Typology
Process of arranging or ordering objects based on attributes (shared characteristics)
- Stylistic attribute form attribute, technological attribute
- Most typologies are etic: constructed by archaeologists and don't necessarily match the categories of the
Assemblage
Appearance of a number of categories together in a temporal or spatial context is also known as assemblage
When artefacts, ecofacts, and features are all found together
- Connection between all of them
- Matrix: All the surroundings of your assemblage
- D
Subassembleges
Patterned sets of artifacts used by occupational groups (e.g. weapons ,shoes, tools)
Why Categorize
Typology allows us to see patterns in data
- Form and function
- Often no way to know in advance what the significance of any category system might be
- No one categorization is necessarily more correct than another
- Patterns let us interpret
Archaeological Interpretation
Material that we work with exists in the present, but what we want from it is the past, archaeological paradox
- We need to use analogy
Analogy
A form a reason whereby an identity of an unknown thing or relation is inferred from those known
- Archaeologist need to use this
Bridges the gap between the observed present and interpreted past
Specific Analogy
Particular comparisons within a single cultural tradition
- Defend use on 3 grounds
- Cultural continuity, comparability in environment, and similarity of cultural forms
General Analogy
: Broad comparisons that can be documented across cultural traditions
Technology
Aspect of culture
- Looks at environmental impact on culture
- Info about how resources are harnessed, and how they give "birth" to certain behaviors
Social Systems
: Aspect of culture
- Roles, statuses, political system, economic systems
- Macro and micro scale
- Other social systems?
Ideology
Most difficult to access
- Beliefs and practices
- Symbols and symbolism
- How?
Theory
Overall framework within which a researcher operates
- Traditional scientific terms: theory is a general explanation while hypothesis is a specific proposition put forward for testing
Archaeological Theory
Requires learning new vocabulary
- Historical view of development of thought
- Culture history: Doing archaeology without theory?
- Processualism/New archaeology
- Post processualism
Social Evolution
Darwin's biological ideas as applied to society
- Natural selection becomes new metaphor used by social therorists
- Herbert Spencer: Survival of the fittest
- Lewis Morgan & Edward Taylor: Unilinear Cultural Evolution
- Savagery -> Barbarism -> Civilizat
Culture History
Archaeology in the 19th and early 20th century
- Descriptive, chronological, focused on typological classification
- Doing archaeology without any explicit theoretical foundations
- Mainly descriptive
- No theory, no explanations, not out to prove anythin
Franz Boas
Anthropologist
- Merged anthropology and archaeology
Rigorous analysis with ethnographic data
- Tied onto direct historical approach in American archaeology
- Work contributed to the creation of the Midwestern Taxonomic System
- Known to the unknown
Gustaf Kossinna
Aided the development of German Nationalistic archeology
- Made the leap from classifying cultures in the past to equating them with contemporary social and political units
- Documented the "master Aryan race"
- 1858-1931
V Gordon Childe
Diffusionist
- 1892-1957
- Pushed culture history to its limits
- Became Marxist in outlook
- Pushed for more explanation and less description
- Marks the transition from Culture History to processualist ideas
- Distinct ethnic and social groups
Interpretation in Culture History
Diachronic, change ascribed to internal and external stimuli
- Internal: Inevitable variation, cultural invention, cultural revival
Diffusion
External stimuli for change
- Culture is fluid, cultural stream
- Diffusion: Transmission of ideas, forms, artifacts from an origin point outward
- Elliot Smith
- Hyperdiffusionism
- Influenced by evolutionary ideas
- Ignores colonialism, racism, imperial
Uses and Abuses of Diffusionism
First steps of archaeological research, expanded knowledge base
- Transformation of archaeology into respected discipline
- Impact on nationalistic movements
- Reinforced the colonial agenda of Europeas
- Reinforced racism on a political and policy level
Migration
Sudden appearance of new artifacts, local materials modified in form, style, or function, presumably by new comers
- Source for immigrant population must be identified
- Artifacts used as indicators of population movement must exist in the same form at th
Invasion
Destruction levels in archaeological record
- Hard to prove
Processualism
1950s and 1960s reaction against Culture History
- Focus on the how and why of past events
- Influenced by biology ecology, computing
- V Gordon Childe
- Graham Clark
- New way of thinking how to do archaeology
- Generalizing rather than specifying
- "New
New Archaeology's Critique of Culture History
New Archaeology is not a single set of beliefs or theories, but united in a general dissatisfaction with traditional Archaeology
- Need to be more scientific and anthropological, hypotheses must be tested
- Science was the way forward
- Critique of normat
New Archaeology's Key Points
Emphasis on cultural evolution
- Emphasis on systems thinking: Culture is an extrasomatic means of adaptation
- Optimism about accessing the past
- Interconnected systems to adapt
- Culture adapts to external environment
- Stress on scientific approaches
Archaeology as Science
: Positivism: Separate theory from method
- Hypothesis testing
- Untestable statements: Outside realm of science!
