ARCH 271 Final Exam Study PDF

**[ARCH 271 Final Exam Study ]** **Terms** [Theories, Hypothesis and Law]: How knowledge is accrued and evaluated through the scientific method. Theory is about the way we structure things; learn how to determine your own personal archaeological biases [Epistemology]: Understanding how we come to...

**[ARCH 271 Final Exam Study ]** **Terms** [Theories, Hypothesis and Law]: How knowledge is accrued and evaluated through the scientific method. Theory is about the way we structure things; learn how to determine your own personal archaeological biases [Epistemology]: Understanding how we come to know something [Speculation]: Theories that are not yet supported by observations. Original ideas, the sources of advances in science and new understandings of things. Einstein said that only daring speculation and not accumulation of facts can lead us further; it is essential to any science. [Inference]: Logically derived interpretation of data. Derived through examination of data interpreted through the lens of theory. Always associated with a level of uncertainty. [Facts]: What we are striving to obtain. Proven facts are often very rare and often very mundane. [Description vs. Explanation] - Description: What, When, Who - Explanation: How, Why - We don't have all the answers in the how and why things happened - Need to be more open minded - Archaeology not perfect science, but can gather data and talk about the possibilities - It's irresponsible to claim things as fact when they are actually just theory [Arguments (not proofs)] - There are simple things that we can prove but how and why are harder or impossible to prove - About constructing arguments and creating cohesive theory - Support the interpretation or argument rather than trying to prove - New data will require ideas to be tweaked or abandoned - Proof very rare in most sciences [Evolution]: The gradual development and change of something, particularly from a simple form to a more complex form [Biological Evolution]: - The gradual development and change of living organisms Much of this rooted in the fossil record - Also witnessed evolution in labs and in ordinary life (such as COVID) - Evolution is a FACT not a THEORY - The theoretical element is in explaining the how [Anthropomorphizing and Anthropocentricism :] - Care should be taken not to do either of these things - Anthropomorphize: Attribute human characteristics or behaviour to an animal or object - Anthropocentrism: The belief that humans are the most exceptional and important of all animals, and are unique in the animal kingdom [Archaeology Defined:] - The Study of human cultural activities through the analysis of material remains - About identifying your perspective and being clear on the parameters of it -- fining expectations and biases - Includes a wide variety of regional, topical, and theoretical perspectives which are united by a common set of methods - We know there is more than one valid perspective, but it is largely united by common set of methods **\ ** **Concepts** [Taphonomy:] - Taphonomy is the understanding of site formation processes - What has been removed from the archaeological record? - What events and processes produced this assortment of artifacts, features, and sediments? - Cultural Factors: C-transforms - Natural Factors: N-transforms -- adding, moving, changing things - Michael Schiffer (Maxwell studied with him) [Taphonomic Processes:] - Biotic Processes: Environmental processes that create a community of animals and plants - Thanatic Processes -- causes of death - Perthotaxic Processes -- processes that affect remains after death but before burial - after plant and animal remains after death lying on the ground -- wind, rain, animals - Taphic factors --factors associated with the burial itself - landslide, windblow, active human burials - Anataxic -- cycles of erosion / disturbance and redeposition - rodents bringing things to the surface - Sullegic factors: factors associated with the excavation processes of an archaeological assemblage - Trephic -- destructive factors associated with handling, analysis, and curation - associated with the things that happen in the laboratory -- positive and negative, but largely destructive [Site Formation: Transformation] - Conditions of the bones excavated sample more likely to yield natural factors over cultural ones - Archaeological record is a small fraction of the information that was once there [C- Transforms:] - Deliberate or accidental activities of human beings that affect the deposition of material remains (artifacts, features, and ecofacts) - Examples: building construction, disposal of trash, human burial, artifact loss [N-Transforms:] - Natural events, agents, and processes that influence the burial and preservation of archaeological remains - Examples: wind, water, sun, sedimentation, soil chemistry, rodent burrowing, insect activity, micro-organisms (mold and bacteria) [Stratification:] - Born out of Geology - Fundamental that this theory is correct - Layers on the bottom are older than the layers above it - Often not quite as simple as it sounds -- various things that can interrupt layers because of digging/ filling, rodents digging down, or water seepage, earthquakes can filter and sort materials -- burrowing insects can also do this -- randomizes the stuff [Association:] - Association relies on stratification in many respects - Relies on not having a lot of disturbance -- sometimes the data contradicts the stratigraphy - Heavy disturbance can mix the levels up -- needs to be scrutinized - Always possible for things to move up and down in the layers - Remember the Law of Association -- but remember that it's a theory rather than a law - Collections that go into museums get sorted -- be aware that older collections may have been assumed to be the same cultural context based on stratigraphy which may not be accurate - The Law of Association -- Objects found together in the same discrete archaeological context (such as a pit, a floor deposit, a grave) must all be similar in terms of their cultural significance (function, use, value, disposal practice, etc.) provided that the artifacts have a similar taphonomic history and that there has been no substantial disturbance of the site deposits since the artifacts were originally deposited [Analogy:] - A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification - Examples: 'an analogy between the modern experimental replication and use of a tool and the creation and use of that type of tool in ancient society', 'an analogy between ethnographically documented cultural activities and ancient cultural activities among people living in similar circumstances' - Some analogies are better than others - Can just be replicating preconceptions rather than learning anything new - A process of arguing from similarity in known respects to similarity in other respects - In part Binford was engaging in a big debate -- Style vs. Function - Different functions, styles, or functional types? - Lehman and Lochnore named for the sites they were first found (Analogy) - Initially thought to be two distinct groups of people; eventually others felt they were variations of same tool type - 3^rd^ interpretation -- radically different function -- the Lehman for terrestrial animals, the Lochnore for Marine [Arguments from Analogy:] - Middle range theory - Lewis Leakey -- Primate research - Fossey, Goodall, Galdikas - Challenges the idea that culture is uniquely human (Primatology) - A process of arguing from similarity in known respects to similarity in other respects )The Behaviour of social animals in our modern world may be similar to the behaviour of the early ancestors of humans or The Behaviour of modern primates is likely similar to the behaviour of our ancient ancestors) [What can animal behaviour tell us about early human behaviour?] - Debate about using apes as analogous to humans - Humans are not as distinct as once thought - Are there other things we can learn about culture through studying animal behaviour - Only now accepting that animals have cultures - Culture vs. Instinct - Communication - Learned behaviour - Transmission of culture - Social organization and adaptation - Cultural Evolution [Ethnographic Analogy]**:** - Stronger analogy - Lewis Binford - Strongest on building middle range theory - Realised there was a big gulf in the archaeological record - He began this argument in the 60s trying to deal with complexity of paleo artifacts -- were they different cultural traditions of just variations in seasonally driven activities? Lived with them for years and recorded their activities. Also observed material remnants left behind when they moved on - He talked about 2 different strategies -- not covering that - Can compare your own assemblage with Binford's - Image shows seating plan while flint knapping; how things are scattered and tossed around - Study the Seating plan to identify lithic scatters - Schiffer most critical of Binford's approach as naïve -- unlikely that site was only used once so there could be overlapping patterns - Model like this can be more useful in determining how many occupations - Mask Site - Does have some usefulness, Binford aware of limitations to his approach such as winds, toss and drop zones [The Mousterian Question:] - Bordes argued that Europe was occupied by multiple groups - Binford felt that is might be seasonal activities- summer, and winter toolkits - Most lean towards Binford [Midwestern Taxonomic System:] - Trying to break the archaeological record into finer and finer components - MTS -- largely abandoned now - McKern - We still have a few of these terms -- component (group of artifacts that comes from specific context or specific site) - Phase also -- regional variation of a cultural tradition reflect slight variations in a cultural region [Culture:] - Cultural Tradition -- occurring through time - Cultural Horizons extend through space -- it's widespread rather than long-lasting - Where they meet is a phase - Binford took a pretty radically different approach - Binford's