Midterm #1 Flashcards

Question

What is the systemic context and what are the two different objects in a systemic context?

Answer 1

Living breathing society is what we want to learn about Objects: Secondary use → same object - different use, not extensively modified Recycling → object transformed into a new product and modified quite a bit

Answer 2

Relationship amongst soils, artefacts, ecofacts, etc., at the time of excavation - There's a bunch of time that occurs between when something is discarded and when it's recovered → that's called the transformation process , and we want to understand what happened within that time - Two kinds of transformation processes: Natural (how it was deposited) Cultural (how was it modified, what did people do)

Answer 3

Natural: deposition of soils - Pedogenic processes - soil evolution - Catastrophic burial (very rare) → mudslides, volcanic ash falls, sand dunes, etc. Cultural: - Casual discard of materials (like garbage) - Unintentional discard (loss, abandonment/decay of buildings, etc.) - Intentional burial → retrieval (hiding food), burials of the dead

Answer 4

Anything that alters the archaeological record after it has formed Natural: - Ex. burrowing creatures affecting archaeological sites Cultural: - Reclamation → modern farmers reclaiming fields - Scavenging → taking something that's already been used and using it for something else - Reuse

Answer 5

Techniques for dating archaeological material contribute to determining the context of finds Relative dating: Determining the age of archaeological materials relative to material of known ages Ex. stratigraphy → provides a basis for determining whether a feature or object is younger or older than another features or objects in adjacent layers Absolute dating: Determined the age of archaeological deposits or materials by providing the age in years Each technique has difference sources or error, so it's important that different techniques be used as check on each other

Answer 6

They're going to be damaged or destroyed anyways They hold great potential to answer questions

Answer 7

Look at the site records → many nations should have a catalogue of site records in a database Get an understanding of everything that's already known Foster further research Make sure cultural heritage is not being destroyed

Answer 8

1. Airborne Prospecting (aerial photography) Can look at human modifications of the land and supplement to observations made during fieldwork 2. Multi-spectral and thermal imaging Looking at how the earth holds heat differently → things that are constructed by humans will be different 3. Photogrammetry Converting optical images to digital images → create 3 dimensions Ex. scan a tooth and send pic to an expert to observe 4. Drones Better depth models than satellite imagery Can be used where access and surveying is difficult Limitations → piloting skill and environment

Answer 9

1. Pedestrian survey is always step one Going to the site and walking around 2. Ground-level photography Can be done over and over again - things will always look different 3. Topographic survey Maps the boundaries, features, and levels of the site → determines changes in elevation of the land How we have interacted with the land leaves a trace on the landscape → much finer understanding and a slower, old fashioned process 4. Underwater survey Many limitations, very slow and expensive Dive formations → very systematic

Answer 10

1. Resistivity Measuring the electronic current passed through the ground More resistance = not just natural soil Can be used to target excavations 2. Magnetic survey Looking for anomalies of the normal magnetic field 3. Ground penetrating radar Waves converted to electronic signals - can get deeper into the surface All about soil density and the quality of your took 3 different kinds of scans → A, B, C 4. Seismic survey Underwater survey - side sonar scanning (hangs off the boat) 5. Shovel Testing Digging square hole 6. Augering Large drill used in specific soils 7. Coring Getting deep in the soil - geological conditions 8. Deep Testing Machine operator

Answer 11

Campsites and caves : people stay and go Permanent settlement : associate with adoption of farming Cemeteries : any location used for the disposal of the dead

Answer 12

Random : assign numbers to everything and randomly select numbers- no bias Systematic : ransom start but a non-arbitrary sequence Judgmental: people have worked there before, you see something in the ground, experts have done it before → this is much more accurate

Answer 13

Fluorine, uranium, and nitrogen tests (relative dating technique) - Bones and teeth slowly transform in their chemical composition - this transformation reflects the mineral content of the groundwater where they are buried - The older a fossil is, the higher its fluorine and uranium content will be, and the lower its nitrogen content - Cannot be used to compare the relative ages of specimens from widely separated sites

Answer 14

- Comparing popularities of artifact styles (within a site and between sites) - Stylistic seriation : presence/absence of styles (black pots vs. white pots) (relative dating) - Cross-dating: artifacts at one site used to cross-date other sites in sequence (anchor with absolute dates)

Answer 15

Using historical records to help us guide our study Not really relative or absolute Bringing things back to a standard way of viewing time - like a shorthand Deals with solar and lunar calendars

Answer 16

The location of an artefact or feature within a site

Answer 17

The study of changes that occur to organisms or objects after being buried or deposited

Answer 18

Technical name for tools made from stone

Answer 19

Microscopic granules of silicon dioxide that enter a plant's cells and take their shape

Answer 20

Looking for locations of human habitation of human activity and thinking about how these are linked in an entire landscape

