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Study Notes

Chapter 10: Making Sense of Things

Typology involves ordering data, particularly large datasets, using categories.
Style is connected to aesthetics and technological aspects of forms and functions.
Analogy and Interpretation: Understanding the present helps interpret the past.
Ethnoarchaeology uses modern cultures to understand past cultures.
Experimental Archaeology creates past cultural items to learn about the past.
Material Analysis: Approaches understanding artifacts' compositions and use.
- Use-Wear analysis studies artifact wear to understand use.
- Compositional analysis examines artifact chemical composition.
- Mass Spectrometry measures the abundance of elements, including trace elements.
- Petrography describes and classifies rocks via their composition.
- X-Ray Fluorescence calculates chemical composition using emitted x-rays after bombardment.
- X-Ray Diffraction measures how electrons scatter electromagnetic waves.
- PIXE uses particle accelerators to study elements through emissions.
- SEM (scanning electron microscopy) reveals surface details and chemical composition.
- Neutron Activation Analysis induces radioactivity and measures gamma emissions for element identification.
Refitting is piecing together broken artifacts.
Artifact Biography describes an artifacts changing functions, meanings, and uses over time.
Reduction vs. Synthetic Techniques for stone tools, from knapping to grinding.
- Lithics are stone objects.
- Reduction Technology involves shaping stone by chipping.
- Chipped Stone Technology includes techniques like indirect percussion, pressure flaking, bipolar technique, and retouching.
- Ground Stone uses abrasion methods.
- Ceramics use synthetic techniques like slip and glaze production methods during pottery manufacturing. Firing techniques also shape ceramic products.

Chapter 11: Face to Face with the Past

Biological Anthropology studies human evolution and diversity.
Physical Anthropology examines the biology and evolution of humans.
Bioarchaeology applies biological approaches to archaeological study.
Ethics and permissions are crucial in conducting archaeological research.
Archaeothanotology investigates death practices and beliefs.
Paleodemography studies the population structure and changes.
Basic analysis of human bones involves determining sex, age at death, and specific skeletal features.

Chapter 12: Settlement, Subsistence, and Exchange

Settlement archaeology investigates settlement patterns, including primary, secondary, and tertiary refuse (and de facto).
Settlement patterns consider the sizes, locations, and characteristics of settlements.
Activity areas and trash are key elements to understand people's lives.
Multiscalar methods address different scales of analysis, like domestic groups, households, and neighborhoods.
Site boundaries and layouts provide information.
Regional settlement patterns focus on clusters or spread of settlements, including core-periphery patterns.
Central Place Theory describes how distribution and density of settlement occur.
Landscape archaeology examines the relationship between people and the environment.
Subsistence (Diet): examines the foods people consumed, which is understood via stable isotopes (C and N), dental wear, and pathologies. Paleobotanical and faunal remains are also considered.

Chapter 13: Meaning in Archaeology

Ideology and symbolism investigates the ideas and beliefs of past societies.
Ethnohistoric and ethnographic data draw parallels with contemporary cultures.
Material pattern investigates the relationship between materials and their meanings.
Memory of meanings and their evolution are considered.
Ahistorical contexts are investigated to understand the past from a broader perspective.
Writing systems, in the context of archaeological study, allow an understanding of the past and present cultures.
Community Archaeology emphasizes participation and collaboration with communities.
Decolonization involves incorporating knowledge of Indigenous societies.
Indigenous Archaeology looks at Indigenous practices and perspectives.