real question: What does variation really represent? - How homogeneous are cultures? [Cultural Norms:] - Rules or expectations of behaviour based on the shared beliefs within a specific cultural or social group - While often unspoken, norms offer social standards for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour that govern what is and what is not acceptable in interactions among people - How strong are they and do they even exist at all - Binford argued that it's an assumption that we shouldn't make - Lots of examples of cultural norms around and can be identifiers of cultural groups - Raising, hand, how you greet, eye contact, clothing, masks, manners [A Normative View of Culture:] - Cultura Norms are behaviour patterns that are typical of a specific cultural group - In all societies the vast majority of people will behave in ways that reflect Cultural Norms - In most cases societies are very conservative, in the sense that Cultural Norms tend to remain stable for long periods of time (lasting multiple generations). - Cultural norms tend to limit cultural change. That is they make individual member of a community reluctant (both consciously and subconsciously) to change the way things are done. - Cultural Norms 'drive' cultural traditions and reinforce cultural distinctions - Conservative in this sense means that they remain stable over long period of time; masks example of it changing rapidly thought - Egypt culture practiced for thousands of years for example (conservative) [The Three Age System:] - Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age - Crude early frameworks to classify material culture - Sometimes a copper age and ages of alloyed metals - Based in the notion that things change and become more complex - Evolution is an additive process not replacement [Natural Selection:] - The primary mechanism for evolution - "The process whereby organisms that are better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring" - Producing more offspring ensures that the next generation have the traits better adapted to the environment - Fur colour of rabbits is fundamental to survival - Evolution creates diversity - Natural selection removes 'unfit' adaptations - Overproduction, Variation, Selection, Adaptation - Genetic mutation occurring naturally in variations [Biological Fitness:] - Survival, Reproduction, Sexual Selection, Kin Selection - Reproduction also about securing a mate, safety for your offspring, and obviously birthing babies - Increased reproduction has more dramatic effect on next generation - Sexual selection -- peacock having some type of advantage -- maybe the eyes? - Peahens compete for the best males, so they have other selective pressures - Rams smashing heads and some are sneaking around and impregnating females while the alphas are trying to kill each other [Kin Selection:] - Theory predicts that animals are more likely to behave altruistically towards their relatives than towards unrelated members of their species - Connected to altruism behaviours - Possibly promotes the success of their own gene pool [Survival of the Fittest:] - Individuals that have 'adaptive traits' are more likely to survive and reproduce - Individuals that have maladaptive traits are more likely to die before they reproduce and so that trait dies out - Also includes developing technologies that give an advantage over their neighbours - Gets manipulated a lot in politics: 'strong will prevail and the weak will die off' mentality - Fitness isn't just about strong, it could be intelligent, sneaky, resourcefulness etc [Eugenics:] - The practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits - British scholar Sir Francis Galton coined the term in 1883 in his book, 'Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development' - Became common amongst European and North American government policies of the early 20^th^ Century - From 1909 to 1979, around 20 K sterilizations occurred in California state mental institutions under the guise of protecting society from the offspring of people with mental illness - Involuntary sterilizations in Alberta and BC began in early 1930s and increased between 1945 and the late 1960s - Many sterilizations were forced and performed on minorities - The Alberta sterilization laws were repealed when the Conservative government led by Peter Lougheed came to office in 1971; BC legislation was repealed in 1973 under the NDP government led by Dave Barrett - In the mid 1990s, the Alberta government began the process of apologizing and offering compensation to victims of involuntary sterilization. The BC government did the same, but only when ordered to do so by the Supreme Court in 2006. [Cultural Evolution via 'Genes and Memes':] - Natural selection of adaptive cultural traits - Natural rejection of maladaptive cultural traits - Biological, cognitive, and functional selection mechanisms - Sources of variation: Mutation, Experiences, Ideas (invention), and Idiosyncratic Behaviour (genius and insanity) - Memes in addition to Genes [What is a Meme?] - From the Greek mimema, meaning imitated - The term Meme 'conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation' (Dawkins 1976) - An idea, behaviour, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture - A unit of cultural information spread by imitation - A replicator - Genes and Memes function the same way - They are both replicators that compete with alternative forms and undergo natural selection - Both entitities spread through the population, sometimes remaining stable and sometimes undergoing mutation - Memes are replicators that use the mind as a vehicle of their own [Dual Inheritance Theory:]  - Natural selection may favour cognitive capacities that cause individuals to learn preferentially from more successful individuals - Individuals are biased to interact with people who share the same behaviours as themselves. - Ideas and genes simultaneously influencing behaviour - Natural selection is key to evolutionary change [Ecological Models:] - Optimal Foraging theory -- what / where to eat, when to move - Predator / Prey relationship models - Environmental systems models - Anthropocene models [Optimal Foraging Theory:] - Genetically fit animals naturally maximize returns of energy and nutrients - Three Components: Diet breadth / prey choice model, Path choice / time allocation model, group size model - It's time to move when the food available from the current patch is less than the average food available from nearby patches minus relocation costs [Binary Opposition:] - Structuralism - A lot of the analysis is being done on literature - First step is seeing the opposition, next is how they align (what column do they go into) - This is where our stereotypes and biases come from - Positive on one side negative on the other -- leads to putting people in those columns too - Archaeology uses this for classification of remains - The Raw and the Cooked - Not a universal opposition; reflective of a group he was studying in the Amazon - Its all relative -- cultural norms play a role in determining these dialectics - Starting point for discussion and analysis - Male vs Female example reflective of attitudes of the 50's - Been applied to Anthropology of the past as well as Archaeology - Agriculture was an ideological shift and became part of the system of binary thinking Crops vs wild plants -- started to see themselves as distinctive and different from the world around them - H-G wouldn't have separated themselves from the world in that way - HGs have deep spirituality that centres around the natural world; settled people developed Gods that are human-like -- dramatic transformation in religion - Using structuralism is about finding where the transformations occur and the creation of these binary oppositions [Binary Oppositions -- Diachronic Analysis:] - Kent Flannery saw patterns of circles or squares/rectangles - HG lived with circles -- housing, landscape, territory, etc not subdivide -- often shared space - Settled more aligned with squares and rectangles -- heavily partitioned spaces -- land having importance and being less shared - Flannery looked at Levant area and Mesoamerica -- shift from circular structures along with increased sedentation - Involves reconceiving your role in the ecosystem from part of it to controlling it - Good vs Evil, Black vs White, Boy vs Girl, Peace vs War, Civilized vs Savage, Democracy vs Dictatoriship, First World vs Third World, Domestic vs Foreign, Articulate vs Inarticulate, Strong vs Weak, Light vs Dark... - Supporting cultural acceptance of Racism and Sexism [Archaeological Understanding of Symbolism of Material Culture (Contextual)] - No universal rules about what symbols mean - Symbols can mean different things in different cultures - Hodder argued this wasn't grounds for giving up -- we need to figured out where a symbol came from when we see it -- Cognitive mapping - Strauss focused on linguistically derived and Hodder focused on imagery and symbolism [Conceptual Metaphor] - The understanding of one idea, in terms of another: Sunrise = Birth, Sunset = Death - Living -- Wood, Dead -- Stone - Summer -- Life, Winter -- Death - Community -- Circles, Individuals -- Rectangles - Commoners -- Periphery, Authority -- Centre **The Origins and Development of Archaeology and Archaeological Theory** - Influences include: Anthropology, History, Treasure Hunting, European Colonization, Mythology, and Classical Studies - In Europe archaeology is born out of history and classical studies - North American archaeology is born out of anthropology - Less savory contributions are colonialism and treasure hunting - Both archaeology and history get abused for political purposes [Antiquarianism]: - concerned with stories of people and the things that were important to them - often symbolism embedded in objects - refers to fascination with or romanticization of the past thus collecting antiques etc. - Not a very academic approach; overly romantic - Creates a black market in items for the past - Giovanni Belzoni a famous example of this - The collection of objects for largely sentimental reasons - Objects as keepsakes, reminders of past people, events, and places -- souvenirs of the past - Objects needed a story which was often exaggerated or made-up - Not good science or research - Typically not very responsible with the information such as locations -- opens up sites to looting and theft - The collection of objects as treasures curiosities and status items - The pursuit of objects for display at museums and stately homes - Correlation of ancient objects and site with 'known' history and historical legends - Commodifies the archaeological record giving it commercial value and thus encourages treasure hunting, trade, theft, etc. - Destroys evidence of the past and / or puts such evidence in private collections that are inaccessible to the general public - Results in a great loss of information about the past as there is little concern for documentation of the original context of the artifacts / monuments [Biblical Archaeology]: - archaeology used to substantiate religious texts all the way back to the crusades - methods are similar to the mainstream but interpretation is the where the similarity ends - Emerged in the late 19^th^ Century - British and American archaeologists with the aim of confirming the historical accuracy of the Bible - Between the 1920s and 1960s it became the dominant American school of Levantine archaeology - Let by figures such as William F. Albright - Concerns itself with the search for evidence of places, events, and people described in the Old and New Testaments - Much research involves linking named Biblical sites with archaeologically known ones - Not real researchers or scientists - Mainly trying to confirm theology - Uses the Bible as a starting point for research; very limited and not mainstream - Still being done and tends to be well funded - "There is a danger that belief in the absolute truth of the texts can cloud an impartial assessment of their archaeological validity" (Renfrew and Bahn 2004) - Much of historical archaeology is about illustrating an accepted version of the past and critically assessing historically documented accounts [Culture History]: - 1780s to present - the birth of the academic discipline - this is our tradition as archaeologists - there was no room for cultures that no longer exists initially, only interested in history of cultures that still exist - Linking ancient finds to modern peoples - Evolutionary theory - Classification, typology, and chronology - Three age system: Stone, Bronze, Iron -- though not necessarily linear as it depends on available resources - Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), Neolithic (New Stone Age) - Unilineal Evolution of Social Complexity -- Band, Tribe, Chiefdom, State - Fist Academic approach to archaeology - Idea that things change over time, nothing appeared fully developed [Antiquity of Humankind]: - 1840s to present - important in our understanding of human evolution - directly at odds with Biblical scholarship - In the early 1800s naturalists and antiquarians discovered human physical remains and stone tools associated with extinct animals in stratified deposits in cave sites in many parts of Europe and this inspired an interest in the antiquity of the human species and challenged biblical history - Associated with Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin [Early Civilizations]: - 1880s to present - people becoming interested in early civilizations [Cultural Ecology]: - 1940s to present - more formal social theory being introduced to interpretation of archaeological remains - Steward and Fraz Boaz were major figures - Stewards Core Culture Theory shown here - Environment creating humanity - Julian Steward (1902-1972) Cultural Anthropologist - Cultures interact with the natural environment - Ecological explanations of cultural development - 'Core Culture Theory' -- subsistence and settlement patterns - Seeing the natural environment as fundamental to the system we study - Systemic approach - Each ring affects the next one [Culture Process]: - 1960s to present - processualism -- the new archaeology - trying to explain the sequence of events - studying the record to understand the reasons for change - rooted in cultural ecology and informed by Marxism - Almost exact opposite of Cultural Ecology - Conflict between those who control the resources vs. those who produce the resources (conflict of balance) - Maintaining that environment has nothing to do with it; it's humans that drive change - Binford major contributor - Involves a scientific approach (hypothesis testing) - Concerned with explanation rather than describing -- process rather than history - Archaeology as the search for ' universal laws' of human behaviour - 'The New Archaeology' 1960s - Binford took Cultural Ecology and Marxism, blended them, and wrote the article 'Archaeology is Anthropology' - He called it 'Focus on Process', not 'The New Archaeology' - Looking at societies and humanity in general - Trying to come up with universal laws of human behaviour - Very material aspects of culture - Binford -- artifacts as sociotechnic and ideotechnic -- technological in nature -- all material culture had a function [Cultural Materialism:] - Marvin Harris major contributor - He took what Binford talked about and wanted to create one unified theory out it it - Created the layer cake metaphor [Universal Darwinism:] - A variety of approaches that extend the theory of Natural Selection beyond its original domain of biological evolution - Used to explain evolution of: Language, Economics, Technology, Psychology, etc. [Critique of Universal Darwinism:] - It is dangerous and promotes racism - It is simplistic -- Memes don't necessarily reproduce in the same ways as genes AND selection or rejection of memes is not necessarily a natural process - It can be the result of human behaviour - It is rooted in biased economic theory -- survival of the fittest misunderstood [Social Darwinism:] - The idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better -- Survival of the Fittest - Used to justify oppression on non-European societies during the colonization of Africa, Australia, and the Americas [Cultural Evolution:] - Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore - Archaeology is an evolutionary science -- ecologist, Marxist, etc - Evolution of culture, technology, everything -- everything changes - Evolutionary theory was radically different to the fundamentalist religious perspective which previously dominated - Evolution in this sense is referring to systems not individual organisms - The Three Age System - Should be visible in any aspect of culture -- language, Religion, Technology, Social organization, Systems of Government [Post-Processualism]: - 1980s to present - Post-modern interpretive archaeology - Rejection of the positivist approach - Rejection the notion of objectivity - Rejection of the notion of universal laws - looking at the unique nature of different societies - should be trying to appreciate the diversity, not find the commonalities - Ian Hodder is the major contributor - Tend to focus more specifically on a group of people in a particular moment in time - Sus out the individual - Hodder focusing on one or two families manipulating communities through symbols in monuments in Europe - Shouldn't expect to see universal laws in behaviour because humans are unpredictable - Meaning of things over function of things - Different goal to processual -- more like a book club -- reading the past and debating it and understanding the past and ourselves better for it [Relativism:] - Our perception of reality is influenced by our perspective - Interpretations of the past are influenced by circumstances of the present - Perceptions of the past are heavily influenced by world views: politics, ideology, religion, and myth - Extreme Relativism: everyone sees the world differently - We all have biases but can we escape them? Some say yes, others say no. [Critical Theory:] - The 'Frankfurt School' (ca. 1970s) - 'All knowledge is historical, distorted communication, and that any claims to seek objective knowledge are illusory' - It is a relativist perspective - Interpretations of the past are influenced by the present - The beliefs of the researcher are imposed on the past - The study of the past is really the study of the present - Any interpretation of the past is influenced by the present [The Frankfurt School:] - Essentially a evaluation of Marxist ideology emphasizing ideology as being of greater importance - These names largely come from Sociology - Linked to Post-modernism -- questioning the functionality of things, why they are the way they are - About questioning our own interpretation of the past and trying to think bout things in new ways [Marxism:] - Influential in the social sciences can be well opposed to cultural ecology - Feminism closely tied to Marxism - Gods of Our Fathers video takes feminist Marxist look at four corners region - Humanity is creating the environment - Humans negotiating with other humans -- resources, access, all the important things for survival - Technology as the prime mover -- system changes in response to new inventions Proletariat vs Bourgeoisie conflict - European perspective -- inherited their power and wealth - Proletariat was anyone with a job who keep everything running - Projected these ideas onto the past -- classes with greater control - Things get so out of sync between he forces of production and the relations of production that change is necessary - Neolithic revolution -- agriculture - Key characteristic is that they feel humans are behaving very deliberately and intentionally -- think things through, make plans to change, and do it -- not accidental or in response to changes in environment - Changes on the left associated with changes on the right - Rebelling against leaders who can't feed their communities might look like leaving the community -- possible violent coup - Cultural systems as dynamic between two components of that system [Feminist Social