Fundamentals of Archeology Notes PDF

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Dr. Keith Ashley...

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Fundamentals of Archaeology January 11th, 2018 Archaeology Intro  Not Indiana Jones, typically dressed man with daughter, only excavates mummies and ancient civilizations  Shows oldest origins to modern day times o Shows both achievements and downfalls o Do this through artifacts that are left behind Otzi “The Iceman”  Found in the Alps, separating Italy and Austria  Various organs and food in stomach remained; believed to be a herdsman  Had charcoal tattoos; believed to be therapeutic (acupuncture) What is Archaeology?  Study of the past, old, ancient through material evidence  “study of humans from material evidence of human activity” o Most stuff found in garbage  Material culture: physical/tangible items (two subcategories) o Ex. clothes, pens, tangible items that belong to a group o Problem: a lot is destroyed over time  Isn’t successfully preserved or it isn’t deposited in the area that is being excavated.  (1) Archaeologists deal in the small things that are forgotten o Through excavation minor things about life can be discovered to interpret what occurred in the past o Spatial distribution also has a significant role in producing a detailed picture of the past  (2) Also want to uncover the behavior of those in the past  Archaeology is in all places and in all times o Can occur in any place that people ever lived o Not restricted to certain areas  This class is not about dinosaurs (paleontology), human evolutions or ancient civilizations Archaeology in America  Is Anthropology: the study of humanity through time and space o Looking at all cultures and all humanities through the origin to modern times o Explores human variation on biological, cultural and other scales o Blends social and natural sciences  Most scientific of humanities, most humanistic of sciences 1

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Perspective: holistic, comparative, relativistic o Holistic: the whole person  Economics, religion, etc. and how it is all interrelated o Comparative: to determine similarities and differences and why these exist o Relativistic: not thinking own culture is better than another  Need to understand different practices relative to the people’s cultures  Trying to understand within context of a society rather than related to one’s own culture

Four Fields of Anthropology  All interrelated  Four fields: o Archaeology o Biological Anthropology  Anything to do with biological dimension of humans  Slowly being called biological rather than physical anthropology o Cultural Anthropology  Ethnography: living and blending in with people of other cultures o Linguistics  The study of languages  Verbal non-verbal  Ex. body language, sign language Why is archaeology anthropology in USA?  In England, they are two different things.  In USA, this is due to historical reasons o It was a part of anthropology’s origins in America Five Goals of Archaeology (In historical order-allows one to get historical perspective) 1. Discover the past a. Find, record and collecting things b. Systematically collecting things i. You have them, know where they came from and it is recorded 2. Reconstruct past cultures and histories a. Describe, order, present b. Can order strategically (chronologically) and spatially c. Now that you have things, you want to start describing what you have and the history of those people 3. Explain and understand the past a. Moving beyond who, what and where to why and how b. How did these past cultures operate and change (and why?) c. More about the processes within these cultures

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i. Environment, technology, material constraints, power relationships, religion, structure of society, agency of people ii. People will go about different ways to explain the past 4. Preserve and manage the past a. Archaeological resources are non-renewable b. Stewardship: caretakers i. Conservation and management of archeological record for future generations ii. Sites are often threatened and can be destroyed 1. Must decide what can be destroyed and what must be preserved 5. Public education a. A responsibility of all archaeologists b. Public archeology i. Making archaeology open and assessable to the public Types of Archeology 1. Prehistoric a. Before written history i. Aka history before writing 2. Historical a. Broad: after written history i. Archaeology in conjunction with written documents b. Narrow: specific times periods and eras i. The modern era; after colonial expansion (after 1500s) ii. Must determine between biased historical and archaeological data base iii. Can be done with documents (papers, maps) 3. Classical: archaeology concerned with classical societies a. Romans, Greeks, Mediterranean societies, sometimes expanded to Mesopotamia and Egypt b. Architecture and art history c. Strong emphasis on writing 4. Biblical: a. Concerned with modern day Israel, Lebanon, Syria b. Two factions: minimalists and maximalists and their interpretation of the bible 5. Underwater: takes place under water a. Look at shipwrecks, coastal cities that flooded 6. Cultural Resource Management a. Only has been around since the 60s b. Protecting sites through policy and law before the land can be developed i. Legal contract to minimize damage to sites c. In certain instances, archaeology has to be done d. Ex. Queens Harbor- was a great location in Jacksonville that had information from 500 AC to modern day time 3