- Hypothetico-deductive-nomological (HDN) Model
- Logical positivism
- Extreme belief - looking for covering laws across all time and space,
Lewis Binford (1931-2011):
Said archaeology made virtually no contribution to explanation
- Archaeology = anthropology
- Archaeology = science
- We need to reexamine analogy
- Archaeological record is static
- But we look at past dynamics
Argues that culture history is inadequate,
Middle Range Theory
Linking arguments between past and present
- Understanding static data and past dynamics
- Use the present to bridge the gap between present static and past dynamic
- Ethnographic fieldwork
- Actualistic studies: Observations and recordings of activities
Culture as a System
Clark
- Intercommunicating network of attributes or entities forming a complex whole
- Systems are the way that they are because of adaptation
- Systems are more or less observable
- Systems can be modeled and simulated on a computer
- Subsystems are affe
Strengths of Systems Thinking
Avoids problem of mentalism
- Avoids monocausal explanations
- Source of optimism for archaeologists
Weaknesses of Systems Thinking
: Doesn't explain where systems come from historically
- Explanations are too dependent on adaptation
- Alternative explanations to function
- Still doesn't address why
- Ideology of control
Archaeology
Indirect study of people from the past through making connections with objects
- Scientific study of peoples and cultures of the past
- Science of eliminating possibilities of error
- Art of interpretation
- Illuminating the present, material evidence
- W
Anthropology
The holistic and comparative study of all humanity
Basic Goals of Archaeology
Determining form, function, process, and meaning
The Renaissance
: Revival of learning and renewed cultural awareness
- Exciting cultural movement that began in Italy in the late 1300s
- Thinkers of that time saw themselves as part of a golden age
- Bubonic plague, reengineering of society, looking into the past for in
Herculaneum
Resort town near Pompeii, discovered before Pompeii
- Resettled, one of the first archaeological spots
- Focus mainly on treasure hunting for collectors and antiquarians, instead of preservation and research
- Tunnels of Herculaneum
Karl Weber
Scientific and systematic documentation and excavation of Herculaneum
- Trying to understand how ancient Romans lived
- 1712-1764
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Father of art history and classics
- Examined Herculaneum materials
- History of art in antiquity, studies through the lens of form and style
- Leads to systematic studies of material culture
- Documented how antiquity art evolved from classical to presen
Christian Jurgenson Thomsen
Opened the National Museum of Antiquities in Copenhagen
- Three Age System implemented
- Did not want to destroy sites, thought they should be collected and preserved in a museum
- One room for stone age, one room for bronze age, one room for iron age
William "Strata" Smith
Geologist
- Blew creationism out of the water
- Product of industrial revolution, infrastructure
- Theory of uniformitarianism, soil layers, it must take time for soil to accumulate and form, but that doesn't fit in with 6,000 years of creationism
- Fossi
Charles Darwin
Origin of Species
- Uniformitarianism, Fossil finds, and his publications begin to undermine creationist ideas
Grecomania
Europeans modeled themselves after Greece and Rome, starting from the Renaissance
- Europeans wanted to believe they were superior because they were direct descendants
- Cultural glory of Greece and military glory of Rome
- Restricted to very upper class
Imperialism and Colonialism
Colony: Country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, occupied by settlers of that country
- Farming settlements for retired veterans of Roman army in newly conquered territories
- Inspired Europe
Orientalism
Edward Said
- Way of coming to terms with the Orient based on its special place in the European Western Experience
- Defining the east is a good way of defining what the west is/is not
- West = classical, Hellenistic, literature East = dangerous, exotic,
Culture
Structure of lives and environment
- Group distinction and identity
- Social norms and behaviors
- Generational traditions and values
- History of the group, beliefs
- Adaptive system, an interface between ourselves, the environment, and other societies
-
Archaeological Culture
Normative view: People do things and leave things behind, and we cannot access both adaptive and ideational aspects of these objects
- Behaviors generate an archaeological record
- Societies past and present share same basic features of organization
- Use
Archaeological Record
Material remains of past human activities and behaviors: Archeological data
- 3 main types of archaeological data: artefacts, ecofacts, features
- Construction of ancient cultures from data, the archaeological records
- Based on the scientific recovery of
Artefact
Portable
- Modified or created by human behavior
- Simple tools (1 piece) and compound tools (more than 1 piece)
- Artefacts and geofacts (look man made but are actually natural)
- Not just a finished product, also discarded material
Ecofacts
Organic and environmental remains
- Bones, seeds, pollen
- Distinction between artefact and ecofact are blurred
- Not modified
Features
Non portable human made remains
- Simple and complex
- Post holes, middens, hearths, monumental architecture