Theory:] - Challenging the notion that human gender roles are fixed - Challenging the notion that patriarchy is natural or normal - Interpreting cultural development as largely the result of the negotiation of power between males and females - Major contributors: Gimbutas, Gero, Powdermaker, Conkey - Grew out of Marxism - Human cultures are made up of men and women and understanding the power dynamic between men and women -- that balance has not always been the same through time and space - There is no natural tendency toward patriarchy - Power dynamic and conflict overlaps with Marxism -- sometimes seen as a subset for this reason - Powdermaker challenged the male biased approaches to research - Rather tensions being between forces and relations of production, but instead about tension between males and females -- gender negotiation and how that doesn't correspond with ideology of the people - How males and females see each other in society -- and their behaviour - When one sex thinks the other is not staying in their lane, it causes struggle - A branch of neo-marxism - How ideology shapes the negotiation of power between males and females [Neo-Marxism:] - A Marxist school of thought that amends or extends Marxism and Marxist theory by incorporating elements from post-modern intellectual traditions such as critical theory, feminism, anarchism, or existentialism - Pueblo Abandonment: Don't see a lot of violence in these communities -- some but not widespread and no evidence of civil wars - Root cause of total abandonment not explained by traditional Marxism -- neo Marxism might be a better explanation -- requires ideology - Ideology is the prime mover - People will reject things that don't align with their ideology even if they are functionally superior - Sees society as fairly conservative and will only change it really wants to - Sees taking a step backwards as preferable in some ways - Ideology becomes fundamental - In Neo there has to be a mind shift before a behaviour shift -- change the mind to change the behaviour - Hodder's analysis of the henges, graves, monuments etc -- involved having to change the meaning of symbols to change the behaviour -- through manipulation of material cultures [Cultural Ecology vs. Marxism:]  [Structuralism:] - Structural Anthropology - Conscious and unconscious conceptual structures create the central reality of a people - Concept of Binary Opposition: When we understand something we also understand of what it isn't - Claude Levi-Strauss major contributor - Strauss believed that it was a biological thing that brain stores info in a particular manner in binary opposition -- everything has an opposite - Sometimes something will come along to shake up that structure and this leads to cultural change [Cognitive Processualism]: - 1990s to present - compromise between Processualism and Post Processualism into a science of human behaviour - A Grand Compromise: Cognitive Processualism - Colin Renfrew passed on 24 Nov 24 - His theories in the 80s-2000s - Started career as staunch processualist, but later realized merits of the critique of this approach - Argued that we should embrace both processualist and post processualist as cognitive processualism - Searching for regularities a hard thing to do but certainly not a bad thing to do - Conventional scientific practice still the best way to go - Positivism refers to being positive in the results -- social sciences increasingly rejecting this idea - The ability of the individual to play a role in the development of their culture [Action Archaeology] - Another outcome of the post processualist debate - The value of archaeology? - Improving our modern world by studying the past - Sabloff book -- called it action archaeology -- arch that has an impact on our modern world -- he was especially interested in ancient Maya agriculture and how this could inform modern decisions for food production - Action Arch falls into the larger field of Historical Ecology -- how traditional societies have used the environment and what we can learn from their old technologies - Also includes Indigenous Archaeology (Historical Ecology) [Historical Ecology] - A lot of overlap and sometimes one in the same with Indigenous Arch - Different in leadership and control - Archaeologists partnering with ecologists in this research - Historical overlaps often with cultural ecology [Indigenous Archaeology] - Selective harvesting of male salmon as part of the management of salmon prior to colonization -- research led by and guided by Indigenous knowledge - Verifying the truth about indigenous knowledge -- from previous approach of using it to prove biblical knowledge -- it grew out of this - Longest standing tradition of indigeoous archaeology in Australia - It is best when its led by Indigeous people -- but this is not always the case presently - Indigenous involvement is transforming archaeology in a positive way -- and some have been doing the work without being called archaeologists [Internalist Archaeology] - PhD about reshaping archaeology - Doing archaeology of yourself -- not just indigenous, but everyone - Must be willing to explore your own personal history - Also viewed it as a pathway to social justice -- can be used to correct inconsistencies in the history [Contextual Archaeology:] - Ian Hodder instrumental in post-processual movement -- critique of the processualism of the 60s - Armed with Structuralism and Marxism - Symbols and Action, Reading the past -- books by Hodder - Frustration that archaeology was too ecological in nature -- humans as any other animal - Felt that humans were a very unique animal -- how the human brain stores info and acts on it - Preferred specific case studies over generalizations - Meaning over function -- people perceive things -- something can be functional but it is also meaningful - How ideology shapes power structure - Every object created has symbolic aspect to it - Standard Physical context - Cultural context -- quoting Binford - Historical context -- where the idea or symbol came from, was manipulated, used, changed over time by a society - Neil Hodder - How to understand meaning in arch record - Needs to go beyond conventional focus of physical - Requires historical and cultural context - Concerned with specific circumstances rather than generalizations - Concerned with meaning rather than function (interpretation of symbols) - Application of Structuralist theory - Application of Neo-Marxist theory - Physical Context (where and how symbol used) - Cultural Context (ritual vs economic vs political) - Historical Context (origins and development of symbol's use) What's the Right Approach? - What theoretical perspective are you applying? Often asked this is thesis defence - Often best not to limit yourself to one perspective but rather use all the available tools - The right approach could be about who the audience is -- make it meaningful to them - It's only meaningful if people in the present get something out of it -- values of the audience need to be considered Theory as a Toolkit - Think of the theories as tools rather than mutually exclusive doctrines - Dr. Collard staunch evolutionist and disagrees with this Models - What is the value of a model that is based on theory - Starting point for research not an end point - Next step is establish cause and effect relationship Theory, Research Questions and Hypotheses (both slides) - Theory should be seen as toolkit - All these hypothesis need to be evaluated independently - Hypothesis \#4 is the most viable because it incorporates all the possibilities Theory Today - Puebloan people believe that the first person sprung out of the ground -- they want to return to this centre place before they die - It failed and so they left to look for the correct centre place **\ ** **Interpretation of the Past** - Science is based on observation - Observations interpreted through the lens of theory - Observing the past is impossible - Mostly observations about things we can see to derive information about people and events that we cannot see - Many layers of theory that we employ in the interpretation of the past - Indirect observations in Archaeology - Archaeology is combination of hard and soft sciences; more like astronomers than biologists - This course is about the many layers of theory (assumptions, suppositions, and premises\_ that archaeologists employ in their efforts to interpret the past -- focusing mainly on grand or high level theories **The Research Cycle**  (Can start anywhere on the cycle) Deduction: If X is true then we should see Y **Origins of Agriculture** [Agriculture -- The Neolithic] - Most important Holocene development - Neolithic (New Stone Age) - Subsistence 'Revolution' - No concrete explanations for this [At Least Three Primary Centres of Domestication] - Fertile Crescent: Wheat, barley, legumes, sheep, goats, cattle - China: rice, millet, soybean, pigs - Mesoamerica: avocado, cacao, maize, peppers, turkey - Was not invented in one area then spread out -- different crops in different parts of the world [Agriculture Changes Everything:] - Diet narrower than hunter gatherers; key crops utilized - Population sizes increase to have more people to do the work; families become larger - Territory -- value of land, controlling fields, protecting from neighbours - Managing wealth -- food storage, becoming indebted - Seasonality -- prep fields in spring, harvest in fall - Status of men and women -- matrilineal or patrilineal societies - Political organization -- allocation of land, food -- decisions regarding life and death, conflict, warfare - Trade -- surpluses and markets, negotiation and process, economic systems, taxatation - Storage -- important for winter, public or private - Farming -- new tool kit, flak stone and ground stone for grain, building houses, dramatic shift in architecture - Health -- negative impacts, don't live as long as hunter gatherers, poor dental health - Environment -- diversion of streams etc for irrigation, destroys gene pool of animals, weeds thrive - Wealth -- individuals become wealthy or impoverished - Religion -- nature based religions, attempting to control the natural world - WILL BE ON EXAM [The Mesolithic: Intensified Resource Use:] - New technologies: Nets, fishhooks, arrows, dugout canoes, baskets, pottery - Shell middens - Deer drives and bison jumps - Acorns -- harvested and processed - Fish traps and weirs -- Salmon [Population Increase] - Humans before agriculture, occurred globally - Stabilization of the environment, new technology, people settling in villages [Sedentism:] - Semi permanent settlements - Semi subterranean dwellings - Keatly Creek Site -- 3000 year old pithouse village near Pavillion BC - Jerf el Ahmar, Syria 10k BP [Fishing -- Surplus food production:] - Bone fish hooks from Franchthi Cave, Greece [Storage:] - Preservation of surplus food - Key to agriculture! - Drying, smoking, curing, fermentation (ferm. preserves nutrients) - Storage pits, baskets, boxes, and pots - Root cellars, granaries [Ownership and Wealth:] - Trade and exchange - Controlled access to surplus - Wealth, power and status [Cemeteries:] - Grave goods - Family plots - Increased cultural complexity: status, wealth - Violent conflict / warfare [Mesolithic -- Neolithic Transition] - Incipient Agriculturalists -- people manipulating the environment in ways hunter gatherers didn't - Did not farm, but intensive foragers - Resource management to promote surpluses - Harvested wild ancestors of wheat, barley, potatoes, etc. - Endeavors to create habitat for edible plants: deforestation, burning, weed/pest control [Early Plant Domestication: Cereals] - Grass family produces hundreds of seeds and more than needed to eat some saved for planting - SW Asia: Wheat and Barley - Far East: rice and millet - Africa: millet and sorghum - Americas: maize and Chenopodium [Early Plant Domestication: Fruits, Legumes, and Vegetables] - SW Asia: legumes, cucurbits, sugar cane - Levant: peas, lentils, chickpeas - Africa: gourds, yams - Americas: avocado, cacao, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes [Domestication:] - "human-induced morphological and behavioural change in plants and animals that renders the species dependent on humans for reproduction and survival" - Controlling reproductive processes of another organism - Genetic changes - Altered reproductive patterns - Propagation dependent on humans - 'Unnatural Selection' [Domesticated Animals:] - "an animal that is a member of a breeding population which is dependent on a human community for protection, maintenance of its habitat, reproduction, territorial organization and food supply" - Artificially selecting traits -- cuter, less threatening looking animals with more fat - More pathological maladaptive traits not conducive to survival in the wild - Shortening of jaw, crowing of teeth [Early Domesticated Animals:]  [Animal Domestication:] - Control of reproductive success - Artificial selection of immature traits - Morphological changes (such as horn size, fat content etc.) - Behavioural changes (such as docile or submissive) [Morphological Changes:] - Occur in all domesticated species - Social animals easier to domesticate - Initial reduction in body size - Reduction in horn/antler size - Reduction in brain size - Exxaggeration of atypical and pathological characteristics: curled tails, long ears, floppy ears, piebaldness - Development of localized fat accumulations - Shortening of the jaw - Crowding and loss of teeth - The Auroch: wilf ancestor of modern cattle - Domestica cattle: smaller horns, larger udders, piebaldness - Sheep: wool and fat - Fowl: egg production and fat - Cattle and Goats: milk production, fat, and meat - Pigs: meat and fat [Behavioural Changes:] - Control of behaviour - Loss of aggression - Loss of perception - Lessening of reaction to stress - Loss of instinct or change in 'culture' - Manipulation by humans - Crowding - Removal of dominant males - Unsuccessful experiments: Egyptian gazelle [A Very Significant Development:] - No new economically significant domesticates created since the 'Neolithic Revolution' - Narrowed resource diversity - 15 plant families, about 14 animals (excluding domesticated fish) - Extermination of wild antecedents - Evolution of weeds - Proliferation of pests - Eradication of predators - Erosion of genetic resources, disease susceptibility - Spread of zoonotic disease [Why Agriculture all of a Sudden?] - Human beings have evolved to be successful hunter-gatherers over the course of millions of years - We have been hunter gatherers for 99% of our existence as a species - We are not well adapted to eating agricultural foods - We are not well adapted to sedentary lifestyle -- made to run/walk long distances - High BP, anxiety, neurotic tendencies, mental health problems - Why did 50% + of humans on the planet shift to an agricultural economy at the end of the last ice age? [Concessions and Compromise:] [The Fertile Crescent:] - Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon **\ ** **Agriculture Origin Theories:** - Environmental change - Cultural Ecology - Social, economic, political changes - Marxist - Co-evolution of humans and domesticates - Evolutionary - Ideological shift - Structuralist [Oasis Theory (Cultural Ecology):] - V. Gordon Childe, 1950s - Dry period at end of the Pleistocene forced to limit places on the landscape to live -- not accurate as it was actually wetter - Oases in Levant (such as Jericho) - Resource concentration - However... Wetter at the end of the Pleistocene - Why at one particular perdiod? [Hilly Flanks Theory (Cultural Ecology)] - Robert Braidwood 1950s - Jarmo, Zegros Mountains, Iraq - Wetter and populations grew -- population pressure - Lush, rich environments, increased human populations -- good sheep/goat habitat, good grassland - Intensification of subsistence practices to support population - Earliest Natufian cereal harvesters of the 12^th^-11^th^ millennia BC had pushed outwards due to explaining population - At the margins of the optimal zones (the areas rich in wild cereals), those excluded would have had to invent agriculture in order to re-establish their traditional food resources [Demographic Stress (Cultural Ecology)] - Lewis Binford 1960s -- Edge Hypothesis - Movement of fisher poeple inland at the end of the Pleistocene - High human population densities - Competition for scarce resources - Incentive for production of food, despite 'costs' [Co-evolution] - David Rindos 1980s - Symbiosis between humans, plants, and animals - Not explanatory -- it just happened - Mutualism - Plants and Animals evolving in response to humans, humans evolving in response to plants/animals - Involuntary, no conscious goals? - Scavenging -- taking from discarded carcasses - Robbing -- stealing honey - Positivism -- living with and taking advantage of animals - Pathway to pastoralism [Animals Domestication -- A Co-evolutionary Model:]  [Social Models (Marxism and Neo-Marxism)] - Barbara Bender 1980s, Brian Hayden 1990s - Domestication as a prestige technology - Political alliances, trade, pressure for surpluses - Domestication as a pathway to power; small number of people motivated to elevate themselves and are ambitious to manipulate the system [The Economic and Political Changes due to Agriculture:] - Farmland / livestock as property of lineages - Corporate ownership of resources - Control of surpluses - Stability, predictability - Theft, raiding, conflict, warfare - Conflict resolution [Ideology Before Economy (Structuralism)] - Jacques Cauvin, 2011 - Highlights the importance of cognitive factors, and the socio-cultural changes which result, as the principal motivation for the neolithic revolution - A reordering of symbolic material, beginning in the tenth millennium BC stratigraphically - Preceded the emergence of an agricultural economy in the near east in the ninth millennium - This leads us to propose the necessity of a cognitive change which anticipates the economic change and becomes manifest within it [Agriculture Requires Fundamental Change in the Way that Humans Perceive Themselves] - Manipulators of plants and animals - Masters of Nature - Changes in Deity Worship - Changes in Everything - **\ ** **The Prime Movers** [Biology]: - Humans are biological organisms that need certain things and conditions in order to survive as a species - Primarily: Nutritious Food, Drinkable Water, Breathable Air - Secondly: Shelter, Clothing, Heat, Light - Thirdly: Companionship, Sexual Reproduction - Is culture simply an extension of our biological systems? If so, can biology alone explain the many aspects of humanity that differentiate us from other animals? Can biology explain the many aspects of humanity that differentiate one culture group from another? - Looking at humans as biological organisms which have needs that have to be satisfied to exist - Humans don't come with a lot of natural protections, so we need clothing, shelter, heat, light, etc. - We tend to need a lot of social / psychological support -- companionship and reproductive partnerships - Being able to create things is an evolutionary advantage - Something other than biology at work because there are culture differences - Biological theory breaks down over explanations of cultural groups [Environment:] - Climate, Biomass, Topography, Seasonality, Stability - Does environment determine culture? Do changes in environment cause changes in culture? Can all aspects of culture be explained as a consequence of adaptation to the environment? - Cultural ecology is still favoured by many archaeologists - Environment is probably going to be some aspect of any explanation - Environment is actually a whole lot of things -- also includes social and cultural environments - Volcanos, storms, etc. - One of the criticisms of cultural ecology is that its an example of environmental determinism -- taking decision making away form the human -- it's all automatic based on the environment -- this is reductionist -- provides parameters but doesn't fully determine culture - Logic to the idea that environment change will lead to cultural change but it still falls short - Puebloan culture -- why