Anthropology Exam 1
Questions:
Know the three secrets of archaeology (lecture 1)
• 1. Archaeologists study people
• 2. Archaeologists learn very little from individual artifacts
• 3. To do archaeology well, you must
...
Anthropology Exam 1
Questions:
Know the three secrets of archaeology (lecture 1)
• 1. Archaeologists study people
• 2. Archaeologists learn very little from individual artifacts
• 3. To do archaeology well, you must observe how people interact with the material
world today
Know the differences between processual and post processual archaeology.
• Processual: environmental: what we eat/how we get food
• Postprocessual: power/gender/ideology
Know the stages of archaeological research.
• 1. Reconnaissance/survey: (search an area for archeological sites, can be unsystematic
or systematic, identify sites for excavation, develop regional understandings, extensive
strategy: learn a little bit about a lot of sites)
• 2. Excavation: (carefully digging up arch. sites, record exact location of artifacts,
develop chronology of site use, intensive strategy: learn about a few sites, learn how to
dig in a field school)
• 3. Analysis/lab work: (Make sense of artifacts collected previously, rely on specialists
(plants, animals, dating), this is the longest portion of research AND THE MOST
IMPORTANT- 1 hour in field= 3 hours in lab processing material.
• 4. Interpretation
• 5. Repeat
Know the strength and weaknesses of archaeological survey and excavation.
• Strengths: gives us evidence, ability to test hypothesis, helps with chronological analysis
by helping to identify changes in use over time and distinguishing between different
layers of development.
• Weaknesses: destructive (can only dig up once), expensive, time consuming. The
weaknesses are the strengths. A little info about a lot of stuff
Be prepared to identify the species of human ancestors based on a picture of a skull (see
below). Know the relationship between tooth size/shape and diet in human ancestors.
• Ardipithecus ramidus had thin-enameled teeth. The teeth are unspecialized and suggest
that this hominin ate soft fruit and other plant foods.
• Robust Australopithecines had large teeth that were specialized for chewing coarse,
fibrous plant foods.
• Homo habilis had more even and less specialized teeth. The molars were narrower, the
premolars smaller, and the incisors larger and more spadelike, as if they were used for
slicing. However, microscopic wear studies of the teeth have shown that both
Australopithecus and H. habilis were predominantly fruit eaters, so there does not seem
to have been a major shift in diet between the two.
• A. Robustus and A. Boisei had massive jaws, molar teeth, and cranial anatomy optimized
for hard chewing. They may have consumed hard-to-open foods during hungry periods.
Bigger the teeth, more plants they ate.
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shared via CourseHero.comKnow the rough dates that each human ancestor existed and where they are found.
• australopithecus africanus: 3 mya.
• Homo ergaster: 1.9 mya, found in Africa
• Homo erectus: 775-1300 CC, found in East Asia, bigger brain
• homo sapiens: 170,000 yo, found in Africa
• A.Homo sapiens: 800,000 yo.
• homo habilis: 2.5 mya, found in Africa
Know the difference between unilinear and multilinear evolution.
• Unilinear biological evolution: single line of hominins leading to modern humans (us)
• Multilinear biological evolution: many different hominins at the same time
Know the key elements of human evolution, when they occurred, and how we know
they occurred.
Know which human ancestors left Africa, and when they left Africa.
• Homo Ergaster, they left Africa about 1.7 mya
Be prepared to answer question on the role of language in the expansion of Homo
sapiens into Europe.
Be prepared to answer questions about what upper Paleolithic rock art reveals
about the origin of language generally and life in the upper Paleolithic
specifically.
Be prepared to answer questions on ape intelligence and language ability.
Be prepared to discuss the causes and importance of Broad Spectrum Adaptation.
• Ice age, big animals died off. People began to eat more of smaller things (animals).
Before they ate a lot of a few big animals.
Be prepared to discuss why stone tools became smaller at the start of the Holocene.
• Stone tools became smaller at the start of the Holocene because there was a shift to
hunting smaller animals due to the fact that many big animals became extinct thanks to
the climate change.
Be prepared to discuss the evidence for greater complexity among hunters and gatherers in the
early Holocene
Vocab:
Archaeology: the study of past human behavior based on surviving material finds.
Anthropology: biological and cultural study of all humanity, ancient and modern. The study of
mankind in its wildest sense; this also includes biology and culture.
Culture: a set of designs for living that help mold human responses to different situations;
concept developed by anthropologists to describe the distinctive and adaptive system
Cultural System: complex system comprising a set of interacting variables- tools, burial customs,
ways of getting food, religion, so on- that function to maintain a community in a state of
equilibrium with its environment
Cultural Process: refers to the process by which human societies changed in the past
Invention: creating a new idea and transforming it onto an artifact or other tangible innovation
that has survived.
