Exam #1 Flashcards
(84 cards)
What is culture history?
late 1800s, early 1900s
It is what happened when, where,
and to what group in the past
How does culture history explain change?
Explains change by diffusion which is the passing of ideas between groups
What is culture history’s goal, method, and epistemology? What was the time it was popular?
late 1800s into early 1900s
Goal: Description
Method: Induction; accumulate info, organize it, and make explanations based on what they find
Epistemology: Commonsensical; good judgement and common sense
What was processual’s goal, method, and epistemology? What was the time it was popular?
mid-1900s
Goal: Explanation; why did something happen? Understand cultural context
Method: Deduction
Epistemology: Modenist (Functionalist)
What was postprocessual’s goal, method, and epistemology? What was the time it was popular?
Late 1900s to present
Goal: Interpretation
Method: Hermeneutic; based on the idea that many complex questions can never be finally resolved by a definitive answer but must be continually reassessed in the light of new understandings. That process is called the hermeneutic circle.
Epistemology: Postmodernist
What is processualism?
New Archeologists who wanted to under-
stand the cultural processes involved in why things happened.
An archaeological approach that seeks to explain the role of cultural processes in human history.
What is postprocessualism?
We’re in a postprocessual era, in which
archaeologists go after a range of topics and approaches.
Any number of interpretive archaeologies that
emerged from a rejection of the scientific, generalizing goals of processual archaeology. Some postprocessual approaches were heavily influenced by postmodern theory
What was Ian Hodder’s intellectual role in postprocessualism?
Hodder emphasized that archaeological interpretations are shaped by the perspective of the researcher, and that meanings are constructed from the evidence, not merely uncovered in an objective manner.
What was Lewis Binford’s intellectual role in processualism?
Archaeology as anthropology. Archaeology as a science; using the scientific method in
What are the three types of history of archaeological thought?
Cultural history, Processual, Postprocessual
How did arguments for cultural history become popular?
Based off of the reputation of the scholar. Their ideas were then taken into consideration becomes of their reputation
What was the Yu et al. reading about?
What are grand narratives?
(From the Wilcox Reading)
Grand narratives are big, simplified explanations of history that try to show a universal pattern of human progress. They often ignore details, individual choices, and cultural diversity, making history seem like it follows a set path rather than being shaped by many factors.
Why did Jared Diamond’s book lead to “vanishing Indian” narratives?
(From Wilcox Reading)
Michael Wilcox critiques Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse for portraying Indigenous societies as doomed by environmental mistakes or external forces, ignoring their resilience. He argues that Diamond downplays colonization’s role, framing Native Americans as passively vanishing rather than actively resisting displacement.
What are artifacts? Provide some examples
Something made or modified by humans
Ex) Stone tools, awl, pottery
What are ecofacts? What are some examples?
Non-artifactual organic and environmental remains which have cultural relevance, e.g. faunal and floral material as well as soils and sediments.
Ex) bones, skull, rock, soil, seeds
What are features? Provide some examples
Human-modified components of a site or landscape. These are immovable.
Ex) hearths, postholes, storage pits
What is a site?
A distinct spatial clustering of artifacts,
features, structures, and organic and environmental remains – the residue of human activity
What are the components of an archaeological context?
Immediate matrix, provenience, association with other finds
What is immediate matrix in terms of an archaeological find’s context?
The material surrounding it, usually some sort of sediment, like gravel, sand, or clay
What is provenience in terms of an archaeological find’s context?
The horizontal and vertical position of an object within the matrix
What is “association with other finds” in terms of an archaeological find’s context?
The location of the object in relation to other objects. It’s occurrence together with other archaeological remains, usually in the same matrix
What affect do formation processes have on archaeological finds?
The processes may affect both the way finds come to be buried and what happens to them after
What are cultural processes? Provide an example.
Involve the deliberate or accidental activities of human beings as they make or use artifacts, build or abandon buildings, destruction of archaeological sites in the present-day, etc.
Ex) Humans found an obsidian deposit, so they used the space to make stone tools
