1. Archaeological Record

2. Learning Objectives
Understand how archaeologists gather information about past cultures.
Understand how the archaeological process works, and the ways archaeologists use science to explore how people lived in the past.
Describe how studies of material culture can serve as a form of data to improve knowledge about human behavioral variability in past and contemporary societies

3. Doing Archaeology Locating Sites Excavation Dating Techniques
Artifact Analysis
Site & Regional Synthesis

4. Survey Physical examination of a geographical region
Possible location of site
Ground, aerial, GPR, GIS

5. Excavation Systematic uncovering of archaeological remains
Removal of soil deposits and other materials

6. Interpreting the Past Subsistence Strategies Human Societies
Ecological niches
Can the environment influence population size?
How so?
Human Societies
Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, & States

7. Interpreting the Past Subsistence Strategies Food Collectors
Food Producers
Horticulturists
& Agriculturists
Foragers
Pastoralists
Massai
Inuit
Dani

8. Interpreting the Past Human societies
Remember Morgan, Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski, Boas….
After WWII
Archaeological & ethnographic information
Considered:
1. Key points in social change
2. Avoidance of stereotypes & ethnocentrism

9. Interpreting the Past: Social Organization
Bands: approximately 50 people, egalitarian, generally observed in foraging groups
San ‘Bushman’
Inuit

10. Interpreting the Past: Social Organization
Tribes: relatively egalitarian, sometimes a ‘big man’, generally pastoralists & small agricultural societies
Sami
Massai

11. Interpreting the Past: Social Organization
Chiefdoms: inequalities to wealth & power, craft production, larger population size
States: stratified society, defined territory, governmental institutions
Empires: forms when one state conquers another

12. Interpreting the Past: What are Material Remains?

13. Interpreting the Past: What are Material Remains?
Artifact
Any movable object that has been used, modified, or manufactured by humans
Stone, bone, metal tools; beads & other ornaments, pottery, artwork, religious & sacred items

14. Interpreting the Past: What are Material Remains?
Ecofact
Artifacts that convey information on the environment
Seeds, animals bones, soil

15. Interpreting the Past: What are Material Remains?
Midden
Refuse deposit resulting from human activities
Consists of sediment
Food remains & discarded artifacts

16. Interpreting the Past: What are Material Remains?
Feature
Nonmoveable articles
Hearths, pits, or house floors
Reveal information on settlement & subsistence

17. Interpreting the Past: Importance of Context
An artifact’s context
Specific location where it was found
How it relates to other artifacts around it
Why is context important?
Time & space
Systemic study of the past in its context