- Helps define an area of activity
- Structures such as houses
Stratigraphy
Build up of things into layers
- Gives us context
- Law of superposition: What is underneath is going to be older than what is above it
- Provenance: Where the artefact comes from in the matrix on the site
Horizontal stratigraphy: Space
Vertical Stratigra
Relative Chronology
Putting things in a relative sequence without specific dates
- Arranging finds in a chronological sequence
- Establishing chronological relationships between sites and cultures
- We're never exactly sure how much time has passed between each events
Stylistic Seriation
Sequence dating - Flinders Petrie (1853-1942)
- Arranging things in a chronological fashion
- Petrie arranges pottery in 9 different types
- 30-80 numbered pottery
- Earliest way to organize chronology
- In archaeology, seriation is a relative dating meth
Process of Archaeological Research
Design and formulation; dialogue between research question and data, what you're going to dig, questions you are asking, what activities are conducted on this site, research design
- Implementation and data acquisition
- Processing and analysis
- Interpre
Formulation and Implementation
Define research problem
- Perform background studies, including documentary research
- Determine team composition, size and duration of field season
- Budgeting
- Permits and funding
Excavation Team
Director, deputy director, excavation team, find managers, specialists
Stages of Archaeological
Field Work
Finding archaeological sites (remote sensing and ground survey)
- Documentary evidence: sites found through research (E.G. Heinrich Sleiman)
LiDar
Light Detection and Ranging
- Form of aerial photography, laser pulses and produces high density elevation data
- Optical equivilent of radar
- Yields accurate and dense digital models of topography
- Laser altimetry
Augustus Lane Pitt Rivers
brought science and military precision to archaeology
- Documentation and survey, Scientific Survey
Alfred Kidder (1885-1963)
Put the American Southwest on the archaeological map through large scale survey
- he saw a disciplined system of archaeological techniques as a means to extend the principles of anthropology into the prehistoric past and so was the originator of the first
Geophysical Survey
Shovel test
- Auguring and coring
- How much stuff and where you should start digging
- Magnetometry, resistivity survey, ground penetrating radars
Survey
Field walking
- Eyes on the ground
- Trying to find the best area for excavation
- Statistical sampling
- Defining data universe then deciding where to sample
Arbitrary Sampling:
You set limits and units will be regular in size and shape
Statistical Sampling
: Arbitrary: You set the perameters
1. Simple random sampling
2. Stratified random sample
3. Systematic sample
4. Stratified systematic unaligned
5. Adaptive sampling
Box Grid Excavation
Sir Mortimer Wheeler
- Baulks in between squares to see stratigraphy, avoid mistakes
- Different people will be digging
- Military precision
Open Area Excavation
No boxes
- Prevents wrongly oriented balks
- Good for sites with a short occupational history, the materials are fairly close to the surface
Step Trenching
: Deep layers
- Good for finding ancient things
- Higher water table
- Safer method
Munsell Chart
Soil change color chart
- Color chart
- Helps to aid in deciding soil color
- Reddish soils: Iron compounds
Grey soils: Oxygen poor conditions
Harris Matrix
Plotting trenches and spatial relations
- Layers/Loci
- Difference in dirt color signifies a different layer
- Room for mistakes
- Stratigraphy
Antiquarians
History of archaeology began in European renaissance
- Fascination with classical civiliation
- People of wealth collected and dug up for sport
- Precursor to Archaeology
Three age System
Christian Jurgesen Thomsen (1788-1865)
- National Museum of Antiquities in Netherlands
- Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age to Classify prehistoric past
Uniformitarianism
William "Strata" Smith (1789-1839)
- Earth was not formed by divine creation but natural processes: Erosion, weathering, geological strata
he assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the
Flood Tablets
Found in Assyria
- Gave evidence of far earlier civilizations
Heinreich Schliemann
Fascinated with Homer and the Odysses
- "Discovered" mythological city of Troy
- Found burials at Mycenae
- Believed he had found King Agamemmnon
Three Level Sequence of Human Development
Edward Tylor
- Savagery (Hunting)
- barbarism (Farming)
- Civiliation (present)
- Unilinear cultural revolution
Direct Historical Approach
Workin backward from well documented levels of history to prehistory
Palynology
The study of minute fossil pollen grains as a means of studying ancient environments
- Unnart von Post
- Archaeologists realized this new technique offered a chance to study ancient societies in the context of their environment
- Precursor to cultural eco
Cultural Ecology
Study of ecological relationships btween human cultures and their environments, other cultures
- Julian Steward
- Based on general sysstems theory
- Exploring strategies they use to adapt, such as religionn
Physical Anthropology
Study of human biological evolution, and variations among different populations
- Studies or ancestors: Gorillas, chimps
Cultural Anthropology
Analysis of human social life: both past and present
- How do human cultures adapt to enviroment?