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shared via CourseHero.comDiffusion: spread of ideas and concepts; label for those processes by which new ideas or
cultural traits spread from one person to another or from one group to another, often over long
distances.
Migration: involves the movement of people and is based on a deliberate decision to enter new
areas and leave old ones
Coprolite: a piece of fossilized poo
Stages of Archaeological Research:
Reconnaissance/Survey: searching an area for archaeological sites and studying and
develop regional understanding
Excavation: carefully digging up archaeological sites, recording keeping
Analysis/Lab Work: longest portion of research, make sense of artifacts collected
previously
Interpretation: who, how, where, when, why
Remote sensing: go at dawn or sunset, use airplane and use aerial photography- allows you to
see things you wouldn’t see on the ground
• Aerial Photography, Crop Marks, Satellite images
B.C./A.D.: Before Christ/ After Death
BCE/CE: Before Common Era/ Common Era
BP: Before Present, generally used for really old stuff
MYA: millions of years ago
Processual Archaeology: (study the way humans do things and the way things decay) how we
eat, hunt, live, basic functions
Post-processual Archaeology: (subjectivity on archeological interpretations) greater focus on
induvial and group behavior, the cultural biases of archaeologists use in interpreting their data,
and on the intangibles of human behavior, such as social organization, religious beliefs, and
worldviews.
Hominim: modern humans, earlier human subspecies, and other direct ancestors
Punctuated equilibrium: Long periods of stability punctuated by periods of rapid change. In
comparison to the old theory that thought of evolution as slow and gradual.
Bipedalism: walking upright on two feet, stand taller see further, stay cooler
Brain Size: as brain size increase the tools produce get better
Sexual Dimorphism: size difference resulting from one’s sex
Language: key attribute of language is symbolism. Cave paintings are symbolic.
Oldowan Tools: (homo habilis) older, uglier, and worse made tools (don’t even look like tools)
Acheulian Tools: (homo erectus) ax is way bigger, present in Europe, Africa, and Asia
Symbol: something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention
Larynx: the voice box
• Human adults are the only mammals that have low larynxes and arched skulls allowing
them to produce a larger range of sound to speak.
• Most mammals have a larynx high in the neck and a flat based skull
Altamira: cave paintings of bison in Spain
Lascaux: 15,000-year-old cave paintings in southern France. Know for the large paintings of
bulls
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shared via CourseHero.comChauvet: Paintings in France dating back to 32-30,000 BP. Including many pictures of dangerous
animals.
Cosquer: Cave paintings in France → Spit paint on hand to leave an outline
Niaux: Cave paintings in southern France dating between 13,850-12,890 BP
Cognitive fluidity: Agile → can change easily. Allows interaction between the different parts of
the human mind. Allowed for natural and social worlds to come together→ human societies
were formed and wiped out or mixed with earlier human populations that had not obtained
cognitive fluidity.
Pleistocene: the last geological epoch, sometimes called the Ice age or Quaternary
Holocene: warmer period beginning in 10,000 BCE
Carrying Capacity: ability of the environment to support people and animals
Seasonal Round:
Population Pressure/Density:
Additional Book Vocab:
Text-aided archaeology: archaeology practiced with the aid of historical documents
Prehistoric archaeology: archaeology of ancient societies that were non-literate
Uniformitarianism: geological observations presented evidence of gradual change over long
periods of time through natural processes such as flooding and erosion
Radiocarbon dating: enabled people to date sites in all corners of the world but also to compare
the chronologically
Unilinear Cultural Evolution: early social scientists believed human societies evolved in a simple,
linear fashion, slowly ascending an evolutionary ladder of human progress towards that
ultimate pinnacle, industrial civilization.
Multilinear cultural evolution: now widely accepted as a very general framework fro studying
the cultural evolution of human species
-Prestate societies: societies on a scale, based on the community, band, or village
-Bands: associations of families of no more than 25 to 100 people.
-Tribes: clusters of bands that are linked between clans.
-Chiefdoms: still kin-based but more hierarchical, with power concentrated in the hands
of kins leaders- have a higher population of 5,000-20,000
-State-organized societies: operate on a large scale with centralized political and social
organization, class stratification, and intensive agriculture.
Cultural Ecology: the total way in which human populations adapt to and transform their
environments, is at the core of multilinear evolutionary theory
Evolutionary ecology: based on the proposition that variation in the behavior of individual
organisms is shaped by natural selection.
Optimal foraging strategy: argues that the most efficient forging strategies adopted by human
groups are those that produce the greatest return in energy relative to time and effort
expended.
Contingency Model: exploitation of the food resource is independent of its abundance
Prey Model: assumes that foragers will try and maximize the net rate of energy capture
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