Practice Midterm

ANT 207

This practice midterm is for your own benefit, and should not be turned in unless you’d like special comments on the essay. The answers will be posted online Monday, March 2.

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

1) Culture

Beliefs and traditions, passed on by learning, that modify behavior. Culture is important because it is one of the key concepts of anthropology, and most archaeology consists of an attempt to interpret culture through material remains, which is difficult.

2) Domestication

Domestication is the human creation of a new form of plant or animal that finds it more difficult to survive in the wile without human help. This is important because we can spot domestication in the archaeological record, and it suggests that food production is definitely present and a Neolithic Revolution has either already occurred or will as soon as someone notices that domestication has taken place and begins to control it.

3) Middle-Range Theory

Hypotheses and theories intended to explain archaeological data. This was originally a processualist concept, but is applied by both processualists and postprocessualists. This is important to archaeology because nearly all archaeological theory falls into the Middle-Range Theory category.

4) 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.

5) Cognitive archaeology

The archaeology of how people think. It is difficult to do, but very important because beliefs are a key part of culture, and without the archaeology of thought and belief we will not have any idea of true human culture.

6) Pengtoushan

The archaeological culture in southern China with the earliest evidence for domesticated rice, although the rice remains recovered have been fully domesticated. Pengtoushan is therefore not a transitional foraging/farming culture, but one that is primarily farming. Because of the swampy environment, the site of Pengtoushan is water-logged, giving excellent preservation of organics. It is important because it gives us a lot of information about early farming in the southern China domestication region.

Please write a paragraph answering one of the following two questions:

7) What is processualism? How did it change archaeology? Is it still in use? Why or why not?

--Processualism was the application of scientific methods and practices to archaeology, which became popular in archaeology beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as a response to the radiocarbon revolution.

--It believed that archaeologists should be objective, use the hypothetico-deductive approach (come up with a hypothesis, and dig to test that hypothesis), and that it was possible to come up with universal laws that govern human behavior (covering laws)

--It also championed applying scientific measurement and new scientific techniques to archaeology, including radiocarbon, flotation sampling, paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, taphonomy, pollen analysis, ceramic petrography, computer simulation, and residue analysis, to name just a few.

--Processualism was criticized by the postprocessualists for not paying attention to individual people in the archaeological record, for attempting to be objective when that was a mental impossibility for any human, and attempting to overgeneralize all human behavior.

--Processualism changed archaeology by encouraging archaeologists to pay more attention to scientific methods, and in making archaeologists more aware of the interpretation of their data. It popularized archaeology by applying archaeological methods to solve modern problems, and making archaeology into more of a science. Due to the effects of radiocarbon dating and the advent of computers, processualism allowed archaeologists to spend more time interpreting past human behavior, asking “why” and “how” questions, rather than just “when.”

--Processualism is an important part of modern archaeology—most processualist techniques are still in use, and processualist views on data recording and scientific analysis are universally accepted

--However, hypothesis testing and the idea that objectivity is possible are not now universally accepted. Most archaeologists now use a combination of processualist and postprocessualist approaches.

8) 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.