7. Pseudoarcheology a. Non-scientific accounts of the past that are based on real or imaginary evidence b. TV channels over-dramatize this c. Sensationalized reconstructions d. Some serve political or racist purposes i. Ex. Hitler and his political agenda January 16th , 2018 Development of Archaeology  Gradual (diverse roots) o Origins rests with amateur collectors and speculators; antiquarianism  “Antiquarianism” o Collected old artifacts because interested in the past o Interest in the relics of the past to show off or feel connection to the past; more of a hobby o Mostly occurred with the European upper class; would go to mounds and excavate them  Eventually, historical societies formed o Believed that these relics should be preserved and displayed to the public o Shift from collecting to preserving and presenting 19th Century European Contributions to the Emergence of Archaeology  Museums of antiquity are beginning to form as well as museums Big developments: 1. Three Age System a. Need to order the past b. Christian Thomsen (1819) i. Developed the ordering system ii. Exhibitions at the national museum of antiques iii. Stone, bronze, iron ages c. Concept later verified through fieldwork d. Later-Paleo and Neo-lithic added i. Go from chipped stone tools to grinding stone tools ii. Observed as a chronology 2. Geological Revolution a. Driven by industrial revolution i. Brought need for field geologists b. Notice uniformity in things that are going on i. Believed due to natural processes rather than divine creation ii. Created a set of principles for geology c. Charles Lyell i. Founder of modern geology 4

ii. Concepts: 1. Stratigraphy: the study of the vertical ordering of layers of rock and earth 2. Uniformitarianism: there are uniform processes that occur throughout time a. Same as today as in the past b. Become a proxy for the past c. In geology, the earth was formed by natural processes and these are still occurring today, thus, if we study today we can understand the past i. Ex. erosion, volcanos, sedimentation 3. Earth is older than 6000yrs (Bishop Ussher) a. Animal remains found for animals do not exist b. In 1800s, people believed that the earth was formed 4004 BC in 7 days 3. Humans & Extinct animals lived together a. Stone axes are found with extinct faunal bones i. Challenged the conventional thinking and the great chain of being (notion that from god down has a distinct chain and that nothing has ever evolved) 4. Theory of Biological Evolution a. Charles Darwin i. On the origins of species ii. Outlines the fundamental principle of biological change iii. Systematic scientific theory of evolution of all life iv. In agreement with geological evidence that earth is thousands of years old Who was in America before the Indians?  Initially marked by speculation  No real data for purpose of trying to understand or compare something o Anecdotes of conquistadors we made and then eventually mounds/ruins were looked at and books were written  Who built the mounds? o As people moved from ports to inland, they noticed all these mound  Became the focus of curiosity o Two schools of thought:  One believed Indians immediate ancestors built the mounds  More popular view was that anyone, but the Indians build the mounds  Anti-Indian view o Indians were savages and beat down to easily  Lost moundbuilder race o Ex. Hebrews, Aztecs  Samuel Morton-Crania America (1839) 5

o Looked at skulls of recently deceased Indians and skulls from mounds and compared them o Found no difference between Indians of today and moundbuilders o Divided into two families of Indians: toltecans and barbarians o Primary view until the late 19th century o Often, people would forge things to put a lost race at the location they were excavating o Mounds were all different shapes and sizes Thomas Jefferson  French questionnaire (1780) o Answered the most about the natives that were in this location o Ex. tribes, locations, languages o Query XI-Description of the Indians in the state  Believed to be founder/father of American archaeology  First well-recorded excavation o 1784-Rivanna Mound o Dug a trench through the mound that was wide enough for someone to comfortably look at each wall o Observed the strata and conditions of bone  Noticed that these layers reflected the passage of time o Ahead of his time (4 reasons)  The fact that he dug into the mound at all  He had a research objective  He knew it was a burial for Indians and he wanted to figure it out  Hypothesis: built after battle, large regional cemetery, village cemetery  Realized that bones in lower level have been in the ground longer  Saw that the layers reflected the passage of time  Realized that the Indians ancestors were responsible for these mounds Mid-1800s Turning Point in American Archaeology  Museums emerge o Smithsonian Institution (1846)  One admission statement is to look at native Americans both living and past o Bureau of American Ethnology (1879)  Now the anthropology office at the Smithsonian  Begin describing and classifying archaeological materials o Making more systematic than what was involved in the past 6

