Practice Final

ANT 207

Summer I, 2009

Please complete the following exercise by the beginning of class on Monday, June 15. I will post model definitions on the afternoon of that day.

Define three of the following six terms, and explain why it is important to archaeology:

1) Tribe

The political structure that people tend to have with 50-100 people. It is typified by group decision-making, with some respected members of the group having more influence than others, either because of their position as senior lineage heads or due to their success and experience. It is important because this is a political structure used by many complex foragers and early farmers.

2) Samarra

An archaeological culture in northern and central Iraq, which descends from the Hassuna culture and extends through areas that require irrigation for farming to take place. Samarran culture shows the first use of irrigation, the slow pottery wheel, craft specialization, and long-distance trade of rare lithic resources. They also had large public structures. The Samarra culture is important because it shows many of the early cultural developments that will grow in complexity throughout the Halaf, Ubaid and Uruk cultures and will eventually become classic Early Dynastic Mesopotamian cultural traits.

3) Jade cong

An artifact found in Neolithic and Bronze Age China, generally beginning in the Longshan period. It is a rectangular tube with a round hole running through it, nearly always made of jade, and very often found in burials. It is generally interpreted as a shamanic symbol or tool—something like a portable axis mundi. It is important because it shows the presence of shamanism in the Longshan period and its consistent use through the Western Zhou dynasty.

4) Hopewell

An interaction sphere present throughout the Midwestern and southeastern United States during the Middle Woodland period. Hopewell is basically a group of cultures around the continent with shared burial practices, although the basic way of life for each culture was clearly locally based. Hopewell burial practices include mound construction over burnt charnel houses, including primary extended burials, secondary cremated burials, large amounts of grave goods with distinctive Hopewellian art styles, and secondary pit burials placed in the burial mounds. Hopewellian sites were also part of a long-distance trade network by which rare raw materials were apparently distributed by means of nodal households. Hopewell is important because it is the first widespread shared material culture in North America, and because its members used the Eastern Horticultural Complex.

5) Mound 72

The mound dating to the Lohmann phase at Cahokia that contains a large number of human burials, suggesting a fair degree of social complexity and trade during this period at the site. It is important because it is the only elite burial mound scientifically excavated at Cahokia, and tells us a lot about how people lived and were buried during the Lohmann phase.

6) Disease vector

With an infectious disease, the animal species where a disease is endemic (does not kill the animal, or kills so slowly that it is almost unnoticeable). A disease pool is important in human epidemic diseases, because without the pool, epidemics would burn out among the human population as people died and/or recovered. With the pool, the disease can lurk away from the human population until it is transferred to humans again through the disease vector.

Answer one of the following two essay questions:

7) What would a chiefdom look like archaeologically? Why are these archaeological markers effective?

--In this essay, the first thing you should do is define a chiefdom, and then follow this definition through the material culture—that’s why the markers are effective.

--Chiefdoms are always sedentary, so a sedentary settlement is a good place to start.

--Chiefdoms nearly always have feasting and redistribution, so feasting remains in trash pits are a good way of identifying chiefdoms.

--A central storage area is also a good marker for chiefdoms

--Council houses or a place for the council to meet is also a major identifying factor in chiefdoms, so it’s important to look for such a meeting place—either a council house or a habitation that is larger than all the others to allow for council meetings, or a large open area within the site.

--In terms of burials, you should be able to see two different types of burials at least—chiefly and non-chiefly, with the chiefly burials being all adult and with more artifacts and care in burial than the non-chiefly. This is not as effective a marker as some others, because views of the afterlife can vary pretty dramatically from culture to culture.

--Since status tends to be ascribed rather than inherited in chiefdoms, a possible marker is that adult burials will be more elaborate than children’s burials, which should be uniformly plain and simple. Again, views of the afterlife can vary.

--A 2-tiered settlement pattern may be an indicator, though it isn’t perfect—it is possible to have chiefdoms in 1-tiered settlement patterns.

8) Why did maize spread from Mexico throughout the New and Old Worlds? What were some disadvantages of this? How did the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, or didn’t they?

Well, this is sort of the Big One. Here are some factors:

--First and probably most importantly, maize is exceptionally productive, allowing large surpluses that were very attractive to large populations in both the Old and New Worlds.

--Maize is easily storable, allowing these surpluses to be kept over the non-growing season.

--Harvesting maize is relatively easy—no sickle-harvesting or anything like that.

Some disadvantages of maize use are:

--Maize requires a lot of water. This is fine in wet years, but in parts of the world with variable rainfall, the shift from wet to dry can mean the difference between maize and no maize. Since the productivity of maize allows serious population growth, that means people in these parts of the world are stuck with large populations that can’t be supported by any crop other than maize, which will only grow in wet years.

--Maize requires a lot of fertilizer, and can drain the soil of nutrients very quickly. Without careful fertilization and/or intercropping, it can play the fields out very rapidly, and then people are in the same trap as in part I.

--Maize is not the most nutritious of foods, as it lacks niacin and protein. The niacin problem can be solved through alkali-processing, but the small amount of protein tends to lead to small stature and weak bones in populations that depend on the crop too much

--It is very starchy, which often leads to tooth decay.

Whether the advantages outweighed the disadvantages depends on the individual culture and environment. In the Midwest, maize was not adopted for about 900 years after its original appearance, suggesting that the disadvantages did outweigh the advantages until serious population growth made productivity a key factor around 1000-1200 AD. In other areas, such as parts of Africa, maize adoption appeared to make sense at the time, but climactic change to a drier climate means that this situation was temporary. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to switch off maize production, owing to the population growth caused by the surplus. In areas with a lot of rainfall, fertile soil, and a need for a productive crop, the advantages clearly outweighed the disadvantages.