What is the provenience, matrix, association and context of an artifact/feature?
Provenience: exact location, Matrix: physical material around it (soil), Association: objects found near it, Context: the provenience, matrix and association!
100
What are floral remains and what specialized method is used for recovering them from the matrix?
Plant remains: can give clues to food/trade of a group. Floatation.
100
What is the difference between function and morphology of an artifact?
Function: what it was used for. Morphology: the artifact's form including style, color, shape, etc.
100
How are archaeologists able to use potassium-argon, argon-argon and radiocarbon dating? And which one is able to date the furthest back?
These elements decay at a known and constant rate. Potassium-argon can date up to 5 million years ago but only materials rich in argon (volcanic strata).
100
How would you use ceramic typology and what form of dating is it?
The different styles of ceramics in places like the South West are used to relatively and possibly cross-date a site.
200
What two archaeologists helped convince the scientific world that humans were much older than 6,000 years? (found stone tools in association with extinct animals/ stratigraphy)
John Frere and Jacques Boucher de Perthes
200
What is the difference between an archaeological survey and an excavation?
Survey: locating and recording info about sites without disturbing them
Excavation: Digging and recording a site
200
What is seriation?
The organization of artifacts, types, and styles into groups assumed to be distinctive of chronological change.
200
When dating an obsidian tool with obsidian hydration, you receive date approximations for what occurrence?
The last time a point was modified.
200
Give an example of a faunal remain.
Animal bones.
300
What's the difference between cultural historical, processual and post-processual archaeology?
Cultural Historical: make chronologies of past human cultures to describe how they lived.
Processual: "new archaeology" mixes science with culture (Lewis Binford 1960s).
Post-Processual: describe how people lived by getting in the minds of the people.
300
What is flintknapping, what signifies a flintknapped stone and what would you most likely find at a site where flintknapping occured?
It is used to make sharp-edged stone tools and is signified by a bulb of percussion. Debitage is left behind by flintknapping and can be used to recreate what stone tool was made.
300
What is the difference between assemblage and component?
Assemblage: all materials recovered from a site. Component: culturally homogenous unit of a site (single vs multi-)
300
What would you date with archeomagnetic dating? Why?
Fire pits: the magnetic north pole changes over time and a master chart shows where the magnetic north was at the time it was heated.
300
What could the style of housing in a site tell about the people living there?
Settlement patterns and social differentiation.
400
What is the Three Age System and who developed it?
A classification system to organize artifacts: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age. Developed by Christian Thomsen (early 1800s).
400
What is the main guide of archaeological research called?
Research Design
400
Archaeologists classify artifacts based on...
Attributes: characteristics for grouping into class types: either morphological or functional
400
You have a site with remnants of a log cabin. How could you date this site?
Dendrochronology: tree rings will match the master chart when the tree was cut down.
400
Why can we find obsidian in Kansas?
Trade amongst groups
500
What is the concept of unilinear evolution and what is the problem with it?
The idea that all human societies developed over time along the same trajectory, from primitive to civilized.
(19th century, Lewis Henry Morgan/ Herbert Spencer)
500
What is the difference between geophysical prospecting and remote sensing? Give an example of each.
Geophysical Prospecting is used after the site is found to decide where to dig: GPR, ground penetrating radar. Remote Sensing helps determine where an archaeological site is: Aerial Survey.