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| 8 ethical principles of archaeology |
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| stewardship, accountability, commercialization, public education and outreach, intellectual property, public reporting and publication, records and preservation, and training and resources. |
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| principles of excavating sacred sites |
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| respect spiritual bond, acknowledge significance of human remains, respect governing protocols of investigation with human remains |
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| maps the physical remains of human activity. GOAL: gain complete understanding at lowest possible cost. |
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| selected sampled used to represent larger area |
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| archaeological material found in the place where is was originally deposited |
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| aerial and satellite photography |
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| magetometry and ground penetrating radar - to look into the ground without penetrating it. |
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| GPS (global positioning system) |
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| precise location of archaeological sites can be determined |
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| Geographical information systems |
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| a suite of software applications that allow spatial data to be brought together and consolidated: hydology, streets, elevation..etc. exact longitude and latitude needed. |
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| use of geographical information system |
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| image all who whose points are digitalized |
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| the lowest layer in an undisturbed depositional setting it the oldest |
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| sediments and rocks are continuous |
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| clear breaks in rock type or sediments in depositional sequences |
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| also known by the name stratas - identifiable layers in depositional circumstances |
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| classified by rock or sediment type, or the fossils they contain |
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| the amterial deposited at a site at a aprticular point in time. also known as locus or depositional feature |
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| formation of archaeological site |
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| erosion or depositions are two ways this could happen |
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| refers to the accumulation of strata that results from a combination of geological and anthropogenic deposits |
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| middle-eastern term for a mound made by repeated flattening of mud brick houses |
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| the precise context in which an object is recovered in an excavation. vertical reference as compared to the datum point |
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| linchpin of excavations, a fixed unmoving point to which the location of every object is compared |
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| the usual datum point used - to measure both distance and depth |
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| used to measure objects on the horizontal axis in terms of the datum point |
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| 0.5 meter area left standing in every excavation square to provide stratigraphic reference |
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| the process of spraying water onto a sieve to break up sediments and make sure all artificial are recovered during the excavation |
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| process used to recover botanical material - mix sediments with water to allowed charred material to float while the dirty settles. |
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| objects that show traces of human manufacturing |
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| objects recovered from an archaeological context that are either remains of biological organisms or the results of geological processes |
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| study of biological characteristics of skeletal material |
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| post depositional process |
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| events that take place after the site was occupied |
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| study of the process that affects organic remains after death |
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| method used by archaeologists to represent the large quantities of material recovered in excavations and surveys |
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| relative frequencies of bones of different animals |
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| each skeletal element is measure individually thus the element that has the largest number tells us how many of that animal was present. |
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| list of artifacts for a particular archaeological context - used to draw up an inventory of types of artifacts found by archaeologists |
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| research done by archeaologists living with and observing communities (living today) in order to make a contribution to archaeology |
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| making hypotheses of the functions of society, hunting practices, economy of old peoples based on observation of current ones |
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| replication of technology/features and objects to get a better understanding of their level of complexity and function |
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| particular characteristics of an artifact |
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| artifacts with a known date of manufacture stated in calendric years |
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| based on artifact typology - places assemblages in temporal sequence but without direct calendric dates |
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| comparing relative frequency of artifact types between contexts. as popularity increases, so does frequency, and decreases the way. - Seriation: the method of comparing the relative frequency of artifact types between contexts. As popularity increases, so will the frequency of an object, and after its peak it will decrease over time. Make an assumption and use it as relative dating. Layers that are contemporary have the SAME relative frequencies. |
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| measure the decay of carbon isotopes in organic material. younger than 40.000. the use of the accelerator mass spectrometer is the same method that can date EXTREMELY small samples |
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| identifies the time of volcanic eruptions (before 40 000) - sites can be dated between layers of volcanic ash |
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| measures reversals in the eraths magnetic field. |
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| optically stimulated, electron spin, themo |
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| optically stimulated luminescence |
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| dating type used on tooth enamel |
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| dating type used on eat altered materials such as tools or pottery |
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| using tree rings to date wood at archaeological sites |
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| measures decay of the surface of obsidian artifacts - good for several thousand years or younger |
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| having to do with the context of a single site - comparisons within a site to one another |