Ethnoography
Culture, technology ,and economics of society
Ethnology
Comparative study of societies, generalized human behavior
Social Anthropologists
Analyze social organization
Salvage Archaeology
Born after WWII
- Concern over destruction of archaeological sites
- Sponsored by UNESCO
Cultural Resource Management
A type of archaeology concerned with management and assessment of the significance of cultural resouces such as archaeological sites
- Dominant activiy in North American archaeology
Paleoanthropology
Study of culture and artifacts of earliest humans
- Stone technology, art, hunting and gathering, prehistory
Historical Archaeologists
Work on site and study problems from periods which written records exist
- Excavate settlements, cities
- Text aided
Pothunters
Treasure hunters that excavate sloppily and sell away artifacts
Potsherd
Individual pot fragments
Evolutionist School
European archaeologists who Adopted 3 stage model of prehistory
- Influenced by ethnographers who interpreted socities they encountered
Adaptive View
A way of looking at culture that assumes that econmics, technology, population density, and ecology are key facts in shaping human behavior
- Adaptive strategies are adopted by humans to ensure their culture operates with their ecosystem
- Nonbiological m
Ideational Approach
Focuses on the complex sets of perceptions ,conceptual assigns, and shared beliefs and understandings that underlie the ways in which people live
- Culture is what people learn
- Cognitive code: You can't understand culture without understanding the human
Patterns of Discard
Tangible remains of the past
- Archaeologists can see a patterned reflection of the culture that produced them
Cultural System
The means whereby a human society adapts to its physical and social environment
- Depends on ability to adapt to natural environment
- Explains cultural and social change
- Culture systems are in constant state of change (cultural process)
Stewardship
Preserving and conserving the material remains of the past
- Archaeology's primary goal
- Overriding obctive
- Cultural resource management and salvage work
Reconstructing Ancient Lifeways
Study of ancient human behavior, not just artifacts
- Subsistence: How people make their living or acquire food
- Environmental Models
- Human interactions
- Social organization and religious beliefs
Goals of Archaeology
1. Stewardshop 2. Constructing Culture history 3. Reconstruction ancient lifeways 4. Explaining cultural and social change 5. Understanding the archaeological record
Archaeological Sites
A place where traces of ancient human activity are found
- Archaeologist's archive
- Classified according to activity (e.g. burial sites, habitastion sites)
Primary Context
The original position of the artifact within time and space
Secondary Context
Primary context that is disturbed by later activity, natural or human
Space
A precisely defined location for every find made during an archaeological survey and excavation
- Vital dimension of archaeological context
- Latitude, longitude, depth, measurement
- Distances between one point and another are telling
- Grid coordinates
Spatial Analysis
The analysis of spatial relationships both within sites and over much larger areas
Law of Association
Context in space is based on associations between artifacts and other evidence of human behavior around them
- Law that they are contemporary if they are in the same archaeological horizon
- Helps to order artifacts in chronological sequence
Subassemblages
A collection of artifacts associated with a single individual (e.g. a hunter's bow and arrow)
Assemblages
Dissimilar subassemblages of artifacts (e.g. hunter's bow and gatherers basket)
- Reflects the patternning of the shared activity of the group
Industries
Similar subassemblages at a site which were made at the same time by the same population
Law of Superposition
Underlyig levels are earlier than those that coverthem
- Fundamental to stratigraphy
Seriation Techniques
Used to place artifacts in chronological order
- Popularity peaks at specific moment in time
- Plotting frequencies as a set of bars
- "Battleship curve"
- Helpful to cross date sites as well
Obsidian Hydration
Natural glass formed by volcanic activity that absorbs water from its surroundigs
- Helps to develop absolute and relative chronology
Absolute Chronology
Refers to dates in calendar years, exact
Dendochronology
Tree ring dating
- Each ring can be carbon dated
Chronometric Chronology
Dates in the form of date ranges estrablished by statistic probability