did they leave during THIS particular drought but not earlier ones? Something other than environment at work. [History:] - The memories and teachings of collective experiences of a cultural group passed from generation to generation - The lessons learned during past events passed along consciously from one generation to the next - Does the past influence the present? Do experiences of generations past have an impact on human actions in the present? Do new ideas, technologies, traditions emerge instantaneously out of thin air or are they the product of years of gradual development? Are humans collectively conscious / unconscious of their own history? - Really focused on humans and their interactions with one another -- learned lessons from the past that inform decisions going forward - Often seen as a very important prime mover; not in cultural ecology though - Marxism draws on this heavily - An important but imperfect prime mover -- imperfect because histories can get twisted -- bias in the transmitted information - History can often create conservativism in culture and can be a barrier to change - Egyptians literally imprinted history on their landscape which made it hard to ignore - History that is known to the average person, not historians to be clear, is what is flawed -- religion can play a role in corrupting history - How do humans store and transmit history? Is it reliable? Myths can replace history -- unless history is written down [Psychology:] - The human brain controls and limits how we perceive the world around us and influences how we respond to events and circumstances - Individual thoughts and actions influence cultural norms and practices as they evolve over time, and these cultural norms and practices influence the thoughts and actions of individuals - In what ways to psychological processes influence culture? In what ways does culture influence psychological processes? To what extent does the brain influence: Reality, Cultural Norms, Acceptance of cultural change? Brains sometimes store information in abstract, or symbolic but not always accurate ways - Group responses to events -- seeing the average responses in archaeology not the idiosyncratic ones - Cultural Norms -- Binford's work centres on this idea - Arch department and the suit-and-tie norm different to other departments - Psychology is the foundation for structuralism - Recent theories about the origins of agriculture looking at what happened in the human psyche to drive this change -- possibly thinking of ourselves as unique among animals -- we can control them -- beginnings of narcissism! [Technology:] - Technology allows cultures to flourish in environments that would otherwise be uninhabitable - Allows humans to adapt to external stressors (danger, cold, drought, competition for resources, etc.) much more rapidly than biological evolution - What makes us different from other animal species, therefore must be fundamental to change? It is a competitive advantage because now we can live literally anywhere on the planet. - Is tech a consequence of culture or a driver? Or is IT culture? Tech is humans extrasomatic means of culture -- faster adaptation than biological evolution -- also interferes with natural selection? - Animals have limited diets, and so if that food is no longer available they will die -- humans can switch or produce ourselves because of technology - Technology can be at odds with other prime movers - Combustion engines and electric cars are actually the same age. Psychology plays a role in technological choices - Does technology change culture? Or does culture dictate the nature of technology? How is technological change incorporated into culture? Does culture resist technological change or embrace it? Does acceptance of technological change require cultural change? [Economics:] - The production, consumption, and distribution of commodities within a society - Social norms that preside over the distribution of essential and / or scarce material goods within a cultural group - The way in which wealth, power, and privilege are distributed within a society - Is there a natural progression through different economic systems that occurs as a result of cultural development? Is self interest and inherent trait of all humans? Is greed natural or cultural? Are some commodities universally valuable (Food, fuel, gold)? Is self interest the predominant driving force in cultural change? - Not really about being rich or poor -- it's about the distribution of things of value to members of the community - Family, community, nation sizes are aspects of economics -- marriage, how many kids etc - The things that are scarce are the things that will often be most important -- food in early societies - When a culture starts coveting gold you know they are affluent and don't have to worry about food -- valuing abstract things over practical considerations - Who is making the distribution decisions -- politics and economics (Marxism) go hand in hand - Simple idea of economic spectrum in archaeology - Sharing interesting concept -- ethic that 'it's just what you do' -- tends to only exist within a household - Taxes are a form of redistribution -- fundamental to complex societies - Often multiple forms at work simultaneously in societies - Self interest and greed -- another feature of complex societies (aggrandizers) - Food is a universal valuable, but not much else -- everything else is culturally dependent [Material vs. Ideological Prime Movers:]  - Material: Biology, Environment, Technology - Ideological: Psychology, Economics, History - Both relevant and neither should be neglected -- whichever you are will be reflected in what kind of archaeologist you are - Often about where you fall on a spectrum rather than being in one or the other category - Changing the scale can make it more complicated -- motivations of the group not the individual -- such as recycling -- your motivation compared to society - Ego in politicians -- claiming that it's genuine concern - Also a spectrum of Natural and Cultural - Four square graph is the extremes of the 6 **\ ** **Levels of Theory** [Low Level Theory] - Basic premises, assumptions, and suppositions that form the foundation of observation and interpretation - Includes: Observation, Sampling, Measurement, Classification, Quantification, Stratification, Association, and Analogy - Theory is consciously or unconsciously affecting us - Collectors Curve - We tend to classify according to evolutionary theory - Stratigraphy -- the law of superposition - More method than theory - From collecting to interpreting of data - Cannot be an atheoretical scientist -- everything is formed by theoretical perspective - Today focusing on Stratification, Association, and Analogy - Stratigraphy rooted in theory of stratification - Associating two things found together in archaeological record - Analogy is comparing one thing to another thing - All examples of low level theory - Consists of the basic premises, assumption, suppositions that form the foundation of observation and interpretation - Not proof; it's an interpretation on the basis of association - How the arch of the 60s and 70s came about -- site formation processes - Unless we know how sites for me can't be to secure in that association theory - Must understand how sites form - Examples: 'It's a stone tool', How do you know it's a stone tool?', 'Because its shaped like other stone tools I have seen.' -- We can't prove that it was used as a tool, but the evidence suggests that is is, based on theory built on body of knowledge -- analogous comparison. [Bridging / Midrange Theory] - Derived through ethnographic analogy, ethno-archaeology, experimental Archaeology, design theory, principles and theories borrowed from Geology, Biology Ecology, Sociology, Anthropology etc. - Archaeology is rooted in Anthropology - Ethnoarchaeology means studying what is left behind in practices of cultures that still exists - Experimental Archaeology doesn't provide proof but does provide supporting evidence - Design theory looks at the efficacy of the design at performing its intended function - More method than theory [High Level Theory] - About asking 'why' questions - Theories that attempt to explain specific phenomena - In the past archaeologists were staunch supporters of one theory over others; not so much today -- choose the right tool for the job - Selectionist framework based on theories of natural selection - Grand theories are frameworks proposed to explain a vase array of human behaviour such as Cultural ecology, Marxism, etc. - Cultural Ecology, Marxism, Marxist Feminism, Structuralism, Cultural materialism, Processualism, Post Processualism, Neo Marxism, Cultural Evolution, Cognitive Processualism, etc. - Cultural Ecology is about humans reacting to the environment - Marxism is non-natural material influences on culture -- technology and social technologies (government etc), systems of trade etc -- humans existing in a human created environment - Also looks at universal patterns in social history - Marxism vs neo Marxism -- Marxism doesn't see ideology as fundamental in cultural change; neo Marxism does argue greater ideological factors at play -- there has to be change in mindset before anything else can change - Feminism -- Strongly ideological -- all about how genders are expressed in society and the negotiation of power between the sexes; very much in the minds of those in society, not biologically or materially determined simply about social attitudes Grand Theories (Interpretive Frameworks) - Cultural processes very material in nature (1960s) - Post-processual is the flip side 80-90s - Rooted in structuralism; how the mind controls behaviour - Perception about how things should work - Negotiation of power between males and females in feminism -- how they are perceived - Hodder's Contextualism -- brings together variety of theories -- Marxism and Contextualization - meaning of things and what things meant to people in the past - Systems Theory -- modeling human behaviour on selection of maladaptive or adaptive