Preliminary Exercise

ANTL 207

Fall 2005

Pick a partner, and put your names on this sheet of paper. Answer these questions to the best of your ability, using the Artifact Guide handout that you were given last Wednesday.

Station 1

What type of rock is this? Why is it important, and what is it used for?

Station 2

What types of metal are these artifacts? How should they be conserved? Which have been conserved well, and which have not?

Station 3

Why is some of this glass flakey? How should it be conserved? Can you tell which was made earliest, and how? Explain.

Station 4

Look carefully at these artifacts. Divide them into groups based on tools and not-tools. How do you know? Explain.

Station 5

Can you tell which of these rocks are local, and which from outside this area? How?

Station 6

Divide up these potsherds according into two groups, based on what you feel are the most obvious differences. What information can you get from these two groups—what do they tell you about the pottery?

Station 7

How can you tell the difference between mammal and fish bone? Why do you think they’re different? Classify the skulls into groups—how many groups are there?

Station 8

Divide these rocks/artifacts into groups. How did you choose to divide them? Come up with another way to divide them up and do that. What do the different ways of classifying the artifacts tell you about them?

Station 9

What is this, and what is it made of? Use your common sense on this one.

Station 10

Look carefully at this pottery. Describe three of them as carefully as you can. What does this information tell you, archaeologically?