- Radiocarbon dating, luminescence dating
Radiocarbon Dating/Carbon-14
Dates organic remains using material that was once living
- Half life, quarter life, etc is compared with life of living materials
- Counts beta particles admitted as a result of radioactive decay
- Radiocarbon dating is a method of determining the age of
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Dating
Directly counts the actual number of carbon 14 atoms in a sample
- Can give dates from very small samples, therefore not damaging the artifcs
Residuality
The re-use of old wood in later structures
- All wood must predate the contexts in which it is found
Superpositioning
Direct stratigraphic relationship
- Helps archaologists order types into a time framework/sequence
- Older types into a time framework/sequence
- Older types are at lower levels, etc
- repeated observations of direct stratigraphic relationships help archa
Archaeological Research Design
Context: Design should reflect a larger set of goals and fit into a larger body of archaeological knoweldge
- Meaningful questions/hypoetheses to beginn
- Definitions of data to be collected, and methods to be used to collect it. Flexible
- Info about ho
Compliance Process
Project is designed and carried out within tightly drawn legal boundaries
Implementation
Fund raising, getting permission, access to land, acquiring equipment
Processing and Analysis
Finds are cleaned, identified, and catalogued in the field before being transported to the lab
Interpretation
Everything is brought together into an interpretive synthesis to answer research questions posed in the original design
Stages of Archaeological Fieldwork
Finding a site by accident or by survey
- Asessing the site non-intrusively
- Excavation
Remote Sensiting
GPS, satellites and aerial photos to find sites
Aerial Photography
Sometimes possible to see subtle changes inn soil
- Shadow sites, sometimes misleading
- Reveals things you can only see at bird's eye view
Element sampling
Selecting arbitrary grid samples over a large area
- Useful for estimatig densities of archaeological sites over a research area
Cluster Sampling
Usually archaeological samples are not sets of sites, artifacts, bones, or seeds. More typically they are sets of spaces or volumes. Whenever we sample a population of spaces or volumes, and then act as though we sampled a population of sites, artifacts,
GIS
Geographic Information Systems
- Computer aided systems for the collection, storage, retrieval, and analysis of spatial data
- Mapping statistics,l modeling, data points, tophography
Site Assessment
Assessing the significance fo an archaeological site without excavation
- Accurate mapping and recording of precise geographic location, given name nd number, basis for an entry in a database
- Surface collection of artifacts
- Subsurface investigation us
Surface Collection
Representative samples of artifacts and activities on site
Subsurface Detection Methods
Ground penetrating radar, metal detectors, electromagnetic surveys, magnometer
Excavation
Destructive, usually a carefully planned blance between digging and preservation
- Context must be documented
- Archaeologists dig only when they must
Site Testing
Subsurface radar technology
- Test pit/test trenches: Carefully dug trenches to anticipate subsurface stratigraphy and occupational layers
- Reference points for planning and entire dig
- Shovel pits are smaller to establish the boundaries of shallow sett
Geometric Method
A dissection method
- Excavator lays out a rectangular trench, then levels deposits down into exposed walls displaying straigraphic profile
- 3d Pic from top to bottom
Never looks at layers for what they actually are
Probabilistic Sampling
Most archaeologists use this as a means of relating small samples of data to larger populations (e.g. political opinion poll)
- Improves the likelihood that the conclusions reached from a survey or excavation on the basis of samples are relatively reliabl
Simple Random Sampling
Used when nothing is known ahead of excavation
- Used when an archaeologist wishes to obtain an unbiased sample of artifacts (e.g. excavated samples are chosen at random)
Stratified Sampling
Archaeologist uses previous knowledge of an area, to structure further research (e.g. topographic variation)
- Allows one to sample some selected units intensively and less thoroughly
Mortimer Wheeler
Sampling excavation variant on the geographic method
- Boxes in shallow sites informal grids allowig hi to monitor the stratified layers in the baulks between the boxes
Stratigraphic Excavation
