Lecture 2

Archaeology

Focus on analysis of artefacts

Artefact: a portable, human-made cultural product.

Archaeologists take artefacts to the lab to analyze them: archaeology is not just fieldwork.

Why do people do archaeology? Interested in:

• The past
• Solving puzzles
• Understanding other realities
• The “Indiana Jones Syndrome”
  • Romantic
  • Exotic
  • Treasure

Archaeologists aren’t looking for treasure; they’re looking for information

Origins of Archaeology

• Antiquarians: amateur “gentlemen” interested in the past; archaeology was a pasttime.
• Looters: dug up for profit, but contributed to recovery methods.
• Collectors: they contributed to collection, classification, and establishing the principles of museums.
• Scholars: trained, authorized seekers of information.

Archaeology Today

• Professionals
• Amateurs
• Looters

Transition to Academic Archaeoogy

During the Great Depression, the US government establishes the WPA: the Works Progress Administration. Trained many diggers as an employment strategy. Their discoveries are still being used for analysis by grad students today.

Landmark is Gordon R. Something

Then, Lewis Binford: a veteran of WWII. He went to UChicago and introduced Processual Archaeology, or “New Archaeology”.

This was challenged by Ian Hodder, who presented Post-Processual Archaeology. Main question: is excavation actually necessary? Challenged the thought process of previous paradigms.

Now, contracted Archaeologists, who are employed as to fulfill modern requirements of environmental impact statements. They are not academic archaeologists. This is almost always construction firms.

Tools of Archaeology:

• Shovels
• Alidade
• Wheelbarrows

Goals of Archaeology

• Form of the past
• Function
• Understand cultural process
• Give meaning to the archaeological record.

Forms of Archaeological Data

• Artifact:portable artifact made or modified by humans
• Ecofact: nonartifactual material reamins that have cultural relevance. Something that is neither made nor modified, but important culturally.
• Feature: non-portable artifact
• Site: spatial clusters of the above
• Region: a flexible spatial cluster of archaeological data.

An artifact goes through stages:

• Acquisition
• Manufacture
• Use
• Discard

Archaeologists really value context because it gives meaning to the archaeological record. These mean:

• Matrix: its physical medium
• Provenience: 3D location
• Association: items that co-ocurr together.

Primary context involves use-related materials, or purposefully placed materials. Secondary context are things that have been displaced, and are much less useful.

Looting is a problem because it produces non-contextual material.

The only relevant archaeological transformations are those of nature (n-transforms) or culture (c-transforms).

There are other deranging factors:

• Curation: people choose what they want to keep. Many things may be missing ebcause people chose to take them (or not).
• Preservation: a mummy with preservred skin will never be found in Mesoamerica because of climatic factors.
• Recognition

Kinds of Archaeological Survey

• Reconnaissance
• Survey: take a stroll, or systematically comb the environment
• Mapping: use an Alidade and a Stadia Rod to get the distance. That’s what he did.
  • Countour maps (used by British archaeologists)
  • Rectified maps (used by Maya archaeologists)
• Remote Sensing: Aerial Reconnaissance
• Aerial Photos: from Balloon photography to LiDAR to space photography. E.g. Angkor, Cambodia. Really cool! LiDAR shows you what’s below the trees and everything.

Archaeological Laws

• Law of Superposition: stratigraphy, and relative dating.
• Law of Association: what’s found together should date from the same time period

Kinds of Excavation

• Probe or Test-pit or “sondage”. It gives you an idea of what’s below. Can be 1m x 1m.
• Stripping or Horizontal Excavation: provides information on function and what is used at a single time.
• Areal excavation: what it sounds like (?)
• Trench or Penetrating excavation: provides information relative to time depth.

Recording Data

• Arbitrary vs Normal
• Provenince Control
  • Units and Labels
  • Flotation and Screening
• Field notes
• Standardized forms
• Photography

Kinds of Archaeological Illustration

• Plan
• Section
• Elevation/profile (detail)
• Isometric

Dating

• Direct
  • Of artifact, etc: looking at the dates the artifact says.
• Indirect
  • By direct dating associated materials
• Absolute
  • C-14: measuring the half-life of Carbon. The amount of Carbon in the environment varied over time: we know from tree rings. (What!!)
  • Not perfectly accurate
  • How did it get into the record?
  • etc.
  • Calibration:
  • Dendrochronology: tree rings
  • Obsidian hydration: (!)
  • Speleothems: like tree rings
• Relative
  • e.g. Seriation: how to order things chronologically, like the stone, bronze, and iron ages. Can also look at style.
  • Can use as a point of reference

Archaeologists go into populariztion or academic work.

The Maya

They can be seen as a simple, or a complex society. Ethnography makes them look very simple. Ethnohistoric makes them look like a two-class soceity. Archaeological perspectives present a multi-level society based on wealth, status, and anvestry. But different archaeological sites and workers result in different conclusions. Epigraphic interpretations present dynasties, kings, city-states and hegemonies. The rest was not preserved in the anthropological record.

Popular perceptions of the ancient Maya are exotic, romantic, exciting, and not at all realistic.

They had to travel by foot and so they have an about 60km dominion.

The Epigraphers argued that Tikal and Calakmul were the political centers, but this is not backed by the archaeology.

Changing Thought in Maya Archaeology

From Caracol:

1. From self-sufficiency to interdependency and control
2. Maya Warfare had big effect on social cdevelopment, status, and wealth.
3. History and Archaeology: from ritual time to literal history and back again; the record indicates that cyclical time was very important to them.
4. Importance of women

Caracol

1985-present

Discovered in the 1930s by a logger: brought in Linton Satterthwaite from UPenn, who focused on the stone monuments. UPenn museum wanted Stela for their art gallery;

They moved the monuments in 1953, and took them 30 years to publish it.

They arrived in 1985.

Why is Caracol where it is?

In control of the trade route that goes up to Cebal. There is a cluster along the river.

History

Earliest remains are from about 600 bc.

Sealed geodes, jade masks, etc.

The buildings embody cyclical time as they are modified every 400 years.

There is stucco all around.

Jaguar throne

Warfare theroy

• 60km rule
• Using modern heory in a past context
• Seeing propserity and cohesion in the population

THye chould have waged war against tikal; but Naranjo is in the feasable area.

The ruling families among the maya were itnerralted.

Caracol star wars

• At Tikal by Caracol, ad 562
• at Naranjo by C on 631
• at Caracol by Naranjo ad 680

then,

• 680 re arrival of smoke rabbit at caracol
• 682 accession of woman (!) at tikal to refound dynasty

Major tombs are occupied by women

Major rulers are buried at tikal.

lidar transformed the way people saw agriculture and terracing in latin america; very different from the rice terracing in s e asia, which was separated from the settlements.

Questions

WY THE FUCK WAS BELIZE BRITISH
were there looters in teotihuacan?