ASU ASB 222 exam 1 Archaeology - answer talking rationally about ancient things How old does something need to be for archaeologists to study it? - answer3.3 million years ago to 5.4 thousand years ago What do archaeologists do? - answer Collect evidence systematically •Conduct experiments •Formulate hypotheses to account for data •Test hypotheses against more data •Come-up with interpretations / models: descriptions that best summarize the patterns observed in data •Are always aware that their data depend on their assumptions •They are responsible for the protection of the material they unearth and towards the people who may be affected What are the responsibilities of the archaeologist? - answer Discovery of past material remains (material culture) • •Scientific analysis of these remains and their ordering in space and time • •Exercise in creative imagination combined with painstaking task of interpretation, so that we understand 'what it all means' for the human story • •Responsibility of conserving the world's cultural heritage against looting and unnecessary destruction •Responsibility towards the public What ideas needed to be accepted for modern archaeology to begin? - answer1) Great antiquity of humanity 2) Darwin's principle of evolution 3) Three Age System for organizing material What did these newly accepted ideas provide archaeology? - answer•Human cultures evolve, like plants and animals do • •We can devise schemes to describe the evolution of artifact forms • •Typology 1 / 2
What does the Law of Uniformitarianism state? - answerthat the same processes that shaped the earth in the past still shape it today What does the law of superposition state? - answernew rock forms on top of older rock What did the Three Age System allow us to do? - answerBy studying artifacts you can produce chronological ordering What new innovations quickly changed archaeology after World War II? - answer•Important new scientific techniques for dating (C14) and reconnaissance (air photography) • •Development of ecology with its focus on human adaptation to environment and focus on wide regions What kinds of questions did New/Processual Archaeology ask?Why did they start asking these questions?How did archaeology change? - answerAsk not only what and when, but also WHY, to explain the process of change Change can come from within!Focus on adaptation & large scale What did Post-Processual Archaeology teach us about the study of the past? - answer•Why depends on who's asking the question!•There is not ONE objective truth, neither one explanation •There are multiple interpretations •Focus on individual + small scale •Multivocality •Responsibility to today archaeological record - answerThe source of information for archaeologists What is the difference between primary and secondary context? - answerPRIMARY CONTEXT-Things are deposited in the context where they were first made or used Secondary Context-•Things are removed from where they were first made or used and deposited somewhere else What are cultural formation processes? - answerchange the materials within the archaeological record itself What are some examples of cultural formation processes? - answerIntentional destruction of cultural heritage, looting, construction
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