archaeological aims
• Paleoethnobotany: Analysis of ancient plant remains
• Recovery Methods: Various techniques/procedures used to locate, excavate, and collect artifacts from a site
• Analytical Methods: Scientific techniques used to examine/analyze materials- radiocarbon dating, stratigraphy, and interpretation of the specimens
• Comparative collection: Curated assemblages of modern artifacts/specimen
• Taxon: Group of artifacts or animal remains
• Element: A single, identifiable component of an archaeological site
• NISP: Number of identified specimen
• MNI: Minimum Number of Individuals in a set of bones
• The role of Middle Range Theory: Bridge between observable archaeological data, and broader theoretical interpretations regarding human behavior
• Cultural Modifications: Bone modifications provide valuable information on the culinary practices in the past
• Taphonomic Processes: The natural processes affecting remains from death to recovery
• Slave Subsistence: Slaves adopted other strategies to fill the gaps, that being Livestock management, Gardens, Hunting & Trapping, and Theft
• The "Livestock Thesis": Provisioned - food provided by master, Produced - food produced by enslaved laborers in slave quarters, and Procured - food collected/hunted in the wild by enslaved laborers
• Cannon's Point Georgia: Identified wild fauna
• Jefferson's Monticello: Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson, family, and slaves.
• Element Quality: High & low quality parts of the animal
• Swahili Cuisine: Focused on the archaeological evidence of daily food
• Lipid Residue Analysis method that archaeologists study fatty residues (lipids) to ID what was stored
• Songo Mnara: An archaeological site of daily food

Week 5 Keywords

• Bioarchaeology: The scientific study of human remains
• Demography: Age at death/ expectancy, sex relations, kinship
• Mortality/ Epidemiology: Pathological alterations, infectious diseases
• Skeletal Identification: Focuses on the identification of bones
• Sex Determination: Focuses on morphology, differences in skull and pelvis
• Age Determination: Structural changes of the pubic symphysis surface
• Trauma/pathology:
• Harris Lines: Zones of increased mineralization
• Paleodemography: The function of burial site and studies life expectancy
• Molecular Anthropology: Techniques to study the genetic and evolutionary relationships
• Ancient DNA: Degraded DNA from old
• Stable Isotope Analysis and Diet: Examines chemical signatures due to environment, culture, trade to identify any changes in diet
• Stable Isotope Analysis and Origin/Mobility: Oxygen isotopes in human bone based on geography, climate, and altitude
• Trophic levels: Trophic levels describe the flow of energy in an ecosystem

Week 6 Keywords

• Economy: A society's method to satisfy society, that being Production, Exchange, Consumption, and Goods and services
• Production: Actions that incorporate objects into human social life
• Value (Utilitarian & Symbolic): Utilitarian = pottery, tools and symbolic = cowrie shells
• Commodities: “objects of value” exchanged for others
• Exchange: Moves products through society
• Reciprocity: Relationships of mutual obligation and dependency
• Redistribution: Surplus is gathered by a person, corporate group, or government.
• Markets: Traditional Markets: locales for exchange
• Moundville, Alabama: Alabama platform mounds
• Hascherkeller: Specialized metallurgical production
• Uruk Bevel-Rimmed Bowls: Measurement of barley and oil as rations to laborers
• Artifact Composition Studies: Chemical characterization studies focusing on the artifacts from the North American region.
• Economic specialization in Ancient Maya elite households: Many specialized in intellectual/artistic endeavors
• Mayan Mano / Metate production: Used primarily to grind maize into dough
• Figurine production in Teotihuacan: Figurines made with molds
• Obsidian trade at Teotihuacan: Large-scale obsidian workshops, made blades
• Rio Grande Glaze Wares: Signify technological advancement in ceramics production
• Tijeras Pueblo: Archaeologists uncovered obsidian, turquoise, pottery, and shell artifacts, indicating trade
• Petrographic analysis: It consists on the study related to material composition
• Lead Isotope Analysis: Focuses to identify metal objects

Week 7 Keywords

• Residential Groups: Domestic families/households/community-level villages
• Household: People who live and often work together
• Nuclear Family: Group of people in ties of partnership
• Non-Residential Groups: Do not live together
• Community: Defined relationships at the residential and non-residential levels
• Social Status: Rights, duties, privileges, powers, and liabilities
• Social Organization: Focuses between Mobile hunter-gatherers and ranked societies
• Identifying the Status of Individuals: It is distinguished by differences in burial
• Identifying the Status of Households: Identify domestic spaces/residential groups
• Household Archaeology: focuses on the household as a social unit
• Southern Plantation Landscapes: Architectural differences: Main house/Slave
• Maya Households: Single room oval homes, shared areas would
• Roman Households/Familia: It focused on more than just the basic family

Week 8 Keywords

• Ideology: Culturally specific ideas for the way of life
• Religion: Aspect of ideology to understand human relationship
• Symbols: Spoken utterances to create meaningful artifacts
• Art: Social life practices
• Practice: Ideologies are conceptual, transmitted by the way we produce + experience it
• Paleolithic Art: expresses core symbols
• Lascaux: UNESCO World Heritage Site
• Altimira: Place where cave paintings of the Paleolithic were discovered
• Portable Art: Small prehistoric art pieces that could be carried from place to place
• Sympathetic Magic: Actions based on belief
• Ideology and Culture Change: Early colonial houses
• Vernacular Architecture: Design + tradition of local builders
• Anglo-American Foodways: Medieval mindset - group oriented/corporate/organic
• Georgian Foodways: Emphasize symmetry, order
• New England Tombstones: 3 motifs: Deaths head, cherub, urn and willow
• Death’s Head design: Earthly, mortal, focused on the end of life
• Cherub design: Hopeful, spiritual, afterlife
• Urn + Willow design: Spiritually neutral, achievements
• Medieval worldview: Communal food sharing
• Georgian worldview: Masters and servants lived together

Week 9 Keywords

• Folsom, New Mexico and Deep History: 1927, spear point + ice-age bison bones- in Brixham cave
• Archaeology & Heritage Law
• Antiquities Act (1906): All artifacts/remains on Federal Lands- property of Gov't
• National Historic Preservation Act (1966): Gov't must consider impacts of any undertaking on historic sites
• Native American Repatriation Movement: 1960-70s; activism w/ treatment + deposition
• NAGPRA (1990): Protects Indian remains on federal + tribal lands, recognizes tribal authority, Prohibits commercial selling
• Cultural Patrimony: Collective tangible/intangible cultural assets
• Consultation w/ Indigenous + Descendant Communities: Perspectives + rights respected, Post – Processual Critique
• New York African Burial Ground: Hit remains of free + enslaved Africans, deep distrust
• Ethical Issues in Archaeology
  • Treatment of remains
  • Ownership of artifacts
• Who Owns History? - sparked legal battle
• Kennewick Man: 9,000 year old + debate of who controls remains
• NAGPRA Repatriation: inventory + requires repatriate human remains