Moundbuilders Solved  Squier and Davis o Ones a land surveyor and another is a physician o Surveyed and mapped by mounds on Miss and Ohio rivers o “must make archaeology systematic”  Tried to put all the mounds they found into different categories  FIRST archaeological mission sponsored by the Smithsonian  One major mistake o Believed the lost race of mound builders built the mound 

Cyrus Thomas (BAE) o Awarded government funds to dig mounds and resolved the debate o FIRST government funded project o Excavated over 2k mounds and focused on how they formed o Gives credit to Native Americans

Frederick Catherwood and John Lloyd Stephens (1839-1841)  A lawyer and a traveler/artist  Opened the field of Mayan Archaeology  Credited the Mayan ancestors Early 20th Century  Archaeology becomes a profession o Anthropology departments developing throughout America  More systematic with improved field methods  Stratigraphic revolution o Now going to excavate within the different strata Early to Mid-20th Century  Recognize patterns in time and space (culture history)  Archaeological culture o Group of time related materials from a region that represent a past culture  Context and function of artifacts become important (more about past behavior) Modern Times (post 1960)  Theory becomes big January 23rd , 2018 Wild card next week on stratigraphy, also first writing assignment due Theory in Archaeology  Conceptual framework for explaining something o Within the broad world or culture 7

o Structures the way that you see the world/reality/archaeological record o Lens that you use for looking at the world and how you explain you obsevations of the world o Reduce reality to abstract principles and apply them to specific case studies  Guides research o How we get data, how we analyze it  In anthropology, theory deals with what? o Scientific or humanistic Arch Theory prior to 1960s  Prior to 60s had no real explicit theory  More interested in artifacts and finding things o Concern for collecting lots of materials o Began to classify and order things o Describe materials in terms of time and space  Culture history o Reduces past cultures to material lists to account for their history o Artifacts are material manifestations of cultural norms  The norms define what culture is o Mostly static and unchanging  Drivers of change o Migration, diffusion, in a few cases innovation  Ex. trade o Changing because interacting with different groups Modern Times  When archaeology becomes heavily concerned with anthropologically theory  1960s were time of change o Academic structure being challenged  (New) Processual Archaeology o More than collecting stuff o Scientific: need to address anthropological issues  Ex. power dynamics (political structure), kinship, cultural evolution, social evolution  What are the dynamics that are driving cultures and why do they change? o Lewis Binford Endorses Scientific Approach  Gaining knowledge of physical world through observation and testing o Finally, honed a way of producing knowledge o Not as interested in religion o Searching for tangible o Past is knowable through rigorous scientific methods o Objective and ethically neutral (not political) 8

Must be able to produce results that are free of bias on the part of the observer o Explanation through hypotheses testing (scientific method)  Explicit research design and problem orientation Archaeological research  Big thing seen today  Research design o Needed to apply for grants o Plan describing where, why and what information you will gain from a dig o Carefully formulated and systematic plan for carrying out research o Will clarify the goals of the project and outline all of the procedures that will guide research Four elements of research design 1. Establish research goals and questions a. Can be narrow or broad 2. Collect and record evidence (methods) 3. Process and analyze evidence (data) 4. Disseminate results (report) Other important issues of processualism  Emphasizes generalizations and evolutionary trends o Interested in broader trends and generalities o People in similar environments respond in similar ways  Systems approach o Looking at different components by function in the broader whole system o Culture is a system consisting of functioning parts trending toward equilibrium  Environment is important o System of culture is apart of a bigger system o Environment brings about change of the cultural system o All about adapting to environment (culture ecoogy) Culture Materialism  In 60s/70s Marvin Harris develops this concept o Influences a lot of processualism archaeologists  Anthropological theory that strongly underpins processualism o Archaeological versions of culture materialism o Theory of causation  Why does change happen o Technology, economics, and environment are most important variables (what drives things-infrastructures)  Then change in structures and superstructures  When dealing with the cause of change priority is given to materialism o These shape society o Materialistic, scientific and etic view 

