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87 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Agency in archaeology
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past people used to be viewed as robots, passive writers, not just a model, they were actually people; faceless blobs; etic/outsider's perspective (behavior, observer) vs. emic perspective (actions, cultural relativism/meanings)
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Arbitrary vs. Natural Levels
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Arbitrary: set by us
Natural: stratigraphic lines (cultural or natural) |
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Assemblages vs. Sub-assemblages
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Assemblages: gros grouping of all sub-assemblages assumed to represent the sum of human activities carried out within an ancient community
sub-assemblages: grouping of artifact classes based on form and function that is assumed to represent a single occupational group within an ancient community |
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Bioturbation
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displacement and mixing of sediment particles (i.e. sediment reworking) and solutes (i.e. bio-irrigation) by fauna or flora or flooding
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Folsom/Clovis Points (fluted points)
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New Mexico; Folsom site: point found coming from Bison antiquus; 1st accepted evidence for iceage people in Americas; lower strata larger spear points (Clovis site); mammoth hunters
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Contour lines/Topographic maps
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Physical map of area; contour lines show changes in altitude
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Critical Theory
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Mark Leone; everything is going to be biased, always some subjectivity, biases of the present, critical viewof processual archaeology; multiple ways to interpret the past, must be aware of own biases/perceptions
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Cultural history approach and critiques of it
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Archaeological interpretation based on temporal and spatial synthesis of data and the application of general descriptive models usually derived from a normative view of culture; emphasizes chronology and cultural change (most diacrhonic)
Critiques: too much emphasis on artifact classification, and culture historians weren't very explicit/too descriptive 1920-1960: chronology building; stratigraphic excavation; law of superposition and seriation; paleo-indian sites; historical particularism; normative model of culture (modal artifact types); cultural relativism |
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Cultural Resource Management
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conservation and selective investigation of prehistoric and historic remains; specifically the development of ways and means, including legislation, to safeguard the past
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Diffusion
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transmission of ideas from one culture to another (Egypt or Mesopotamia)
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Duncan Village Project
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SE AZ, modern town with floods, pithouse village roofs caved in and filled with sand; field strategies: davis wilcox (formation processes, how houses were constructed, what did they look like, transformational processes) vs. Lightfoot (rise of sedentary life, spatial organization of villages) (staf of convicts; pithouses; excavated buried features
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Excavation: penetrating vs. clearing
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data gathering by removal of matrix to reveal 3D structure of data and matrix, both vertically (penetrating) and horizontally (clearing)
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Positivism/Logical positivism
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The philosophical position that there is an objectively knowable past that can be discovered through rigid adherence to scientific methods.
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Geophysical Survey Methods
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Measure physical properties of near-surface composites, search for anomalies; passive (magnetic surveys, magnetometer) vs. active (soil resistivity, electric current, ground penetrating radar, echo sound device, sampling nature of subsurface); not practical for large areas yet, but low impact
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Gray Literature
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unpublished literature; CRM; unpublished site reports; stored in SHPO
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James Hill
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published papers on Broken K Pueblo; classic example of how social organization may be reflected in the architectural segregation of pottery styles, informing culture from archaeological data (Broken K T1 and T2 rooms)
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Hypothetico-deductive
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scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating a hypothesis form that could be falsified by a test on observable data
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Mark Leone
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Critical theory; subjectivity; bias; reflexivity; emic
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Magnetic Declination vs. True North
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declination is 14.5 degrees for bay area
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Metinni Village Site, Fort Ross
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implemented experimental "contextual" approach that employs practice theory to investigate magnitude, direction, and meaning of culture change; non-intrusive by maximizing info about spatial organization, multi-phase; public outreach = teacher workshops, classroom visits, daily updates, schol visits Metini: highlighted importance of using archaeology and oral traditions to study the past
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Normative Model of Culture
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culture defined by norms of society
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National Historica Preservation Act
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archaeologists look at place before project takes place so things aren't disturbed, bust submit research design first and address scope of the work; survey then excavation
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New or Processual Archaeology and associated definition of culture
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Emphasis on the science, environment; 1940s conjunctive approach, think about how types relate to each other; settlement patterns and adaptations; movement away from collaborative; looking at systems
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Pithouse Villages
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research design; convicts and friend who wanted to look at something different; prof took broad sweep; Dave Wilcox would've looked at one (Duncan Village Project)
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Primary Context
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in same place as deposited
Use-related: in same place as activities Transposed: materials cleaned up from place of activity; middens |
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Secondary Context
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Archaeological materials no longer in same context as deposited by people (transformational processes, rodent burrows, looting, etc)
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Problem of equifinality
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any particular archaeological pattern; may be multiple interpretations; only seeing end point; various activities may produce that pattern
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Radiocarbon Dating/Willard Libby
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used to determine age of an artifact, ecofact, or feature (developed by Libby)
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Remote Sensing
