INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY Nancy White - Touro Institute

More documents

Recommendations

Info

distinguish between achieved status, accomplished by the deeds of a lifetime, and ascribed status, given to a person at birth. Grave goods with different individuals may tell us some things. Many archaeologists think that children buried with wealth items must have had ascribed status, but they could be just beloved of families who had achieved the power to obtain such wealth. We also must differentiate between differences in social status, esteem, and rank, which might be indicated by fancy clothing or other grave goods, and real economic differences, which might be better shown by nutritional differences seen in bone and teeth. What about complex society in the rest of the U.S.? Northeastern Native Americans such as the Iroquois had clan-based, stockaded agricultural villages traceable back into prehistoric times at such sites as Draper, in southern Ontario. Early forms of the traditional longhouse can be seen as archaeological features. Interestingly, in the eastern U.S., though many warlike chiefdoms engaged in conflict over resources and power, according to our historic as well as archaeological evidence, most of the societies were matrilineal. This means that clan mothers and women in general had a high social standing and access to political power and abundant economic resources, including ownership of their children, households, and agricultural fields. Many archaeologists are now trying to look for different aspects of gender in the archaeology of the East. This kind of matrilineal kinship and social organization was also present in the Southwest, where maize agriculture came in as early as 1000 B.C. and sedentary villages shortly thereafter. The Hohokam culture manifested at Snaketown in southern Arizona and northern Mexico developed irrigation systems and platform mounds associated with large villages. Anasazi settlements in New Mexico, such as at Chaco Canyon, included large multi-roomed pueblos and extensive transportation and exchange systems running over a network of roads; later the shift was to more defensible cliff dwellings, some of the most spectacular archaeological ruins in the country. What happened to Native Americans in the U.S. after contact and colonization by Europeans and others in the sixteenth century? Contact period studies are very popular in contemporary archaeology because they show what happens when cultures clash. British, Spanish, French, and other colonial powers treated natives slightly differently, with the medieval Catholic countries out for gold and souls for the church and the mercantile British moving in with consumer goods and mostly wanting the natives out of the way. In Florida, mission period archaeology is now just as hot as it is in the Southwest, even though there is more standing architecture in the latter region. But models in archaeology can be of different kinds; now we have the reconstructed Spanish mission church and Apalachee Indian chief’s house and council house on their original locations at the Mission San Luis in Tallahassee. Are the reconstructions accurate? As much as possible, based on the postmold patterns and architectural possibilities for high thatched roofs with open ventilation for smoke from the central fire. How native and European changed with contact and colonization is also
ecoming easier to interpret archaeologically because of the continuing location of historic documents in archives, especially in Spain. Mesoamerican Archaeology; Origins of Civilization Lesson Objectives: Characterize the anthropological understanding of the concept of civilization, compare models for its origins, see evidence in Mesoamerica and political interpretations and uses of the past there. Before we examine prehistoric cultural evolution of Mesoamerican civilizations, we must ask the question, what is civilization? Defined anthropologically, it includes several specific criteria first noted by V. Gordon Childe (p. 466), such as cities, full-time labor specialists, state bureaucracy and organization that goes beyond kinship systems, class stratification and economic surplus, monumental public works, longdistance economic exchange, engineering and mathematical systems, writing systems, and perhaps organized state religions. We have already seen some of these things in earlier prehistoric developments, but they all come together into the most highly stratified sociopolitical system humans have developed, the state. Caution: do not confuse the emergence of food production and settled society in the Neolithic with the earliest state formation, which happened thousands of years later! Where were the very earliest civilizations? At present we recognize six places in the world where the earliest or pristine states emerged independently: four in the Old World—Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, and China; and two in the New World—the South American Andes and Mesoamerica. What is meant by Mesoamerica? Central and southern Mexico, Guatemala and other parts of Central America, where several early states emerged, following long periods of establishment of farming villages. Notable achievements were the establishment of a calendar system and complex math, construction of pyramidal temples and sculpted stone monuments, ritual sacrifice of blood, hieroglyphic writing systems, and the earliest team sports, the ball game played with a ball made of sap from
Page 1 and 2:
In Conjunction with the INTRODUCTIO
Page 3 and 4:
USF's public archaeology program. T
Page 5 and 6:
Same as Midterm, above, but coverin
Page 7 and 8:
Students seem to like all the exerc
Page 9 and 10:
Student Exercise 10: ETHNOGRAPHER A
Page 11 and 12:
traditionally studying non-Western
Page 13 and 14:
consideration landowners, descendan
Page 15 and 16:
historic archaeology because we can
Page 17 and 18:
11. It tries to see both synchronic
Page 19 and 20:
ooks and drawings of monuments; and
Page 21 and 22:
meaningful to the prehistoric peopl
Page 23 and 24:
acquisition of the material (from t
Page 25 and 26:
sample. What is the sampling univer
Page 27 and 28: landowners or other residents, to f
Page 29 and 30: What other technological devices mu
Page 31 and 32: excavation must take place in the p
Page 33 and 34: planet Muni Mula, which we know was
Page 35 and 36: studies look at the scratches and t
Page 37 and 38: Why does iron metallurgy develop la
Page 39 and 40: Two deer leg bones, if they are rig
Page 41 and 42: What is the difference between dire
Page 43 and 44: What is AMS radiocarbon dating? The
Page 45 and 46: much about material culture, which
Page 47 and 48: can see what artifact manufacturing
Page 49 and 50: How is diffusion investigated? The
Page 51 and 52: An example I can recount from my ex
Page 53 and 54: What are the ethical issues involve
Page 55 and 56: don’t buy and sell body parts. An
Page 57 and 58: much as 2.5 million years ago. The
Page 59 and 60: were obvious. One alternative model
Page 61 and 62: Where are some important Lower Pale
Page 63 and 64: hominids all over the Old World. Re
Page 65 and 66: What is the meaning of Upper Paleol
Page 67 and 68: plant remains that suggest year-rou
Page 69 and 70: The population pressure hypothesis,
Page 71 and 72: What fascinating evidence of Neolit
Page 73 and 74: them the site to get professional a
Page 75 and 76: lately indicating more corn or othe
Page 77: maize-beans-squash complex was the
Page 81 and 82: where Mexico City is located today
Page 83 and 84: Lesson Objectives: Trace the develo
Page 85 and 86: What were the earliest regional sta
Page 87 and 88: is some beautiful decoration for yo
Page 89 and 90: dynasty, conquest of many regions l
Page 91 and 92: Lesson Objectives: Demonstrate know
show all

INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY Nancy White - Touro Institute

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?