1 / 36

Archaeology

Archaeology. 4th Edition. Chapter 1. Meet Some Real Archaeologists. Outline. Introduction The Western World Discovers Its Past Founders of Americanist Archaeology Revolution in Archaeology: An Advancing Science Archaeology in the Twenty-First Century Conclusion: Archaeology's Future.

benjamin
Download Presentation

Archaeology

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Archaeology 4th Edition

  2. Chapter 1 Meet Some Real Archaeologists

  3. Outline • Introduction • The Western World Discovers Its Past • Founders of Americanist Archaeology • Revolution in Archaeology: An Advancing Science • Archaeology in the Twenty-First Century • Conclusion: Archaeology's Future

  4. First Archaeologist • Most historians list Nabonidus, the last king of the neo-Babylonian Empire as the “first archaeologist”. • Nabonidus rebuilt temples of ancient Babylon and searched the foundations for inscriptions of earlier kings. • He looked for answers to questions about the past in physical residues of antiquity.

  5. The Western World Discovers Its Past • Fifteenth-century Italian scholar Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli established the modern discipline of archaeology. • He translated the Latin inscription on the triumphal arch of Trajan in Ancona, Italy. • He devoted his life to studying ancient monuments, copying inscriptions, and promoting the study of the past.

  6. Archaeology’s Alphabet Soup • BC - “before Christ” • Example: 3200 BC; letters follow the date. • AD - anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord” • A year after the birth of Christ. Letters are before the date - AD 1066. • The earliest AD date is AD 1. There is no AD 0 (use 0 BC to denote that date), double numbering is not allowed.

  7. Archaeology’s Alphabet Soup • BP - “before present” • Many archaeologists are more comfortable using this age estimate with AD 1950 selected as the zero point. • A date in lower case, such as 3200 b.c. , denotes a date derived by radiocarbon methods and reflects radiocarbon years rather than calendar years.

  8. Boucher de Perthes • In 1836, Perthes found ancient tools and bones of extinct mammals in the gravels of the Somme River. • He believed these proved the existence of ancient man. • Current religious thought was that human beings had only been on earth for 6000 years, so many didn’t believe him. • Some suggested the tools were produced by lightning, elves, or fairies.

  9. More Discoveries • More finds were made in the gravel pits at St. Acheul and in southern England. • Respected British paleontologist Hugh Falconer and other scholars declared their support for Perthes’ findings in 1859. • This began the recognition that life was more ancient than Biblical scholars argued and human culture had evolved over time.

  10. British Archaeology • These discoveries led to two divergent courses for British archaeology: • The problems of remote geological time and the demonstration of long-term human evolution. • The archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome, a field now known as classical archaeology.

  11. Archaeology and Native Americans • American scholars saw living Native Americans as relevant to interpretation of archaeological remains. • Many Europeans saw Native Americans as “living fossils,” relics of times long past. • New World archaeology became connected to the study of living Native American people.

  12. Elements Peculiar to New World Archaeology • Racist, anti–American Indian theories that dominated early 19th century American scholars. • The form of antiquity legislation in North America. • The fact that many Native Americans still do not trust conventional Western scholarship to interpret their past.

  13. Branches of Archaeology • Classical archaeology - Studies civilizations of the Mediterranean, such as Greece and Rome, and the Near East. • Ethnology - Deals with the comparative study of cultures. • Americanist archaeology - Evolved in association with anthropology in the Americas; it is practiced throughout the world.

  14. C. B.Moore: Genteel Antiquarian • At age 40, Moore was introduced to American archaeology and transformed himself from gentleman socialite to gentleman archaeologist. • Moore was an antiquarian, more interested in objects of the past than in reconstructing the lives of the people who produced them or in explaining the past.

  15. Artifact • Any movable object that has been used, modified, or manufactured by humans. • Artifacts include stone, bone, and metal tools; beads and other ornaments; pottery; artwork; religious and sacred items.

  16. Midden • Refuse deposit resulting from human activities, generally consisting of sediment. • Food remains such as charred seeds, animal bone, and shell; and discarded artifacts.

