Theorists
This early 20th century anthropologist has been very influential for his critique of 19th century cultural evolutionist and introduced historical/cultural particularism
Who is Franz Boas?
This 21st century archaeological theoretical approach examines people’s actions, strategies, and relations looking at how things (such as social inequalities) are constituted through daily life.
What is post-processualism?
In Elmann Service’s 20th century reintroduction of cultural evolutionary stages, this type is an egalitarian society that relies only on wild resources for food and where groups are politically autonomous
What is a band?
This southwestern Asian region was the focus of Neolithic period cultural changes, it's name particularly reflects it was a good area for early plant domestication and agricultural development.
What is the fertile crescent?
From around 10,000 – 6,000 B.C.E. in western Asia this period saw the beginnings of domestication, first sedentary communities, widespread adoption of technological changes such as such pottery production and ground stone tools becoming more prominent.
What is the neolithic?
This 20th century theorist championed a ‘multi-variant model’ saying there was no single factor that affects society it generally is multiple of factors with complex interrelationship (both material and information) with feedback between them all also known as systems theory of cultural evolution
Who is Kent Flannery
Thomas Hobbes idea that civilization develops out of state of nature, eventually people gave up their natural rights and transfer collective will to a sovereign state/government in which they accept laws to gain benefits of an orderly society. This is known as “the social contract" and can be understood as this type of theory
What is integration theory?
A 3-tiered administrative hierarchy is a marker of this cultural evolutionary stage
What is a state?
This was region of southwestern Asia along the mediterranean is also known as this
What is the Levant?
This is the transitionary period of human history between the Pleistocene and Holocene (~12,000-10,000 BC) where humans initially adapted to emerging postglacial environments
What is the Mesolithic?
This 21st century archaeologist argued that rulers must create legitimacy so that subjects are willing to comply by looking at evidence from ancient Mayan Society
Who is Sarah Kurnick
This part of the dual processual theory Political authority focused on individual elites with power based on the control of personal wealth and an political economic pattern which power is an outcome of exchange relations with distant social connections through trade, alliance formation, marriage
What is Network Strategy?
This kind of status is often seen in burials that include adults and children with variation in grave goods where some have no or very basic goods, while a select few burials, including both adults and children, have elaborate goods
What is ascribed status?
An example of how archaeologists can prove ancient sites were connected through long distance trade networks is demonstrated at this site through artifacts made of material not naturally found locally such as obsidian
What is Jarmo?
Characteristics of this geologic epoch were things like colder temperatures, large scale glaciation of northern latitudes and lower sea levels
What is the Pleistocene?
This 19th century cultural evolutionist saw society as a system which moved upwards from less to more complex. He popularized the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” , borrowed biological evolutionary though from Darwin and applied it to societies.
Who is Herbert Spencer?
A theory that suggests states developed to solve internal strife stemming from inequalities is known as this
What is conflict theory?
This refers to the degree to which the polity is tied together by different practices, beliefs, institutions
What is integration?
This is an Early Neolithic site in the Zagros Mountains
What is Karim Shahir
This period between ~50,000 BCE and 12,000 BCE is known as the time humans became the only surviving human species with archaeological evidence for figurative art and music
What is the Upper Paleolithic?
This theorist who was influenced by Karl Marx/Marxism in thinking about how elites emerge to organize labor for large projects and class conflict also proposed the idea of revolutions (neolithic, industrial) as major markers of human history
Who is V. Gordan Childe?
In week 1, we read readings from the book by Matthew Johnson, where he argues that cultural evolutionary theories are problematic because they ignore unique histories and cultural distinctiveness; accidents and novel circumstances in history (i.e., contingency); well as diffusion/cultural contact and this
What is the role of the individual?
The discovery of evidence for craft production workshops for materials such as pottery at a site would indicate this trait of a complex society
What is economic specialization?
An early Natufian site located in the Levant
What is Jericho?
This is the period of the Neolithic we see evidence for the first fully sedentary villages and domestication.
Transitional Village Period