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archaeological survey methods involving aerial or subsurface detection of archaeological data (low impact)
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Research Design and its seven stages
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1. formulation (background research, gray literature, site records)
2. implementation (research team, budget, funding sources) 3. data gathering (involves survey and excavation) 4. data processing (manipulation of raw data) 5. analysis (extracts info about each data category 6. interpretation (synthesizes the results of data collection, processing, and analysis to meet the original goals of the investigation) 7. publication (makes findings accessible to fellow archaeologists) |
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Sample Size/Sample Fraction
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Sample size = number of sample units
Sample Fraction = number of sample units as percent of area |
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Michael Schiffer
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Broken K Pueblo; critiqued everybody; FORMATION PROCESSES/DEPOSITIONAL PROCESSES
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Scientific Method
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Hypothesis testing, testing hypothesis, test implications, multiple working hypotheses
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Settlement Pattern Survey
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PROCESSUAL; macro of looking at broad regions; can also be intra-site, so micro; impacts sampling strategy and field methods
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Stratigraphy/Stratigraphic excavation
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archaeological evaluation of the significance of stratification (multiple layers of matrix/features whose order reflcts law of superposition) to determine the temporal sequence of data within stratified deposits; relative dating technique
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Surface Pedestrian Survey (methods employed)
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Mark sample units on study area map, spacing between crew members (high/low intensity), walk transects, record archaeological sites, tape and compasses
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Techno-environmental models
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PROCESSUAL; technology/environment: tools, food producing mehtods, organization of labor = technology; 3 premises: infrastructure affects other cultural components (prime movers in cultural evolution, primary catalysts driving culture change), relatively few options for cultural adaptations (cultural evolutionists, new environmental conditions or development of new technologies; similar pathways); Systems approach (feedback cycles, set of systems, changes in one affects the other)
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Theresa Molino
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Head GSI; Japanese natives (through URAP); CA indians vs. Japanese archipelago; basketry; Paleoethnobotany; Coquel Indians; FISHING WEIRS
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Cyrus Thomas
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Mound Builders Debate; holistic approach; 3 types of mounds (burial, platform, geometric); initially thought moudns built by lost civilizations, then changed mind; built by local native Americans; recovered ceramics and lithics from mounds; compared artifacts to modern day natives; taught in first anthro dept (smithsonian)
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Holistic Historical Anthropology
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Ethnography, ethnohistory, biological anthropology, archaeology
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Francis Bright
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May and Warren House (Berkeley); Berkeley Conservatory; Central America (Honduras) (San Fernando de Omoa Fort); British Virgin Islands; Berkeley
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Gordon Willey
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studied regional settlement patterns in peru; spatial distributions of archaeological sites across a landscape, define broad patterns, integrating areas
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Antiquarians
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nonprofessional who studies the past for its artistic or cultural value (in contrast to archaeologist or looter)
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Archaeological "Cultures"
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maximum grouping of all assemblages assumed to represent the sum of human activities carried out within a single ancient culture
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Behavioral Processes
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human activities including acquisition, manufacture, use, and deposition behavior; produce tangible archaeological remains (in contrast to formational processes)
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Broken K Pueblo
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Michael Schiffer critiqued James Hill (T1 T2 rooms vs. animal remains dumped) shift to agriculture from hunting (Hill) vs. no shift (Schiffer)
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Classification
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The ordering f phenomena into groups (classes) based on the sharing of attributes (stylistic, form, technological)
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Conjunctive Approach/Walter Taylor
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Putting fragments back together, think about how types relate to each other; trained as historian, study spatial relationships of artifacts, activity areas, context/provenience, behavioral approach
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Meg Conkey
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co-published a critique of archaeology as perpetuating male-centered stereotypes of past lives, portraying men as active and powerful while women were cast as passive, powerless, or absent FEMINIST
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Culture Areas/Time-space Grids
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synthesis of temporal an spatial distributions of data used in the culture history approach based on period sequences within culture areas; How culture distributed across landscape, individual artifacts of one particular culture model types (cultures made up of x y and z artifacts)
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Cultural Materialism/Cultural Ecology
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Holds that there are biological and psychological needs common to all humans, provides a means for evaluating each society's adaptive efficiency by measuring input, output, costs, and benefits; environment has a lot to do with how we behave, not necessarily value/spiritually driven; study of ecological and culture systems (PROCESSUAL)
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James Deetz
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Historical archaeologists; changes in architecture and artifacts represent change in world views and values (moving from communal to individual)
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Direct Historical Approach
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Holistic (Ethnographic research, understand both past and present, use knowledge of present to help reconstruct the life-ways of past) Use 4 fields of Anthropology together (Ethnography, Biological, Linguistics, Archaeology)
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Emic
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Insider's Perspective; Actions of past people; cognitive model of culture; cultural meanings; cultural relativism; active agents; cultural values
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Etic
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description of a behavior or belief by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures
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Formation Processes
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refers to the events that created and affected an archaeological site after its creation
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Gender in Archaeology
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Cultural construction of people that takes into account biological sex and what it takes to be a social person; varies from culture to culture; some feminists?
