quizlet 2

• Bioarcheology


  the study of human remains from archaeological settings. Bio archaeologists reconstruct the lived experience of individuals of past populations (both biological and cultural experiences)
• Demography


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


  can indicate period of juvenile malnutrition, disease, or trauma. Detected by X-rays on bones, indicate periods of arrested growth during development, and these are sometimes caused by malnutrition.
• Skeletal muscle attachment sites (entheses)


  regular use of specific muscle groups throughout life influence the growth of skeleton where the muscles attach
• Stable isotopes in bones and teeth


  the stable isotopes are set in bones and teeth during mineralization which is in childhood and reflect a region of origin
• Paleogenetic


  study of the past through the examination of preserved genetic material like DNA from the remains of ancient organisms.
• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)


  enacted in 1990 and protects native human remains and burials, mortuary objects, sacred objects, objects of cultural patrimony. It 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, and 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.
• Cultural affiliation


  If cultural affiliation can be shown, the human remains, and objects must, on request, be returned to the affiliated Native American tribe or Native Hawaiian organization. Difficult problems lie in interpreting key terms in the law, such as "cultural affiliation," and in weighing diverse forms of evidence in the context of prehistoric material. In addition to archaeological and historical information, the law explicitly recognizes the validity of oral traditions.
• Sex vs gender


  sex is male or female and indicated by the morphology of cranium, pelvis, rib cage, and whether long bones are more robust or more gracile. It is inherited. Gender refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences.
• 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.
• Achieved vs ascribed status


  achieved status are the rights, duties, and obligations that accrue by virtue of what a person accomplishes. Ascribed status are the rights, duties and obligations that accrue to a person by inheritance.
• Egalitarian vs ranked societies


  egalitarian society is where there is no fixed number of positions of status and members generally have equal access to critical, life sustaining resources. Ranked societies limit the positions of valued status so that not everyone of sufficient talent can achieve them. It is a hierarchy of statuses.
• Cognitive archaeology


  study of aspects of culture that are the product of the human mind so things like cosmology and religion, philosophy, ethics, values, symbols, and art.
• Hunter-gatherers


  societies that depend on hunting or fishing large animals and gathering uncultivated plants for survival
• Chiefdoms and states


  ranked societies which appeared only within the last 5000 years. Chiefdoms were run by single leaders and their close kin, who had greater power and control of resources than others. State societies were large-scale with centralized governments, class stratification, intensive food production, monumental architecture.
• Civilization


  a complex human society, usually made up of different cities, with certain characteristics of cultural and technological development.
• Cosmology


  a cultures understanding of how the world works, how it originated and developed, and the place of humans in the natural order. It can be deciphered by studying a cultures iconography.
• 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 or cosmology
• Experimental archaeology


  experiments to recreate ancient behavior and to generate material culture. By recreating prehistoric artifacts, we can see how they were manufactured, what tools were used and what waste products and other traces were generated.
• Unilineal evolution


  the idea that all cultures have evolved along a single developmental path, from savagery to civilization.
• Historical particularism


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


  culture does not change and can be said to evolve but not along a single developmental path for everyone
• Pleistocene


  a series of approximately 100k year cold glacial periods punctuated by approximately 10k-year warmer interglacial periods. Ice age.
• Holocene


  plant and animal domestication, agriculture, the first villages and cities, and civilizations all arose during the most interglacial period
• Anthropocene


  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.
• Keeling curve


  direct atmospheric measurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa observatory since 1958
• What can we learn from studying human remains from archaeological sites?


  Human behavior that can be used to understand patterns in some cultures or in particular time periods. We can learn about the overall understanding of health and welfare of past participants, nutrition/health, disease, injury/work related stress/violence, cause of death, migration patterns, human evolution, and many other things.
• Where did the first Americans come from? What is the evidence from archaeology and genetics?


  The first humans began to arrive in North America from Asia and Siberia approximately 13000 years ago over a land bridge. They were known as the Clovis people. In New Mexico, there were animal bones found of ice age bison and other animals that had cut marks made by humans. Genetic work on the Native Americans show that their ancestors had come from East Asia.
• How did Homo sapiens interact with other hominin species? Know the names and geographical distributions of the other species.