traits - Post processual approach avoids this view -- behaviour is much more unpredictable **\ ** **Major Figures and Contributors** [Giovanni Belzoni]**:** - Antiquarian - Also big on engineering and explosives - Did a lot of damage in places like Egypt - Liked to engrave his name on everything he found - Statue of Ramesses II form the Ramesseum at Thebes (19^th^ Dynasty) about 1250 BC, now in British Museum [Sir Charles Lyell:] - The Principles of Geology 1833 - The Principles of Uniformitarianism - James Hutton 1788 -- can measure accumulations of sedimentary layers and ascertain dates -- stratigraphy - Actually a geologist, not an archaeologist [Charles Darwin:] - On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection 1859 - The Descent of Man 1871 - One of the most influential figures in our discipline - Some hardcore adherents feel that Darwin can explain social / cultural change - Natural Selection is the key concept -- mechanism for the evolution of diversity within species and ultimately for the evolution of new species - not to be confused with Evolution or Survival of the Fittest which came from economic theorists - He did not create the idea of evolution - Darwin was about explaining diversity of life forms that exist, not extinction - Evolution as a process of diversification -- many varieties of Finches on the Galapagos Islands Evolution occurs by natural selection - Powerful explanatory framework -- gets added to, though - Other forms of selection affecting the persistence of traits also -- kinship, etc - Natural and Unnatural Selection processes - Origin of Species and the Descent of Man -- should read both - Relationships to Chimpanzees now proven by DNA - Natural selection explains a lot with a very simple explanation -- Occam's Razor - His ideas were and are perpetually misunderstood -- not about extinction -- about selection for traits (eye colour, metabolism etc) - Mostly interested in how life diversified - Galapagos Islands -- fascinated by the varieties of finches - Thought that all the finches derived from an original population arriving on the island - Due to lack of competition from other birds they were able to diversify to all environmental conditions on the island [Julian Steward:] - 1902-1972 - Cultural Anthropologist - Cultures interact with the environment - Ecological explanations of cultural development - 'Culture Core Theory' -- subsistence and settlement patterns [Marx and Engels:] - Revolutionary Changes: Neolithic Revolution, Urban Revolution, Industrial Revolution - Imbalance between those who control production and those who work at production [V Gordon Childe:] - Application of Marxist theory in Archaeology - Revolutions: Agricultural and Urban - Social as well as technological revolution - Brought distinct theoretical perspective to archaeology - Overt and proud Marxist - On Mousterian Culture: "We find certain types of remains -- pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites and house forms -- constantly recurring together. Such a complex of associated traits we shall call a 'cultural group' or just a 'culture." (On the concept of Archaeological Cultures 1929) - Binford also at odds with Childe - Binford argued that it might be the subset of a culture rather than multiple cultures being represented - Way of perceiving of humanity and culture development and change and culture systems like supply and demand etc - In Archaeology it's employed to interpret the past - Agricultural and urban revolutions in Europe - Social and technological change are related/intertwined - Might look like technology vs social organization in the past [Ian Hodder:] - Post-processualism - Hodder wrote book 'Symbols and Action' arguing that we can't ignore symbolic meanings behind objects - Hodder wrote the book 'Reading the Past' looking at the record is like reading a book, there will be differenced in interpretation and that's okay - Thinks that it's naïve to assume that we can measure the past the way biologists or chemists might do -- can't dismiss the variable human elements - These were new ideas to archaeology but not the social sciences in general [Claude Levi-Strauss:] - 1908-2009 - He was a linguist - Structuralist -- Father of Structural Anthropology - Fieldwork in Brazil - Totemism 1962 - The Savage Mind 1966 - The Raw and the Cooked 1969 - Myth and Meaning 1978 - Wrote about relationship between language and cultural behaviour - Binary Opposition: 'A thing can only be understood by it's opposite' -- Up makes no sense without down -- those opposites are socially constructed, and are not natural - You can also have triangles of opposition, not just binary understandings of opposition - Argues that agriculture was a cognitive change not technological one - Myth and religion through language - Core of Structuralism is how the human mind creates reality -- how we react to it is how culture is created - In the sphere of Ideology and Psychology - Product of brain chemistry - Understanding how things are stored in the mind is how we understand behaviour - Most of his work in the 60s and 70s -- check out his books - Had very elegant simple approach to Structuralism - Mind stores info in binary positions -- dialectical - We see things for what they are and for what they are not -- we see the opposites as well - Learn these things through parents, language, cultural interactions... constantly referenced and reinforced - A culture is a group of people who share these binary relationships; not all cultures see these binaries in the same way -- oppositions can be quite different from one culture to the next - Saw the analysis of mythology as a way of understanding this [Lewis Binford:] - Rejected the 'Normative' view of culture - Argued that cultures were not internally homogenous - Believed that individuals always participated in a culture differently and therefore the archaeological record should be viewed as the product of the diverse activities/decisions/choices of many individuals - Believed a Normative view of culture produces only 'sterile' explanations for cultural variation and change: Primarily explanation through Diffusion and Migration - Ignores human intelligence, innovation, and capacity for invention - Rejected the idea that culture is a mental construct that constrains human thought - Everything is Functional - Everything is Technology: Technomic, Sociotechnic, Ideotechnic, Econotechnic - Binford was embraced by the post-processual school despite him being a staunch processualist - Diffusion and Migration previously thought to spread culture - He sees humans as adaptive creatives; adapting to physical, social, environmental environments - Technomic artifacts allowed humans to adapt to the environment - Sociotechnic -- status items -- allows to adapt to social env - Etc - All this comes from Binford's idea that all artifacts are functional in some way; such as artwork as functional in that society - Criticism -- Did Binford believe in culture at all? - Binford started a revolution in the 60s in archaeology [Richard Dawkins:] - Take Darwin to the next level - 'The Selfish Gene' 1976 - MEMES [Susan Blackmore:] - 'The Meme Machine' 2000 - Some examples of Temes: Google, Facebook, Tik Tok, Twitter, Apple TV, Netflix, Disney + - Any software that uses some type of predictive analytics to choose what the viewer 'wants' to see - Once machines start thinking for us, it changes the nature of cultural evolution - Can change language, influence political and religious views, affect social policy, influence elections, even change cultural norms [Mnuxvit] - To become one -- bring together cultural tradition with ancestors - Philosophy of applying western science to his history and culture as long it's done by them - Write up is a bit of a manifesto about how archaeology should be done -- long overdue - There used to be afear of indigenous people taking over archaeology but it has actually worked out well -- expanding rather than limiting - Huyat: Place is believed to be an origin place for some of the first families - Both advantages and disadvantages to being an indigenous community member doing this kind of research [Rudy Reimer] - New season coming of Wild Archaeology - Not internalist -- more about making the public aware of indigenous history for a general audience - There isn't just one type of indigenous archaeology -- it depends on the people involved but importantly being led by indigenous people **\ ** **Video Presentations** [Ted Talk: Jared Diamond] - Book called 'Collapse' - Vikings in Greenland example - Human Impacts on the Environment :caused soil erosion - Climate Change: got colder - Relationships with friendly neighbour societies: had trade with Norway, but they were struggling - Relations with hostile societies: The Greenland Inuit - Political, Economic, Social factors: commitment to Christianity, refusal to learn from Inuit - Doomsday messaging a good motivator for change - Relationships with neighbours falls into economics - Reluctance to change is based on History and Psychology - He doesn't get into Biology; focuses on problems of our own making - No mention of technology - Presenting himself like a cultural materialist [Richard Dawkins video: The Genius of Charles Darwin part 2: The Fifth Ape] - Advocates biology as the main prime mover - The word Memes came from Dawkins work -- cultural equivalent to Genes - Humans don't have dominion over animals -- we are animals - Natural selection IS the driving force of our evolution - Richard Leakey -- paleontologist - Humans are closer to chimps than horses to donkeys -- and they can reproduce - There is no morality or purpose to evolution - it is what it is - Fig trees are terrifying - Industry barons are unabashed social Darwinists - ENRON experiment -- corporate apes - Best business models involve variety to prepare for any eventuality - Evolution from brutal struggle to survive - so what about altruism? - Psychology is about mental strategies for navigating the world around us - moral emotions might have an evolutionary basis - Peacock evolution may have