  17. Nels Nelson: America’s First “Working” Archaeologist • Nelson learned largely by experience. • His first responsibility was to record what he saw, then to conduct a preliminary excavation where warranted, and finally to offer tentative inferences to be tested by subsequent investigators. • Nelson typified the early 20th century archaeologists, who strongly believed that archaeology should be brought to the public.

  18. A. V. “Ted” Kidder: Founderof Anthropological Archaeology • Helped shift Americanist archaeology toward more anthropological purposes. • Maintained archaeology should be viewed as “that branch of anthropology which deals with prehistoric peoples,” a doctrine that has become firmly embedded and expanded in today’s Americanist archaeology.

  19. James A. Ford: A Master of Time • Refined techniques to place the stages of pottery development in sequential order, a process known as seriation. • By assuming that cultural styles change gradually, archaeologists can chart a style through time and across space. • Ford’s seriation technique established the baseline prehistoric chronology still used in the American Southeast.

  20. Walter W. Taylor: Moses in the Wilderness • Combined lines of evidence to create a picture of what the past was like and to discuss the functions of artifacts, features, and sites. • Urged archaeologists to forsake temples for garbage dumps. • Proposed that archaeologists quantify their data and test hypotheses that would refine their impressions.

  21. Culture History • The kind of archaeology practiced in the early to mid-twentieth century. • It “explains” differences or changes over time in artifact frequencies by positing the diffusion of ideas between neighboring cultures or the migration of a people who had different mental templates for artifact styles.

  22. Trait List • A simple listing of a culture’s material and behavioral characteristics, for example, house and pottery styles, foods, degree of nomadism, particular rituals, or ornaments. • Trait lists were used primarily to trace the movement of cultures across a landscape and through time.

  23. Conjunctive Approach • As defined by Walter W. Taylor, using functional interpretations of artifacts and their contexts to reconstruct daily life of the past.

  24. Lewis R. Binford:Visionary with a Message • Binford argued that archaeologists should acquire data that make samples more representative of the populations from which they were drawn. • He urged archaeologists to look beyond the individual site to the region so entire cultural systems could be reconstructed.

  25. New Archaeology • An approach to archaeology that arose in the 1960s emphasizing the understanding of underlying cultural processes and the use of the scientific method. • Today’s version of the “new archaeology” is sometimes called processual archaeology.

  26. Kathleen A. Deagan:Archaeology Comes of Age • A curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, she specializes in Spanish colonial studies. • She is concerned with the people and culture behind the artifact and with explaining the social and cultural behaviors that she reconstructs from archaeology.

  27. History of Archaeology: A Summary • In North America, archaeology began as the pastime of the curious and the wealthy, who lacked formal training. • Archaeology as a formal discipline dates to the mid nineteenth century and was characterized by a scientific approach and rigorous methods of excavation and data collection.

  28. History of Archaeology: A Summary • By the 1950s, archaeology began to move beyond description and chronology to focus on the reconstruction of past lifeways. • This continued in the 1960s, with the addition of efforts to employ a scientific approach aimed at discovering universal laws and to develop theories to explain the human history uncovered by archaeology.

  29. Archaeology Today • Today, archaeology covers both prehistoric and historic archaeology. • The number of archaeologists has grown dramatically since the 1960s. • The field represents many different theoretical perspectives and acknowledges the need to communicate results to the public.

  30. Quick Quiz

  31. 1. Fifteenth-century Italian scholar Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli is considered the “first archaeologist”. • True • False

  32. Answer: B. False • Most historians list Nabonidus, the last king of the neo-Babylonian Empire as the “first archaeologist”.

  33. 2.The earliest AD date is AD 0. • True • False

  34. Answer: B. False • The earliest AD date is AD 1. Use 0 BC to denote AD 0.

  35. 3. Which of the following is an example of an artifact: • Metal tools • Beads and other ornaments • Pottery • Religious and sacred items • All of the above

  36. Answer: E • Metal tools, beads and other ornaments, pottery and religious and sacred items are examples of artifacts.

More Related