  They were believed to interact fairly commonly with Neanderthals even as far as mating with them. Denisovans, another species of hominin that anatomically modern humans interacted with. Denisovans were like a sister group of Neanderthals. Both had arisen out of an earlier out of Africa migration by Homo erectus. Denisovans were in Asia. Interbreeding between Denisovans and anatomically modern humans also occurred, indicated by the presence of Denisovan DNA in genomes of some modern human groups.
• How do archaeologists investigate prehistoric social organization? Be familiar with ways we can study gender, kin-based relationships, and social stratification.


  Gender - depictions of male and female specific activities in art. Differences in artifacts buried with male and female skeletons. Differences in bioarcheological indicators of work and stress. Draw from ethnographic analogies.

  Kin based relationships - similarities in artifacts or evidence of food sharing among closely spaced residences. Similarities in artifacts buried with skeletons or clusters of graves or the presence of graves next to the domestic structure, and ancient DNA.

  Social stratification - use ethnographic analogies wherever possible to broaden our ideas about possible social and political relationships.
• What are the differences between egalitarian and ranked societies?


  Egalitarian societies - 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 is when the rights, duties, and obligations that accrue by virtue of what a person accomplishes.

  Ranked societies - Limit the positions of valued status so that not everyone of sufficient talent can achieve them. A hierarchy of statuses. Ascribed status is when the 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 during 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?


  It was inherently racist. Based on the idea that westernized culture represent more civilized and intelligent development. Viewed other cultures as "primitive". Multi-linear evolution was not racist. And it shows cultural development as a sequence of change rather than process. It also addresses westernized biases.
• Know the approximate ages when the following cultural phenomena appeared: Domestication and agriculture, Monuments, Art, Ranked societies, Villages, Cities.


  All societies prior to 10000 BP were hunter gatherers. Within the last 10000 years came the tribal societies. These were based on a community or villages. They had larger settlements than hunter gatherers and differences in prestige among members. This is when the plant and animal domestication occurred. Ranked societies appeared within the last 5000 years. Chiefdoms were run by single leaders and their close kin, who had greater power and control of resources than others. State societies were large-scale with centralized governments, class stratification, intensive food production, monumental architecture.
• How did agriculture affect human health, mobility, and social organization? How did it affect the natural world?

  Agriculture made food resources much larger. Settlements were created which eventually led to a greater division in social ranking based on resource acquisition. This could be seen as negative based on the fact that it led to ranked societies, but also positive because of the efficiency it produced which increased the speed of technological advancement.
• Where was the earliest art discovered and how old is it?


  Engraved ochre in Blombos Cave, South Africa. It is dated back to about 70000 BP to 100000 BP.
• What are some potential weaknesses of civilizations according to the Lifespan of Civilizations article?


  Climate change: When climatic stability changes, the results can be disastrous, resulting in crop failure, starvation, and desertification. The collapse of the Anasazi, the Tiwanaku civilization, the Akkadians, the Mayan, the Roman Empire, and many others have all coincided with abrupt climatic changes, usually droughts.

  Environmental degradation: Collapse can occur when societies overshoot the carrying capacity of their environment. This ecological collapse theory, points to excessive deforestation, water pollution, soil degradation and the loss of biodiversity as precipitating causes.

  Inequality and oligarchy: This not only cause social distress, but handicaps a society's ability to respond to ecological, social, and economic problems. As population increases, the supply of labor outstrips demand, workers become cheap, and society becomes top-heavy. This inequality undermines collective solidarity and political turbulence follows.

  Complexity: Societies are problem-solving collectives that grow in complexity in order to overcome new issues. However, the returns from complexity eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. After this point, collapse will eventually ensue.

  External shocks: In other words, the "four horsemen": war, natural disasters, famine and plagues.

  Randomness/bad luck: Statistical analysis on empires suggests that collapse is random and independent of age.
• How has Earth's atmosphere changed over the past 800,000 years? How have humans affected the Earth's atmosphere and ecology?


  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. Excess CO2 in the atmosphere is being absorbed by the ocean, acidifying it continued ocean acidification will imperil the marine food chain.