Our Ancestors
Bipedal locomotion distinguishes this lineage from the evolutionary lineages leading to other organisms
What are Hominins?
People who are interested in items only for their ancientness and less for study
Who are antiquarians?
Absolute dates indicate that this European site is one of the oldest large stone monuments in the world, implying that it was a local Neolithic development
What is Stonehenge?
Dating that estimates the age of organic materials?
What is Carbon 14 dating?
What is Radiocarbon dating?
What is C14 dating?
The process of returning human remains and cultural items to their original communities
What is repatriation?
This type of evidence on animal bone that helps us to study whether early hominins which hunted or scavenged meat
What are cutmarks and breakage patterns
A scientific theory that explains how living things change over time based on natural selection through adaptive traits.
What is Darwinian Evolution?
At the site of striking coal miners in 1914 where 12 children and 8 adults were killed by strike-breakers, archaeologist identified bullet case which indicated that the National Guard had fired many shots rapidly into the camp.
What is the Ludlow Massacre?
This type of dating helps to refine and assess the accuracy and precision of radiocarbon dating using trees
What is dendrochronology?
Modern technology in the field in archaeology has lead in an increase in our ability to more accurately target potentially important areas for intensive investigation, this one method in a non-invasive remote sensing technology that uses lasers to map the ground surface even when heavily obscured by forests.
What is LiDAR?
The foramen magnum located on the bottom of the skull rather at the back of the skull indicates this about the locamotion of a mammal
What is bipedalism
This geologist's idea of Uniformitarianism (natural processes behave more or less in the same way today as they have throughout the past, and will continue to do so in the future) challenged the bibilical belief that the world in 4004 BC and helped us understand deep time better.
Who is Charles Lyell?
Through random sampling survey, archaeologists located this high altitude village site with about 30 houses from around 100 AD on Mount Jefferson in Nevada, considered unusual due to the knowledge of the village had not preserved in ethnography or cultural memory
What is Alta Toquima?
A geological principle (which is important in archaeology) stating that in an undisturbed sequence of rock layers, the oldest layer will be at the bottom and the younger layers will be progressively stacked on top
What is the law of superposition?
The relationship between artifacts found in the same archaeological context which help archaeologists understand how items were used and interacted with each other.
What is association?
The foot prints at the site of Laetoli show this early bipedal hominid put more of their weight on the heel and center of their foot then we do, indicating that they ran less efficiently
What is Australopithecines?
The relationship between archeaology, physical, linguistics, and cultural.
What are the four subfields of anthropology
Systematic archaeological research of this culture, known for large earthenworks throughout the Great Lakes, Ohio and Mississippi river valleys helped to make archaeology a part of general anthropology by debunking 19th century thinkers who argued that Native Americans did not build the earthenworks...
Who are the Moundbuilders?
Dating that looks at volcanic material instead of organics
What is Potassium-argon dating?
Archaeologists look for these in the operations of natural forces like sedimentation and erosion, organic preservation, and behavior of past humans to reconstruct ancient human ways of life...
What are patterns?
This site dating to around 3.3 mya in Kenya had flakes which resembles rocks broken accidentally by modern primates but is the same age as animal bone butchered using sharp stone edges suggesting the creators of these flakes had cognative ability to recognize the utility of the sharp edges and set the stage for later technological developments
What is Lomekwi?
Named after the site they were found at, these type of worked stone tools (sometimes in specific shapes) were found further away from their source to places where it is needed indicating cognitive ability to anticipate and plan for the future
What is Oldowan?
Occupation floors at this site show very different archaeological patterns: one which has little material on it and the other has a dense accumulation of features and artifacts which has been interpreted as levels forming in the same kind of geologic setting ruling out natural processes as an explanation
What is Gatecliff Shelter?
A relative dating technique used by archaeologists to order artifacts by style and chronology
What is seriation?
Archaeologists typically use a 1/4" screen to filter the sediment from artifacts, but when on a site with high levels of smaller artifacts archaeologists will typically use this size..
What is 1/8" ?