Topic 6 & 7
Social, Environment & Diet
Social, Environment & Diet
When evaluating social archaeology, the following considerations are relevant to what?
1. Hunter-gatherer camp or city-state
2. Politically independent or autonomous?
3. Part of a larger system?
Answer: Size and/or Scale of the society
Source: Topic 6 lecture notes
What are two technologies?
Answer:
1. Stone
2. Ceramics (pottery)
3. Metals
4. Bone, Shell, Textiles
5. Complex technologies
Source: Topic 8 notes
What does this description describe?
A comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Answer: Analogy in Archaeology
Source: Topic 9 notes
What is osteology?
Answer: Osteology is the study of bones. Bones are the most durable part of the human body (therefore most used for archaeology).
Source: Topic 10 notes
Heritage studies draw on a number areas including architecture, history and engineering.
Name three others.
Answer:
1. Archaeology
2. Planning
3. Materials Sciences e.g. physical conservation
4. Tourism
5. Education
6. Horticulture
Source: Topic 11 notes
These descriptors represent what types of societies?
1. Sedentary
2. Hereditary ranking
3. Fortified sites
4. ritual centres/temples/monuments
Answer: Chiefdoms
Source: Topic 6 notes
Typically this item is the most common type of material found on archaeological sites?
What is it and why?
Answer: Stone due to good preservation
Source: Topic 8 notes
What is ethnohistory?
Answer: Critically examining historic records/observations through an anthropological framework.
Source: Topic 9 notes
In relation to the study of bones, the use of these tools on the body are all signs of what?
1. Bludgeons (e.g. club)
2. Projectiles (e.g. bullet, arrow)
3. Cutting (e.g. knife, sword)
4. Chopping (with an axe)
5. Other stresses (e.g. hanging)
Answer: Trauma - injury caused to living tissue from an outside force.
Source: Week 10 notes
Why is Heritage is a highly contested and political field?
Answer:
1. Heritage operates at personal, community, local, regional, state, national and global levels; and
2. Heritage is also cross-cultural
Source: Topic 11 notes
What does this describe?
The layout of human settlements on the landscape, are the result of relationships between people who decided, on the basis of practical, political, economic and social considerations, to place their houses, settlements, and religious structures, where they did.
Anwer: Settlement Patterns
Source: Topic 6 notes
Grimes Graves is dated to when?
a. 6000 BC
b. 2500 BC
c. 75 AD
d. 1625
Answer: b. 2500 BC
Source: Topic 8 notes
What type of archaeology is this?
The study of living peoples, with special attention to the relationship of behavior and the material remains.
Source: Topic 9 notes
When investigating Pathology / Paleopathology, these aspects are all signs of what?
1. presence/absence and concentrations of trace elements
2. bone chemistry and dental decay or tooth wear
2. nutritional deficiency or an overabundance leading to scurvy, rickets, or other conditions
Answer: Nutrition & Metabolism – deficiencies, disorders & the paleodiet.
Source: Topic 10 notes
Who wrote:
‘History is the remembered record of the past: heritage is a contemporary commodity purposefully created to satisfy contemporary consumption’.
Answer: Ashworth, 1994 p. 16
Source: Topic 11 notes
True or False
Knowledge of the environment and environmental change is significant for understanding patterns of early human evolution, spread of hominids and humans globally, development of technologies, diet and subsistence and the human role in vegetation changes & extinctions.
Answer: True
Source: Topic 7 notes
True or False:
Ship building is considered a complex technology.
Answer: True
Source: Topic 8 notes
What can ethnographic studies of potters and potteries tell us?
List any three.
Answer:
1. Production technology
2. Technological change
3. Knowledge transmission
4. Organisation of production
5. Distribution
6. Vessel function
7. Discard and taphonomy
Source: Topic 9 notes
These examples describe what type of human behaviour?
1. tattooing and cranial deformation etc
2. modes of disposal of the dead
Answer: Cultural behaviours
Source: Topic 10 notes
Archaeological codes of ethics cover seven common themes. There are four listed below. Name the other three.
1. conservation ethic - archaeological record is finite
2. minimum standards for work
3. responsibility towards colleagues/profession
4. maintain confidentiality
Answer:
1. public right to know
2. respect rights of key stakeholders/owners
3. act legally
Source: Topic 11 notes
What are the materials required to sustain life? There are four.
Answer: water, food, clothing, shelter.
Source: Topic 7 notes
The main mechanisms of cultural change are what?
There are 3 mechanisms beginning with I, D and M:
Answer: Invention, Diffusion and Migration
Source: Topic 8 notes
Describe what is meant by experimental archaeology.
Answer:
Archaeologists undertake experimental processes to try to replicate and investigate archaeological sites and artefacts to understand manufacture and/or use of the site or artefact; also, to replicate and investigate site formation processes.
Source: Topic 9 notes
Paleodemography describes the study of what?
Answer: The study of the composition, age structure, survivorship patterns, health status, and genetic makeup of past populations.
Source: Topic 10 notes
True or False
Governments play a role in maintaining the professionalism of archaeology through:?
1. funding for universities & higher education
2. laws & policies to control excavation/survey
3. manage standards of practice in cultural heritage
Answer: True
Source: Topic 11 notes