ANTH 202 Final

• How do archaeologists and geneticists study the history of human migrations?


  -Strontium & oxygen stable isotopes in tooth enamel are set during tooth mineralization (in childhood) and reflect region of origin

  -Ancient DNA (aDNA) shows genetic family tree
• What can we learn from studying human remains from archaeological sites?


  Demographic pattern: age and sex of a burial population, can give idea of average life expectancy

  
  

  Quality of life: did prehistoric people live lives that were "nasty, short, and brutish" (T.Hobbs) or were hunter-gatherers "the orgininal affluent society" (M. Sahlins)

  
  

  Diet/nutrition: Carbon, nitrogen, sulfur stable isotopes in cones reveal the kinds of foods eaten and in what relative quanities. These give an idea of the overall ranges of subsistence and exchange networks of prehistoric people

  
  

  Disease: Some diseases leave telltale signs on bones

  
  

  Stress & Workload: Osteoarthritis in bones, nutritional stress in enamel hypoplasia

  
  

  Violence: Broken bones and skeletal trauma
• Where did the first Americans come from? What is the evidence from archaeology and genetics?


  -Contemporary Native Americans are the direct descendants of Clovis people
• How did Homo sapiens interact with other hominin species? Know the names and geographical distributions of the other species
• How do archaeologists investigate prehistoric social organization? Be familiar with ways we can study gender, kinship, and social stratification


  Sex & Gender

  Sex: Refers to inherited, biological differences between males and females

  
  

  Gender: Refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences

  
  

  How to find gender roles in the past

  
  

  -Depictions of male & female specific activities in art

  -Differences in artifacts buried with male and female skeletons

  -Differences in bioarchaeological indicators of work and stress

  -Draw from ethnographic analogies

  
  

  Kinship: refers to the socially recognized network of relationships through which individuals are related to one another by ties of descent (real or imagined) and marriage. A kinship system blends biological descent with cultural rules that define some people as close kin and others as distant kin (kinship leaves ambiguous traces)

  
  

  To find who was related in the past we look for:

  -Similarities in artifacts or evidence of food sharing among closely spaced residences

  -Similarities in artifacts buried with skeletons or clusters of graves (i.e. the family cemetery) or the presence of graves next to the domestic structure

  -Ancient DNA
• What are the differences between egalitarian and ranked societies?


  Egalitarian-

  A society where there is no fixed number of positions of status: members generally have equal access to critical, life-sustaining resources

  
  

  .Small-scale egalitarian societies are called bands.

  
  

  The key to leadership is experience and social standing; a social position or status is not inherited in an egalitarian society - it must be achieved.

  
  

  Gender and age are the primary dimensions of status in egalitarian communities.

  
  

  Achieved status - Rights, duties, and obligations that accrue by virtue of what a person accomplishes.

  
  

  Ranked -

  Limit the positions of valued status so that not everyone of sufficient talent can achieve them. A hierarchy of status.

  
  

  A scribed status - Rights, duties, and obligations that accrue to a person by inheritance .

  
  

  Relatively permanent social stations are maintained, with people having unequal access to life-sustaining resources.

  
  

  Economies that redistribute goods and services throughout the community ,with those doing the redistributing keeping some for themselves.
• What is wrong with the concept of unilineal evolution?

  
  

  How do the concepts of historical particularism and multi-linear evolution provide a better way of understanding variation among human societies, past and present?

  Unilineal evolution: the idea that all cultures have evolved along a single developmental path, from savagery to civilization

  
  

  -Based on the idea of progress

  
  

  -These people had not advanced because they were not as intelligent or as moral as "civilized" people

  
  

  -INHERENTLY RACIST

  
  

  -Mistaken application of Darwin's principle of natural selection to human societies evolution

  
  

  
  

  Historical particularism- each culture is the product of a unique sequence of development and must be understood on its own terms; chance plays a majour role in bringing about change

  
  

  Multi-linear evolution: culture does change and can be said to evolve, but not along a single developmental path for everyone

  
  

  Archeologists study SEQUENCES OF CULTURAL DEVLOPMENT to track CHANGE NOT PROGRESS
• Know the approximate ages when the following cultural phenomena appeared: Plant and animal domestication and agriculture, Monuments, Art, Villages, Cities.


  Plant and animal domestication occurred in several areas of the world at different times within the past ~12,000 years.
• How did agriculture affect human health, mobility, and social organization? How did it affect the natural world?


  With the advent of agriculture within the last 12,000 years came tribal societies. These societies were based on the community or village. We recognize these as having larger settlements than hunter-gatherers and differences in prestige among members
• Where was the earliest art discovered and how old is it?


  Earliest cave art Sulawesi, Indonesia 60,000 BP
• What are some potential weaknesses of civilizations according to the Lifespan of Civilizations article?
• How has Earth's climate changed over the past 800,000 years? How have humans affected the Earth's atmosphere, land cover, and ecology? Know when these various impacts began.