dissection
- Exposing each layer one by one
- Following sequence of defining the layer as you go along
Vertical Excavation
Digging limited areas for specific information on dating and stratigraphy
- Used to obtain samples, establish sequences of ancient building construction, and to salvage sites that are threatened
- Limited space
Horizontal (Area) Excavation
Stratigraphic excavation, exposing large areas of the site to expose layouts
- larger settlements
- Can be recorded with a total data station: An electronic distance measurig device with recording
Stratigraphic Observation
Process of recording, studying, and evaluating stratified layers
- Deposited horizontally but studied vertically
- LAw of association
- Subtle color and texture changes
Mound Sites/Tells
When the same site is occupied for centureis and successive generations lived atop the same place
Datum Point
The point where the GPS is taken
CRM phases
Phase I: Survey Phase II: Testing Phase III: Data recovery
Provenience
The location of artifacts, helps us understand context
GPR
Ground penetrating radar
- Remote sensing
- Area is smoothed and GPR is used to try and find abnormalities
Loci
Subdivision of site into relevant areas
Taxonomy
System for classifying materials, objects, and phenomena used in many sciences
- Organizes data into manageable units: separating finds (e.g. food, stone, bone)
- Describes types to group many artifacts by their common attributes
- Identifies relationship
Descriptive Types
Most elementary descriptions based on physical/external properties
- Commonly used for sites where functional interpretations are impossible
Chronological Types
Defined by form but are time markers
- Types with chronological significance
- Attributes that show change over time
Functional Types
Based on cultural use or role rather than outward appearance
- Should reflect precise roles made by the members of society that created it
Stylistic Types
Items such as dress used to convey information by displaying it in public (e.g. aztecs dressed according to rank)
Component
Physically bounded portion of a site that contains a distinct assemblage which serves to distinguish the culture of the inhabitants on a particular level
Phase
Cultural unit reepresented by like components on a different sites, or different levels on the same site
Tradition
Lasting artifact types, assemblages of tools, architectural styles, etc that last longer than one phase
Stone
Reductive/subtractive technology
- Stone is shaped by removing flakes (Debitage)
- Conchoidal fractures help identify rock as humanly modified
- Petrological analysis can identify source of stone
Multidimensional Classification
Derived from the specific intersection of three or more specific dimensions, such as decoration, shape
Culture Classification
A group of types that share a distinctive set of characteristics
- Usually named after the modern place it was identified at
Single Component Sites
Material reflecting only one culture is found
- More than one is a multi-component site
Normative view of Culture
Assumes that abstract rules govern what a culture considers normal behavior
- Ignores sometimes change is not brought about by advantage or invention
- Culture history
Invention
Creation or evolution of a new idea
- Can study the ways in which invention spreads by tracing it to its origin
- Some inventions develop independently and simultaneously in many parts of the world, such as agriculture
Processual Archaeology
Ecological and evolutionary approach to explaining the past
- Deductive, hypotheses, testing against data
General Systems Theory
The search for the ways human populations do things that other systems do
- Caused archaeologists to think of human culture as open systems regulated in part by external stimuli
- Looks at many agents of culture change not just one
Multilinear Cultural Evolution
Cumulative process that results from cultural adaptations over long periods of time
- Recognizes there are many evolutionary tracks, with differences resulting from individual adaptive solutions
- Brings systems theory and cultural ecology together
- AKA
Historical Materialist Approach
AKA post-processual archaeology
- Reaction against emphasizing cultural processes over people
- Focuses more on competing individuals and groups as opposed to cultural processes
- Individuals and their agency cause change
- Focuses more on minorities as w
Cognitive Processual Archaeology
Broad ideal that covers numerous approaches
- Archaeology of the mind: religion, bellief, etc
- How did peopel think?
