ArchaeoloGEEZ
Archaeology is ______________ science
Destructive
What is the 4-field approach?
Integrating biological, linguistic, cultural and archaeological sub-fields
In multiple cases around the globe, around what features do the first hints of agriculture often emerge?
Rivers!
Follow up: list the important ones!
Signs of status and riches that are highly visible and publicly disposed of (often in burials or ritual contexts) so as to signal the overwhelming surplus of one's means, the fact that they have enough to lose some, and the significance of an ideology that would compel disposal.
What is monumental architecture?
large structures built to commemorate significant events, people, or cultures, often reflecting the social, political, and religious values of the societies that created them
What specifically is archaeology concerned with?
Culture!
What is anthropology: the long version?
Anthropology involves the study of human beings in all places, at all times. As a discipline, anthropology employs the comparative study of human societies and cultures to produce useful generalizations about people and their behavior, and to arrive at an unbiased understanding of human diversity.
What form of osteological data is often used to trace population migrations?
aDNA (ancient!)
List at least three archaeological features of states (the archaeological classification for complex political organization):
Residential/Elite zones, Walls, Monumentality, Palaces, Tombs, Wealth, Luxury
What is a ziggurat?
(in ancient Mesopotamia/Ur) a rectangular tier-stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple
Archaeology is trying to answer questions of ___ and ___ by identifying _______.
How; Why; Patterns
Why do pots not equal people and how does this premise connect to anthropology?
A material signature does not necessarily correlate to a particular people group, culture or region. An anthropological lens looks at people as dynamic, heterogeneous and active, which deconstructs a simply-archaeological view of artifacts and features fitting in distinct categories/typologies.
What are the two ways agriculture emerges in human history?
Independent innovation or migration/acculturation.
What is a common archaeological marker of growing/competing city-state regions?
Warfare, competition and defensive architecture
What is Gobekli Tepe?
A late hunter-gatherer religious or ritual collection of monumental structures in Turkey featuring large T-shape dmonoliths and elaborate anthropomorphic, zoomorphic carved reliefs.
What specifically belongs in the archaeological black box, which archaeologists are trying to interpret? C_________ and T__________ processes.
Culture and Taphonomic Processes
What are at least three common anthropological-question categories that this class has touched on? *Requires extrapolation
What is the the process of the emergence of agriculture in Europe called and what routes are taken?
Neolithization; Aegean-Mediterranean sea route to Crete and Balkans northern land route to Greece.
For what two purposes does writing emerge in early complex societies around the globe?
Administration or Ritual
What do Tenochtitlán, Teotihuacán and Çatalhöyük all have in common?
Dense urban populations
Why do we do archaeology?
Answer should include the words: culture, history, patterns, past, future, help, preserve, learn.
Overall goals:
1. Reconstruct histories
2. Interpreting past cultures
3. Explaining changes over time
4. Preserving the archaeological record
with the long-term goal of helping communities, shaping the future and exposing the past
How does anthropology deal with the question of cultural evolution?
Societies do not evolve linearly - agriculture is not the subsistence ideal - communities adapt and decline according to their environments, selective pressures and changes in human action - which may be adaptive and may not be - but are always variable.
List all 9 S's in the Neolithic S Tree
Settlement - Sedentism, Strife, Surplus - Subsistence, Stuff, Status - Specialization, Social Stratifaction
What are the four common causes for the collapse of complex societies?
Internal conflict, External competition, Climactic Shift, Natural Disaster
What do Djoser's pyramid, Qin Shi Huangdi, a necropolis, a tholos, an Adena mound and the temple of the Feathered Serpent all have in common?
Monumental burial!