been shaped by peahen brains -- sexual selection - Survival of the fittest is really survival of the gene -- genes are selfish - Altruisms born out of kin selection -- reciprocal altruism - Selfish genes give rise to altruistic individuals - Is this enough to explain kindness? - Consolation behaviour in chimps [\ ] [Video: Gods of our Fathers] - Marxist Feminist perspective - Richard Dawkins [VIDEO: Hopi Origin Story] - To find your home you must find the centre place - Also emphasis on responsibility to look after the earth - Probably best explanation for complete site abandonment - Chaco also abandoned [Video: First Civilizations -- Goebli Tepe] - Small bands for most of existence - ME 12K years - 7 shaped stone pillars in circles - T-shaped = anthropomorphic - Surplus of food -- Marxist perspective **[\ ]** **[Case Study: Abandonment Theories for the American Southwest ]** [Sites] - Four corners region of American SW - Cliff Palance Mesa Verde - Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon - Sand Canyon, Colorado - Woods Canyon Pueblo - Saddlehorn Hamlet - Castle Rock Pueblo, McElmo Creek - Great Kiva, Lowry Ruin [Potential Causes of Abandonment] - The Great Drought (AD 1275) - Population Pressures - Exhaustion of Agricultural Fields - Nomadic Raders - Inter-community conflict - Resource shortages - Disease - ET Intervention LOL [Other Considerations] - Ethnographically documented spiritual associations - Artiodactyl hunting may have become an increasingly prestigious ability -- a pathway to power - Only the largest communities were able to organize large game hunting expeditions -- paradoxically encouraging population densities to exceed the carrying capacity of the locality - In the event of repeated subsistence failures the credibility of the community leadership would be severely undermined [Implications and Possibilities] - Resource depression - Increasing dependence on domestication resources (domestic turkey etc.) - Big Sites: Effective communal hunts? Political Control? Centres of social and religious activity? Contained enough people to both send out a hunting party and defend the community against raiding? [Conclusions ] - Population densities increased despite environmental stress as only the largest communities were able to organize successful agricultural harvests and large game hunting expeditions -- paradoxically encouraging population densities to exceed the carrying capacity of the locality - Eventually harvests and hunts started to fail -- in the event of repeated subsistence failures the credibility of community leadership was severely undermined -- eventually people lost faith in their leaders to ensure food security for the community - Rapid abandonment of the region occurred as people lost faith in their leadership and sought other, more stable and secure communities [Application of Theory to this Case] Low Level Theory - The number of buildings represent the number of people - The absences of radiocarbon dates represent the absence of people Middle Range Theory - Dense accumulations of bird remains represent ritual activities - Animals associated with hunting, warfare, rain, and agriculture are found in discretely different parts of the site representing discrete activities at the site High Level Theory - Cultural Ecology -- Humans were stressed by a lack of resources (esp. food) - Marxism -- The majority of people lost faith in their leadership which resulted in a collapse of the mechanisms of social integration [Marxist Argument:] - Artiodactyl hunting may have become an increasingly prestigious ability -- a pathway to power - Only the largest communities were able to organize large game hunting expeditions -- paradoxically encouraging population densities to exceed the carrying capacity of the locality - In the event of repeated subsistence failures the credibility of community leadership would be severely undermined **[Case Study: Stonehenge (Video)]** - Mike Parker-Pearson team / PBS / Time Team - Males aged 25-40 in good health - They wonder if it's burial of specific royal lineage; there are quite few henges - Possibly a war memorial or cemetery ??? - Original outer blue stones from Wales -- mythology of Merlin to the Welsh - Colleague from Madagascar suggested ancestor worship -- stone in the domain of the dead, wood the realm of the living - Durrington - Timber circle nearby -- Time team addressed this - Both along the river Avon -- water important part of the journey from the worlds of the living to the dead - Avenue from Durrington and Stonehenge to the River - Settlement found nearby -- Neolithic houses -- 9 in total found -- same age as the original Sarsen stones - Evidence of feasting - Solstices match up between the two henges - Natural grooves aligning with the sun at solstice made people think the place was sacred and so they built Stonehenge there? - Testing systems for moving stones -- ball bearings in wooden frame - People possibly assisted by oxen in pulling the stones on pulley system - Experts disagreed on whether the pulley track system was unnecessarily complicated - Bluestone henge 3000 BC -- may also have been linked to Stonehenge -- those stone may have been moved 2500 BC - Transferring ancestry through stones part of migration - Last great monument of the stone age - Megalithic construction symptomatic of all the other changes occurring in Europe at the time **Other Megalithic Structures:** Megalithic Features - Menhir: Standing Stone (monolith) - Henge: circular enclosure - actually the ditch that goes around the stones - Dolmen: Stone tomb - buried in the ground -- single chamber tomb -- house for the dead - Passage Grave: tomb with long entrances - Multi chamber tombs are passage graves - Gallery: elongated tomb - long hallway with graves cut out of the sides Castlerigg - More opportunistic use of stone than Stonehenge - Circles and rectangles become relevant to Hodder's argument Stones of Stennes - Probably signify a family joining a larger group -- that family would be responsible for organizing a new stone -- speculative but decent explanations - They are often associated with burials as well -- community growth marker? - They all sort of conform to common pattern -- stone, ditch, etc - Ditch constructed first, then stones added later, then burials show up around the periphery -- assumes the ditch to be very important in demarking the area for the community to celebrate together - After ditch, then stones - Hundreds of years later, the square or rectangular structures inside the stone circle - Altar like think probably a dolmen with the dirt removed during looting -- especially by the Vikings who would write their names on stuff.. LOL Ring of Brodgar - Shows the consistent pattern discussed above - Either symbolic or literal protection of community (ditch) Neolithic Tombs - Dolmens away from the henges within site of the henge - Large burial mounds - Family or community would use one tomb A dolmen excavated - "A house for the dead" basically - Hodder's words - Similar to house construction of the time Galleries - Burial cubbies along the walls of the corridor Skara Brae (for the living) - Semi-subterranean structures - Stone structures with sod roofs - Compartmentalization of the space much like the tombs - Not much difference between the smaller and larger house other than size - Nothing circular here Passage Tombs - a village for the dead Hodder's conclusions - Rectangular and circular structures - Circular -- community - Rectangular -- personal - Ancestors revered so you are building them a village to 'live in' -- ancestor worship - Looked to ancestors for spiritual guidance - Elders were closer to death and sought out for guidance - Idea of people putting themselves into the centre of the henge to demonstrate family's importance -- overt tactic to manipulate the symbols Maes Howe - Hodder wanted to know why this changed - Larger tombs now being constructed - Not just slabs fashioned into a house like structure, now larger construction projects and then buried in dirt -- placed in the centre of henges which might have been in use for generations until someone came along and put in a burial centre - Like Stonehenge, it gets marvelled at for alignment with cosmological and seasonal alignments - 9-meter entrance passage - For entombing a small number of people The Contextual Method - Steps for coming to his conclusion - Step 1 wholeness -- the association between rectangular slab boxes for individuals (also seems to be male and female parts of the house) - Step 2 The Social Context -- how rectangular is domestic and circular is communal, standing stones symbols of group cohesion - Step 3 The Particular Context (Historical) - Contextual is rooted in Structuralism and neo-marxism Neo-Marxism - Ideology as essential for change - Study these charts - Neolithic -- Elites vs. workers - Shift in ideology by manipulating the symbols -- leading to power structure changes - Hodder sees humans as very intentional in their actions -- this doesn't need to be a requirement Conceptual Metaphor - Stonehenge went through its own transitions of sorts - Became more and more centralized stone structure, but did start with the ditch etc like Orkney example - Pearson take s Structuralist approach to Stonehenge -- the living and the dead **[Case Study: Symbols in Action -- Neolithic Orkney]** - Example from book Symbols in Action -- Anthro and arch perspective - Tackles megalithic architecture in Europe - Neolithic means new lithic / new stone age - We use it in arch to describe early farming - Associated with making things out of great big slabs of rock - Quanterness Tomb, Orkney : As the communities grow in size you need larger and larger tombs like this one **[Case Study: Natufians:]** - Levant (Mediterranean portion of Fertile Crescent) - Wild resources - Incipient agriculturalists - 10,500 BP to 8500 BP transitions Natufian Architecture: - Semi-subterranean, circular houses - Earliest villages, 200-300 people - Grassy steppe lands Pre-Pottery Neolithic: - Square houses - Grinding stones - Large storage features