INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY Nancy White - Touro Institute

Why does iron metallurgy develop later and what milestone does it mark? The Iron Age began
with development of a more complex technology, especially the requirement of a hotter fire, and
of melting out the “bloom” and then reheating it and hammering it into shape. When you add
charcoal, somewhat later in time, you get steel. There are many ancient technologies that we still
have not been able to replicate in modern times.
What is special about gold artifacts? Gold is also soft and easily workable, and does not tarnish.
If you have on, say, a ring someone gave you that you thought was gold and it is making a green
stain on your finger, it is not pure gold! What kinds might you find in Florida? Of course,
historic shipwrecks are known for Spanish gold, and while the silver coins end up looking like a
blackish-gray rock on the sea floor, the gold is still gleaming. Because so many cultures value it
highly, including ourselves, we love to study gold. So does Indiana Jones, who stole the gold idol
at the beginning of the movie. Native Americans did have some gold and, especially in Central
America, worked it into fancy forms. But usually in prehistoric Florida we do not find any gold,
though we might get copper (show copper ear discs from a Florida site). One of our graduates
who runs a contract archaeology firm in Orlando excavated a human skeletal hand with a gold
ring on one finger. It was found in an area scheduled for a housing development and not known
to be a cemetery. It was a recent historic burial, and the engraving on the ring led him to the
person’s descendants, who still lived in the area.
What do we mean by organic artifacts? Anything made of something that was once alive, such
as wood, shell, bone, leather, hair, horn, teeth, ivory, etc. I'm passing around a shell tool typical
of Florida and some other coastal areas. The book shows bone harpoon heads (p.129). Of course,
all these are of materials that are more perishable and less often found archaeologically.
What analyses can we do of organic artifacts? The usual, such as raw material type, manufacture,
style; by now you should know the right questions to ask. Remember that the archaeological
record is so biased in favor of what is preserved that we forget how important these artifacts are.
But look at reconstructions at various sites, whether the Spanish mission site of San Luis in
Tallahassee, with its European church but native council house and chief’s house, or perhaps the
Forest Capital Museum’s reconstruction of a historic Florida homestead in Perry. All the
buildings are of wood, the furniture, most of the tools and other artifacts are made of plant
materials!
How do ecofacts differ from organic artifacts? They are not shaped into tools but are the result of
human activity. The most typical are food remains, but there can also be naturally occurring
remains affected by humans. For example, at sites where humans have cleared the forest to build
houses, the natural pollen will not show tree species, but weeds that grow up in cleared areas.
What is paleoethnobotany? Study of plant remains from archaeological sites. It can be done at
the macrobotanical level, looking at seeds, charcoal and wood pieces, etc. Some sites I have
excavated have produced carbonized persimmon rind, native fruit skin that was dropped into the
prehistoric fire and preserved for 1,500 years! At the microbotanical level we can study pollen
remains, which is also known as palynology, and phytoliths, also known as biosilicates, which
are mineral deposits that form in the open spaces inside plants (much like your pot for boiling
water or your glass shower door in Florida will have scale form on it from calcium or iron in the