Theorists
Theories
Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, States
The Neolithic
Time Periods
100

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?

100

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?

100

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?

100

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?

100

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?

200

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

200

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?

200

A 3-tiered administrative hierarchy is a marker of this cultural evolutionary stage

What is a state?

200

This was region of southwestern Asia along the mediterranean is also known as this

What is the Levant?

200

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?

300

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

300

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?

300

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?

300

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?

300

Characteristics of this geologic epoch were things like colder temperatures, large scale glaciation of northern latitudes and lower sea levels

What is the Pleistocene?

400

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?

400

A theory that suggests states developed to solve internal strife stemming from inequalities is known as this

What is conflict theory?

400

This refers to the degree to which the polity is tied together by different practices, beliefs, institutions

What is integration?

400

This is an Early Neolithic site in the Zagros Mountains

What is Karim Shahir

400

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?

500

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?

500

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?

500

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?

500

An early Natufian site located in the Levant

What is Jericho?

500

This is the period of the Neolithic we see evidence for the first fully sedentary villages and domestication. 

Transitional Village Period