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| having to do with the context of multiple sites - comparisons between sites (in a region) |
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| comparisons of a society within a single time period, understand the working of a society at a given point in time. |
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| comparisons between different time periods. to understand processes that change throughout time. |
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| giving up partial control of the excavation to members of the surrounding community. |
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| archaeology is part of this field, whose goals is to describe and explain human behaviour throughout the world, including understanding the variability of cultures. |
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| is patterned learned behaviour of the members of a society that is passed on primarily through language. It is an adaptive system of a society to both physical and cultural environment (White said that). It is not random. Two sub categories: technology, economy, political or social organization, and ideology. |
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| refers to ALL objects produced or modified by a society i.e. artifacts, food, remains, structures…etc. |
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| easiest to study, includes tools, pots and you can do tests to see: how hot the fire was, what tools were sued…etc. this area involves technomic artifacts. |
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| political and or social culture |
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| increasingly abstract, many opinions. This area involves socio-technic artifacts. |
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| without the written word almost impossible to know. Need more context to interpret ideo-technic artifacts: a cross or magen david. This area involves ideotechnic artifacts. |
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| a group of people sharing a common material culture, economy, social organization, ideology and language. Usually share territory and can be roughly associated with an “ethnic group”. |
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| Ethnographic culture limitations |
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| definition assumes basic human behaviour patterns remain unchanged throughout prehistory. Example: Acheulian culture shared a common technology for 1.3 million years – better understood as a technological tradition. Also unlikely they had the same language across Africa and Europe or that they were even the same species of early human. |
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| continual use of a technology for a prolonged period of time. |
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| group of similar assemblages that are restricted in time and space |
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| all archaeological material from a single occupation of a site |
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| match your archaeological data to the behaviour of modern or historically recorded peoples to help you infer the behaviour that the archaeological data represents. MOST IMPORTANT SOURCE OF MODELS FOR INTERPRETATION BUT THEY ARE NOT EXPLANATIONS. Sourced for hypotheses. Criteria for this created by Ascher are: similar economy, technology or environment. |
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| earth was shaped by a process of uplift, erosion and deposition. This concept was an influence on Darwin. |
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| 19th century. Progress was inherent in human nature because culture is cumulative. savagery, barbarism, civilization. Tyler, Morgan |
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| method of cultural change through creation of a new idea or artifact, usually through modification of an existing one. This is the change in one element of material culture, with the rest remaining constant. |
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| method of cultural change where Spread of ideas or technologies between societies without permanent movement of people. Must prove use of technology occurred earlier in certain areas. |
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| method of cultural change where Spread of culture through movement of entire peoples. |
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| search for the material results (patterning) of observable behaviour and the use of those patterns as the basis of testable hypotheses. |
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| all artifacts are the property of the country of origin and no sale of antiquities |
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| consult BEFORE digging regarding remains, conserve, don't assume control and publication. |
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| to attain an accurate picture of number, types and distribution of sites on the landscape |
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| walk in transects and at set intervals use shovel to see soil. These produce test pits. |
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| 1. surveying the entire area of an archaeological site – very uncommon, usually sites are very large: financial, time and personnel limitations. The ability to identify artifacts is crucial. |
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| proportional random stratified sampling |
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| could be stratified by environmental zones. The ability to identify artifacts is crucial. |
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| concentrates your survey in areas with a high probability for sites based on current knowledge. These will never find new types of sites. The ability to identify artifacts is crucial. |
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| can underestimate population if population distribution was structured and your transects miss all key points. The ability to identify artifacts is crucial. |
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| places where a single type of behaviour was taking place. These can only be present with habits and habitual behaviour. |
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| a group of associated artifacts representing a single activity over a defined period od time. Hearth, structure, burials. |
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| dates objects by references to their position in time relative to other objects. This tells you in the ordinal sense, if an object is earlier, the same age or later than another object. |
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| strata identified by fossils |
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| layers in two different sites that contain similar artifacts or fossils are roughly contemporary - marker fossils |
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| need other evidence of climate and available food supply to infer that animals were probably there. |
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| largest possible area that early humans could have exploited from a site. This is defined as a 2 hour walk or ride from a site. If land is uniform it is 15 km if not the circle is warped. This method only shows economic opportunities, discovery of bone and food remains is essential. |
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| site exploitation territory |
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| the area routinely exploited by a site as defined by a one hour walk or ride or 5 km. This method only shows economic opportunities, discovery of bone and food remains is essential. |
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| because plant food is found less, people think they ate meat more. This can cause an over emphasis on male activities. |
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| any fossil or living member of the human evolutionary line as distinct from apes or hominids |
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| ancestor of ape or ape. Earliest ancestor was probably small insectivore that cause insects with its teeth who used adaptive radiation after the dinosaurs died 65 MYBP. They won the ‘tree’ niche. |
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