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Middle Range theory  High level theory is what we mostly talk about  “bridging theory” between observations that we see in the ground and the interpretations that we make through our theoretical lends o Links static arch record to dynamic past behaviors o Provides sources to infer past behavior o Examples Analogy  Two entities that share some similarities are assumed to share others  Used to infer the identity of or relationship among arch data by comparing them to similar observed behaviors Ethnoarchaeology  Study of living people to determine how their behaviors can translate into arch data  Living archaeology  Recording things that most ethnographers wouldn’t record o Bearing on archaeological record Experimental Archaeology  Replicative studies to determine archaeological correlates  Actualistic or field experiments  Movement toward science and research design January 25th, 2018 Marxism  Historical materialism o Or material conditions of history  In his versions, the collective material actions of society are influenced by the dominant class which relate to human experience  Based on the writings of Karl Marx o “all of history is a history of class struggle” o Internal social relations drive cultural change  Specifically tensions and power relations over…  Tension is what drives society  Focuses on the study of economics o Economics- production, labor and surplus  Applied to all kinds of societies Postproccessualism  Arose in Great Britain in the late 1970s  Person leading this: Ian Hodder  Different way of looking at the past o More humanistic than scientific o Interested in cultural symbols and meanings of the peoples 10

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FOCUS ON INTERPRETATIONS

1. Emphasis on specific histories and cultures a. Focuses on the range rather than combining societies 2. Foregrounds people in analysis (active individuals) a. Must focus on culture and history i. Culture is created in the momenta and ongoing b. Processualism focused on structure and how systems and subsystems worked rather than the people i. Looked at people like lab rats c. Not systems in equilibrium but social flux i. There are tensions and flux going on rather than equilibrium ii. Equilibrium and suggests every society is a well-oiled machine d. Also a gendered past 3. Objectivity is not possible a. We can not truly objectively what happened in the past b. Past is subjectively reconstructed in the present c. All archaeology is political Contextual-Interpretive  In relationship to Postproccessualism  Read archaeological record like a text  Multiple views (relativism)  Need to be empathetic and particularistic Agency  Potential of people to take action and effect change o Cannot be considered apart from the structure of society o Certain things you can and can not do within the confines o Culture is seen as participatory and the product of human action Three Broad Perspectives 1. Materialist a. Tangible physical conditions of life determine behavior b. Action of thought i. More causal wait in the actions of people c. (pro) 2. Idealism/Symbolic a. Human action does not spring from a material base b. Actions motivated by our cultural understanding of the world and their place in it i. Comes from relationship with cultural structure c. Acts within culturally determined structures of meaning d. Thought over action 11

e. (post-pro) 3. Political a. Human behavior is driven by contest over material resources b. (Marxist) Archaeological Theory Today  Big divide between pro and past-pro still goes on today  Today, most archaeologist believe there needs to be evidence to believe what we do o Bring as many lines of evidence to question or interpretation  Few adhere to extremes  Pure objectivity is not obtainable  History and individuals are important  Use scientific approach to address humanistic questions Careers in Archaeology  Teacher/Professor o Usually needs a PhD  Cultural Resource Management (CRM) o Need a masters  Governmental agency o Military-for bases  Museum specialists Two Keys to Archaeological Thinking  Scale o Has to do with size o Need to be multi-scale to determine homogeneity or heterogeneity o Different levels of discovery, analysis and interpretation o Can be spatial or temporal  Need temporal to be small so can observe dynamic relationships  Context o The most important concept in archaeology o Can be used very generally: where was something found? o Want to talk about context in a general sense: what is this object associated with? o 3-D location of an item & its association with ...