Technomic Sub-System
The primary functional context in of the artifact is coping directly with the physical environment
-Variability of efficiency, nature of available resources
- We can correlate these items with environmental variables, giving us the nature of extinct envir
Sociotechnic Artifacts
Primary functional context in the social sub-systems of the total cultural system (e.g. King's crown)
- Changes in complexity of these artifacts tells us about change in the social ssytem and helps to explain social change
- Binford
- The more complex and
Ideological Artifacts
Primary functional comtext in the ideological component of the social system (e.g. religious iconography)
- Avoid historical explanations for any changes, pay attention to adaptive changes
- Basis of group awareness and identity, as well as solidarity
Old Copper Conplex
In archaic period, fine and superior copper tools were being produces, while in woodland times, was used for non utilitarian items
- May have been superior, but took very long to make, were not being reused
- Was instead a sociotechnic item, a status symb
Site Formation Processes
Agencies, whether natural or cultural, that have transformed the archaeological record and site
Culture = Human behavior such as re-use, discard
Non cultural = natural process such as erosion
- Shows the archaeological record is not solely a direct result
Ethnographic Archaeology
Comparing still living peoples to those in the past and making connections
- Very simplistic
- Working backwards from the known to the unknown
Ethnoarchaeology
- Living Archaeology
- Studying the process by which abandoned settlements turn into archaeological sites
- Mass of observed data on human behavior in which they can draw up suitable hypotheses to compare with finds from excavations
Elliot Smith
Culture Historian
- Diffusion and culture migration/culture routes spread similar ideas from egypt all the way to south america. (e.g. mummification, pyramids)
-Cultural routes/culture migration and diffusion
Christopher Hawkes
Culture historian
- Text aided archaeology helps to give context
- Diffusionist
Julian H Steward
Direct historical approach
- Working from the known to the unknown
- History plus stratigraphy or seriation
- Ethnography
Ford & Steward
Basic conceptual tool of culture is the type, which can help us construct cultural histories from a very limited range of cultural material
- Can be used for more than just pottery
- Needs to be used with history
- Fictional gamma-gamma culture
- Cultural
Lew Binford's Typology
Criticism of Ford
- How can just type arrangement tell us anything?
- Reject just "drift or migration"
- Reject 'aquatic view of culture'
- Culture should not just be measured with a single variable
- Many variables function independently
- Primary functi
Paul S. Martin
Revolution in archaeology
- Archaeology has been redefined so many times
- New goals, redefinition of culture, new methods
David Clark
Loss of innocence"
- Self consciousness
- Critical self consciousness
- Archaeology has to keep up with times and technology
Augustus Lane Pitt Rivers
1827-1900
- was an English army officer, ethnologist, and archaeologist.[1] He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display of archaeological and ethnological collections
- He viewed archaeology as an extension of ant
Culture-historical archaeology
an archaeological theory that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture.
- Gustaf Kossinna
- Cultural-historical archaeology had in many cases been influenced by a nationalist
Dating
Absolute dating methods rely on using some physical property of an object or sample to calculate its age. Examples are:
Radiocarbon dating - for dating organic materials
Dendrochronology - for dating trees, and objects made from wood, but also very import
Systems Theory
Bertalanffy attempted to construct a general systems theory that would explain the interactions of different variables in a variety of systems, no matter what those variables actually represented. A system was defined as a group of interacting parts and t
Sampling
One of the most important tasks an archaeologist faces is discovering sites in the landscape. Unless a site is clearly visible, it is necessary to use various methods of subsurface testing, from simple test pits dug by hand to technologically advanced met
Archaeology as Anthropology: Lewis Binford
- Culture Anthropology analyzes artifacts in a vaccuum without realizing that artifacts operate in operational sub-systems of the total cultural system
- Historical context doesn't explain processes of cultural change: Yes there was a migration, but why?
Technomic
Primary functional context of an artifact is coping directly with physical environment
- Correlation with environmental variables (e.g. no fishhooks in the desert)
Sociotechnic
Primary functional context is in the social sub-system of the cultural system
- e.g. King's crown
- Changes in the complexity of these objects helps us to map social change
Ideotechnic
Primary functional context is in ideology (e.g. religion, beliefs)
- Any religious iconography
- Avoid historical explanation, look at adaptive explanations
- Basis of group awareness, identity, slidarity
Old Copper Complex
Efficiency is only one side of the adaptive coin
- Must also take into account effiency to use and gather material as well as to make
- Copper may be a more efficient tool, but takes way more time to make than chipping simple flint
- Copper was also socio
Hawkes
- Ladder of inference: It's easiest to understand processes that create sites, then economics and production, then politics, but ideology is hardest
- Culture historian
- Archaeology goes beyond the where and when
- Historical context paired with artifact
Steward
Culture historian
- Direct historical approach: Working from the known to the unknown
- History plus stratigraphy and seriation
- Ethnography can help us understand materials in their cultural context
- Known tribes comparison to tribes of the past
Concept of Types: Ford & Steward
- Basic conceptual tool of culture is the type
- Measuring device for culture history
- Reconstruct culture history from a very limited range of cultural material
-- Norm, deviation, more deviation = possibly explained by migration, different behavior pat
Binford's Criticism of Ford's Types
Culture should not be measured with a single variable
- Pots are not people
- Culture is not just assciations, traits, and features, but adaptation to the environment
- How can we access ideology?
