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level: Level 1

Questions and Answers List

level questions: Level 1

Question	Answer
the scientific study of the human past based on the investigation of material culture and its context.	Archaeology
A society's shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions.	Culture
aerial reconnaissance and remote sensing	Finding sites
pedestrian and test pitting	Survey Methods
sonar and resistivity	Geographical survey
team based, led by a director. Specialists work together with excavators.	Excavation
study plant remains	Archaeobotanist
study animal remains	Archaeozoologist
study ancient biomolecules	Bioarchaeologist
study ancient sediments	Geoarhcaeologist
addresses questions regarding change through time	Vertical emphasis
addresses questions regarding spatial differentiation across a site	Horizontal emphasis
layers of cultural and natural materials accumulate one on top of another(law of superposition) reveals sequence of deposition	Stratigraphy
the in situ location and associations (in 3D) of finds	Context
portable objects made or altered by humans	Artifacts
natural plant, animal, or sediment remains resulting from human activity	Ecofacts
non-portable structures (ex. houses, walls, fireplaces, burials)	Features
spatial distribution of rooms, sites, or group of sites(landscape archaeology)	Site and settlement patterns
in 1650 determined the Earth was created on the nightfall before sunday 23 october 4004 BC (based on literal reading of Bible) prevailing view for some time	James Ussher
1795, theory of the earth, formation of sedimentary rock suggested great antiquity of Earth.	James Hutton
the laws of nature are constant and do not change with time, the rate of sedimentation in oceans is very slow due to the enormous thickness of deposition the world must be very old.	principle of uniformitarianism
1830, Principles of geology, documented antiquity of the Earth with work on erosion	Charles Lyell
in any undisturbed sequence of layers, the bottom layer is the oldest	Principle of Superposition
1859 origin of the species, natural selection. Discussed gradual evolutionary change in plant and animals(not humans in fear of public outcry)	Charles Darwin
1847, stone tools recovered with extinct animals in Somme River Valley, France	Jacques Boucher de Perthes
coined the terms paleolithic and neolithic in prehistoric times(1865). applied darwinian concepts to the archaeological record, saw moral and technological progress as inevitable and unilinear.	John Lubbock
progress (increasing intelligence, beauty, goodness) inevitable.	19th century view
starving, ignorant, superstitious, violent.	Savages
less starving, ignorant, superstitious, violent.	Barbarians
orderly, moral, wealthy, sophisticated, reasonable.	Civilized
evolutionary and scientific perspective, seeks universal laws of social change, sees societies as systems with environment and technology as most significant variables	Processual
part of general trends towards postmodernism, often more particular and less universal in scope, explicit recognition of political context of archaeology, focus on the role of individuals, not systems in past.	Post-processual
provides a date, can be expensive, historical texts.	Absolute Dating
provides a sequence, used in conjunction with absolute techniques	Relative Dating
Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, developed by Christian Jurgensen Thomsen, curator of the national museum of denmark. Arbitrary technological labels	Three Age System
requires volcanic layers. When used with stratigraphy it can provide a date bracket for non-volcanic sediments.	Potassium-Argon Dating
1863, man's place in Nature. Similarities between human and ape skeletons led to the now defunct concept of the missing link.	Thomas Huxley