KEY TERMS & DEFINITIONS
The term for portable objects manufactured or made by humans, such as pottery, tools, and furniture.
What are artifacts?
What is the term for a precise geographical location containing remains of past human activity?
What is an archaeological site?
What is the process of systematically uncovering archaeological remains by carefully removing the soil and other materials covering them?
What is excavation?
These dating methods determine whether one archaeological object is older or younger than another.
What are relative dating methods?
This archaeological approach focuses on reconstructing material remains of the past by restoring artifacts and structures, essentially creating a historical snapshot in time.
What is cultural history?
Non-portable material remains of human activity, such as house walls, ditches, and niches.
What are features?
Archaeologists may discover sites through these four methods: previously known locations, accidental discoveries, document reviews, and this fourth method.
What is reconnaissance?
This term describes the material, such as soil, gravel, sand, or clay, in which an archaeological object is found.
What is the matrix?
Unlike relative dating, these methods use laboratory techniques to assign a numerical age in years to archaeological materials.
What are absolute (chronometric) dating methods?
This approach focuses on understanding how human cultures adapted to their environments using material remains.
What is cultural ecology?
Biological remains, such as plant seeds and animal bones, are associated with food consumption or other human activities.
What are ecofacts?
This method of archaeological investigation involves physically examining a geographic region to identify promising locations for archaeological sites.
What is an archaeological survey?
Archaeologists use this field of study to understand the natural and cultural processes that affect the formation and preservation of archaeological sites.
What is taphonomy?
This dating principle suggests that older geological layers are generally found deeper underground, while more recent layers are found above them.
What is stratigraphic superposition?
This archaeological approach applies the scientific method to cultural ecology to explain the processes that led to particular ways of life.
What is processual archaeology?
This term describes the precise three-dimensional position of an artifact within the material it was found in.
What is provenance?
Archaeologists use this technology to detect buried remains by measuring laser light reflected from the ground, allowing them to identify ancient structures hidden beneath dense vegetation.
What is LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)?
What is an assemblage, and how can comparing assemblages from different levels of an archaeological site help archaeologists understand cultural change? (Answer is not a question.)
An assemblage is a collection of artifacts, features, and ecofacts from a particular time and place. Comparing older and more recent assemblages helps trace cultural change over time.
This isotopic dating technique measures radioactive decay and is particularly useful for dating organic materials, with an accuracy range of approximately 30,000–40,000 years according to the lecture.
What is radiocarbon dating?
Unlike processual archaeology, this interpretive approach emphasizes human agency and the influence of ideas and values when studying past cultures.
What is post-processual archaeology?
Archaeologists use this term to describe the place where an artifact is found and the other objects discovered nearby, helping them identify associations and relationships.
What is context?
Why might archaeologists choose a survey instead of excavating a site? Explain two reasons and identify one advantage of surveys over excavation. (Answer is not a question.)
Surveys are less destructive and less expensive, and they can be repeated. Excavation is destructive, expensive, and can only be conducted once.
A site contains multiple layers of human occupation. Archaeologists discover different objects at different depths. Explain how horizontal and vertical information from this site can help reconstruct human activities. (Answer is not a question.)
Horizontal information reveals activities occurring at the same time across a space, while vertical information reveals changes in activities over time.
An archaeologist discovers wooden remains from a settlement and wants to determine their numerical age. Which non-isotopic dating technique could be used, what does it examine, and what limitation does it have? (Answer is not a question.)
Dendrochronology. It examines tree rings, with each ring representing one year. It requires trees with seasonal growth patterns, so tropical rainforest trees generally cannot be used.
Archaeologists studying a Neolithic house at Catalhoyuk discover a central hearth, animal bones, grinding stones, burials beneath the floor, paintings, and figurines. Explain how these findings could help reconstruct the inhabitants' everyday lives and beliefs. (Answer is not a question.)
These findings provide evidence of food preparation and consumption, domestic activities, burial practices, and symbolic or cultural beliefs. Together, they help archaeologists interpret how people lived and organized their lives.