- Desciptive categorization is almost useless
Normative View of Types
- Changes in item types = drift, migration, etc while similarities = adhering to conservative values system
- Ideas flow like a stream through regions
Revolution in Archaeology: Paul Martin
- Archaeology is rapidly changing away from culture history
- Old method is hard pressed to answer "why"
- Martin thinks processual archaeology is absolutely revolutionary
- New goals of archaeology are to seek trends and laws of human behavior
- Archaeol
Archaeology: Loss of Innocence (Clarke)
- Archaeology is beginning to critically examine itself
- New scientific methods open up new possibilities for the discipline
- We must embrace change and adapt
- Old system can't keep up with new information
- However, new archaeology is not infallible
Specter's Feminist Archaeology
- Women's place in the Dakota village: They held it down while men were away
- Perspective of aboriginal women, and the story of one girl in particular
- Post processual: Focusing on the individual
- An artifact as situated in its individual use and conte
Gender and Archaeology
First wave: Women acknolwedged in history
- Second wave: Writing histories of women
- Third Wave: Last 20 years: Examines dynamics of power, social context of gender, not just focused on women
- Processual archaeology is usually anonymous, interested in g
Feminist Archaeology
Critiquing archaeology
- Gender is culturally constructed, and part of studying culture
- Janet Specter
- Fact is a myth, no objective practice
- We must try and understand the individual
- We must understand power and identity without ignorig gender
Marxist Archaeology
Power relations
- Modes of production as the social/political system
- Modes of production and who controls them results in conflict
- Human socities have been characterized by struggle until they cannot sustain themselves and collapse
- Links between arc
Post Processualism
Feminist/Marxist archaeology
- Understanding past using active mode of culture
- Study people n a human time scale
- Focus on the individual, small scale
- Not just focused on authorities and big figures
- People are not passively controlled by systems
Settlement Archaeology
How archaeologists study households, communities, and cultural landscape
- Patterns in houses, storage pits, etc
- Reveals how individuals and communities relate to one another
Settlement Patterns
Part of analysis about human adaptation to enviroenment
- Helps us to examine trade netwrks, explanation of envrionment
- Relatinships between individuals and landscapes
- Can explain placement of specific things
Communities
Groups of households that interact with each other
- Permanency of settlements
- Importance of family and kin ties
- Networks of human interaction
Populatin
Evolve across a landscape because of environmental change, interactions between people, shifts in population density
- Clear cause and effect between population and agricultural productivity of an area
Bioarchaeology
Studying deceased people through DNA, like the iceman
- Facial reconstruction, forensic archaeology, palaeopathology
- Can tell us disease, malnutrition, injuries, sex, age, even occupation if it is telling on bones
Tribes
Bands (Autonomous, self sufficient groups) but with more social and culturual orgaization
- Kin based social mechanisms
- Turns into chiefdom when headed by an inidivudal with ritual, political power
Civilization
State organized society
- Operates on large scale with centralized agriculture, social, political insitutitions
- Class stratification and inequality, privilege of a few
Trade
Goods and commodities being mutually exchanged
- Appears in archaeological recrd
- Usually in a central place, and then goods are redistributed through another central place like a market
- We can trace trade
Cultural Resources
Natural and artificial features, artifacts associated with human activity
- Unique and non renewable
- Govt protects on public land, but harder on private land
- Identified and assessed through surface survey and limited excavation to see how important th
Postprocessual Archaeology (Hodder)
- Outlines theories of social change in which the individual, actor, culture & history are venter
- People don't just passively react to external stimuli but are active and create their own change
- Breaking split between archaelogy and social sciences
-
Criticisms of Processual Archaeology
- Too scientific
- You can't understand general behavior withut understanding the inidvidual
- Individuals act on culturally fueled beliefs, so culture is embedded in behavior
- Processual doesn't care abut the person behind the system, too scientific, to
This is not an article about material culture as text (Hodder)
- Material culture is not a language, it cannot tell us somehting out of nothing, similar to typology's telling in Culture History days
- Motive that is given by processural archaeologist was probably not how the creator described or intended their object