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Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
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is used for mapping
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High/Low Visibility
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high= easy to see remains rightr on surface, associated with arid environments
low=difficult to spot, vegetation and soil, soil deposition, flooding cycles |
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Historical Particularism
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All humans are uique and must be understood in its own terms and have its own unique history that helps to shape it
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Cultural Relativism
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Each culture is unique and different in its own right, therefore, no two cultures would have the sme set of cultural norms; each one is unique and can't be generalized. Ethnocentrism is the opposite of this
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Ian Hodder
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Different processes can produce similar archaeological traits; equifinality = all things are equal in the end, different circumstances can lead to the same thing; critiques processual because can't find these laws
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Law of Superposition
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Older things lower down
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Low-impact Field Methodologies
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pedestrian survey; surface collection; aerial survey; remote sensing (not digging into ground, covers all low impact methods); magnetometry; electrical resistivity, EPR
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High-impact Field Methodologies
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Penetrating excavation (deep probes of subsurface deposits) vs. clearing excavations (horizontal investigation of deposits)
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Matrix/association/provenience/context
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matrix= determines primary/secondary context (alluvial (down by water) aeolian (by wind)
provenience = datum (vert/horiz placement of archaeological materials) |
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Multi-Phase Field Strategi (Multi-Stage)
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each phase of field work incorporated into next
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NSF
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National Science Foundation
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NEH
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National endowment for the humanities
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Paleolithic/Neolithic
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old stone/new stone; nomadic/domestication of plants and animals; cave/wall paintings
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Post-Processual Archaeologies (and its definition of culture)
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1. shift away from cultural evolution (unhappy with emphasis on cross cultural generalizations), now cultural relativism
2. problem with cultural materialism (techno-environmental models) 3. agency in archaeology 4. micro-scales of analysis (context = key, get more and more specific practice oriented approaches) 5. symbols in action (organization of space, james deetz, sometimes materials, looking at space and relationships) 6. critical theory (mark leone) 7. feminist approaches in archaeology (bias correction, discrimination, research focused on men, defining gender) need culture history to build upon (uses all tyupes of archaeology) |
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Provenience systems (lot vs. point)
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lot = quick (best in secondary/transposed contexts
point = carefully plot position of each artifact (best in primary context) |
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Charles Redman
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spatial scales of project; regional scale to smaller area of investigation; each phase of field work incorporated into next; collecting baseline information
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Representative Fractions/Map Scale
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ex. 1cm=240m (1 to 24000)
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Sample Units/Data Universe
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basic unit of archaeological investigation; subdivision of data universe; defined by either arbitrary or non-arbitrary criteria
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Sampling Strategies (random, systematic, stratified and probabilistic vs. non-probabilistic)
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Sample Units; select randomly (random), every nth (systematic),broad coverage divide data universe into distinct zones and sample each strata as separate zones (stratified), probabilistic vs. non-probabilistic
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Seriation
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Techniques used to order materials in a relative dating sequence in such a way that adjacent items in the series are more similar to each other than to items farther apart in the series
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SHPO
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State Historic Preservation Office; storage of archaeological information
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Subsurface Survey (methods employed)
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remote sensing techniques of area below ground carried out at ground level; includes auguring, coring, shovel testing, and use of magnetometer or resistivity detector
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Systems Theory
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PROCESSUAL; culture is like an organism, it has different parts (political, spiritual, etc); why do cultures change and what causes things to change?
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Total Data Acquisition
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Full coverage survey
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Sample Data Acquisition
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Sample Survey
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Ruth Tringham
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Feminist; past people are more than faceless blobs
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Unilinear Cultural Evolution
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All human societies change according to a single fixed evolutionary course, passing through the same stages (savagery, barbarism, civilization)
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Multi-linear Cultural Evolution
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sees each society pursuing an individual evolutionary career shaped by accumulated specific cultural adaptations
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UTMs
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Universal Transverse Mercator; breaks globe up into zones
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Latitude and Longitude
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Latitude and Longitude centered at Royal Observatory at Greenwich, broken up into Minutes and Seconds (initially based on time)
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