  Hominins spread throughout the planet at various times during the Pleistocene (ice ages), a series of approximately 100,000 year cold glacial periods punctuated by approximately 10,000 year warmer "interglacial" periods

  
  

  .• Plant and animal domestication, agriculture, the first villages and cities, and civilizations all arose during the most recent interglacial period, which is called the Holocene.

  
  

  • Human impacts on the planet's atmosphere, oceans, land cover ,chemical cycles, and plant and animal species distributions have become so pervasive that the Holocene has been extended indefinitely and greatly amplified. Earth scientists discuss a new epoch of geologic history - the Age of Humans or Anthropocene .An ever-increasing global footprint of humans
• Bioarcheology


  The study of past human remains

  • Overall understanding of health and welfare of past population

  • Nutrition/health

  • Disease

  • Injury/work-related stress/violence

  • Cause of death

  • Migration patterns

  • Human evolution
• Ancient DNA


  shows genetic family tree
• Demography


  age and sex of a burial population, can give idea of average life expectancy
• Harris Lines


  can indicate period of juvenile malnutrition, disease or trauma
• Skeletal muscle attachment sites (bone entheses)


  Regular use of specific muscle groups throughout life influence the growth of the skeleton where these muscles attach (bone entheses).
• Stable isotopes in bones and teeth


  l record the place of tooth formation AKA age
• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act


  • Protects Native graves on federal and tribal Lands

  
  

  • Recognizes tribal authority over unmarked graves

  
  

  • Prohibits the sale or interstate transport of Native bodies or body parts•

  
  

  Requires federal and federally funded institutions create inventories of human skeletal remains and protected objects.-

  
  

  Requires these institutions consult with tribes and repatriate culturally affiliated protected remains and artifacts.

  
  

  *Only federally recognized Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations can make repatriation claims.

  
  

  What is protected under NAGPRA?

  
  

  • Native human remains and burials

  • Funerary objects

  • Sacred Objects

  • Objects of Cultural Patrimony

  *Must have Cultural Affiliation
• Cultural affiliation


  a relationship of shared group identity which can be reasonably traced historically or prehistorically between a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and an identifiable earlier group.
• Sex vs Gender


  Sex refers to inherited, biological differences between males and females.

  
  

  Gender refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences
• Egalitarian vs ranked societies


  How can we tell whether a past society was egalitarian or ranked?

  
  

  To answer this question we might look for:• "Haves" and "have-nots", major differences in quality of life, including residence size and quality of building materials, quality and number of artifacts, exotic artifacts unequally distributed

  
  

  • Bioarcheological indicators of unequal workload and physical stress, unequal die How do we find social organization in the archaeological record?
• Cognitive Archeology


  Study of aspects of culture that are the product of the human mind -

  • Tool making and using

  • Planning• Cosmology and religion•

  Philosophy, ethics, values

  • Symbols, art
• hunter-gatherers


  -All societies prior to 12,000 BP were hunter gatherers
• Cosmology


  a culture's understanding of how the world works, how it originated and developed, and the place of humans in the natural order
• Symbol


  an object or act that stands for something else with which it has no necessary connection
• Iconography


  art forms or writing systems that symbolically represent ideas about religion and cosmology
• Unilineal evolution


  the idea that all cultures have evolved along a single developmental path, from savagery to civilization(western European civilization being the pinnacle of cultural evolution, of course! - jk)
• Multilinear evolution


  culture does change and can be said to evolve,but not along a single developmental path for everyone!
• Historical Particularism


  each culture is the product of a unique sequence of development and must be understood on its own terms; chance plays a major role in bringing about change
• Pleistocene


  Pleistocene (ice ages), a series of approximately 100,000 year cold glacial periods punctuated by approximately 10,000 year warmer "interglacial" periods
• Fragmentary remains


  Infant male child directly below >100 Clovis artifacts and covered with red ochre, directly dated ~12.9-12.7 ka
• Anzick child is more closely related to 52 Native American groups than to any extant Eurasian population

  
• Anzick child has closer affinity with modern indigenous Central and South Americans than with modern indigenous North Americans
• Contemporary Native Americans are the direct descendants of Clovis people
• Genetic exchanges between North and South America


  • ANC-A lineage with distinct affinity to Anzick-1 in 11 ka and 9.6 ka individuals in coastal Chile and interior Brazil
  • Primary source of ANC-A ancestry in all South Americans by 9 ka – first identified at Cuncaicha
  • California Channel Islands affinity in the Central Andes by 4.2 ka – first identified at Cuncaicha

  
• Bioarchaeology


  The study of past human remains
• What can studying human remains tell us?


  • Overall understanding of health and welfare of past population
  • Nutrition/health
  • Disease
  • Injury/work-related stress/violence
  • Cause of death
  • Migration patterns
  • Human evolution
• Demographic patterns


  Age and sex of a burial population, can give idea of average life expectancy
• Sex


  Biologically male or female, indicated by morphology of cranium, pelvis, rib cage, and whether longbones are more robust or more gracile