Answer 21

- Many artifacts require conservation in order to prevent further decay - Some require reconstruction → putting the pieces back together - Study the form of an artifact, including through measurement, to try and understand how it was made - Understand how an artefact functioned in the past in order to help understand issues of the human condition in the past - Environmental archaeology → reconstruct past ecological conditions - Paleonutrition→ diet - Paleopathology → disease - Political ecology → settlement patterns, socio-economic status, resource distribution and allocation

Answer 22

- Osteology (human skeletal biology): Specialized sub-discipline of physical anthropology that deals with the biological remains of humans from past populations - Skeletal biologist use human remains to learn about the size, composition, and health of past populations - Paleodemography is the study of demographic structure and population process of the past - Focuses on the age and sexstructure of the population, and patterns of mortality, fertility, and population growth - Paleopathology - seeks to answer questions about the appearance, prevalence, and spread of diseases in past populations

Answer 23

Mortality (death rates) Fecundity (fertility rate) Questions of demography (ex. Probability of death)

Answer 24

The notion that skeletal samples represent not all the people who were susceptible for a given age group, but only those individuals who died at that age

Answer 25

Primary products → have to kill the animals for them (ex. Meat, hide) Secondary products → don't have to kill the animals (milk, wool, eggs)

Answer 26

Direct evidence: Preserved remains of food itself → in the stomach or coprolites (faeces) Indirect evidence: Animal remains, plant remains, stable isotopes, trace elements, and experimental archaeology Stable isotope and trace element → explore the biochemical evidence of diet using human and animal skeletal remains Experimental archaeology → examines how people used tools to process foods by matching wear patterns and organic residues on ancient tools with those on experimental ones

Answer 27

Environmental archaeology reconstructs ecological climatic conditions of the past to better understand how people interacted with and were influenced by the environment Study of past environments concerned with both local and global environmental conditions Local conditions: studied by reconstructing past vegetation through the study of pollen (palynology) and general conditions through the the study of isotopic data, such as changes in temperature and rainfall conditions provided by the study of oxygen isotopes in ice cores Geoarchaeology → concerned with the effects of changing climate on the terrain where archaeological sites are found

Answer 28

The basic state of earth is cold - Sea water naturally contains both 18O and the lighter 16O - The lighter 16O evaporates first, and when this water vapour falls as snow, some remains "locked up" as glacial ice in northern latitudes - So, the relative abundance of 18O goes up - During warmer period, less precipitation falls as now and glacial meltwater returns to the oceans, thereby reducing the relative abundance of 18O INTERGLACIALS: precipitation and glacial ice contains water with a low 18O content = ocean water is warmer GLACIALS: large amounts of 16O water are being stored as glacial ice, sothe 18O content of oceanic water is high and ocean water is cooler Sources: Sea beds: dead marine creatures sensitive to temp changes Ice cores: changes in abundance of oxygen isotopes

Answer 29

- Settlement archaeology concerned with the distribution of sites across a landscape and the relationship structures in past communities - Settlement data can tell us about how many people lived at settlements, how families and larger social groups were organized, who performed different tasks, and the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the people Local systems (community): groups of people that share life interests and culture (most of the time), living in a prescribed, small area Regional systems (landscape): area with multiple communities Also concerned with how people lived on the landscape → resources they used, nomadic or sedentary lifestyle

Answer 30

Involves the study of burials because they can reveal much about social relations, beliefs, and how people interacted with other communities Ideas of reciprocity and redistribution Artifacts in settlements and burials provide evidence for exchange and trade among populations

Answer 31

Culture is always changing Discoveries and inventions are the main sources of change Diffusion → the process by which elements of culture are borrowed from one society and incorporated into another (a selective, non-automatic process) Acculturation → when people do not have a choice in their cultural change → contact between two societies involves on being more powerful than the other and the dominant society exerting pressure on the subordinate society to adopt cultural changes

Answer 32

Direct contact → when elements of a society's culture are first taken up by neighbouring societies and then gradually spread farther apart (ex. The spread of paper across civilizations) Intermediate diffusion → occurs through the agency of third parties (ex. our alphabet) Stimulus diffusion → knowledge of a trait belonging to another culture stimulates the invention or development of a local equivalent (ex. Cherokee syllabic writing system - idea from the European english writing system - made up their own symbols)

Answer 33

Small spatial scales Community lifeways Organization and use of space to understand economics, politics, social organization, belief systems

Answer 34

Ecozone: river valley, grassland, forest) Finding debris at certain areas across a landscape where different activities took place - looking at activity patterns and then looking at the material remains Ecological range: multiple ecozones People moving between ecozones according to the season/environment Looking at if the place could actually sustain itself (can you feed everyone with what's around, is there water around)

Answer 35

Social relations Subsistence Contact and exchange Belief and thought Technology

Answer 36

Reciprocity: the exchange of goods and services An exchange between two parties Relatively equal value Doesn't involve money Redistribution: goods are given to a central authority and then distributed to people in a new pattern → glow of goods or services inward and then outward - Potlatch: chief gives away/destroys most of his property - this is a measure of prestige (they're willing to give away everything to their people) Doesn't accumulate wealth, get rid of it - Market exchange: goods bought and sold, usually with a standardised currency = less personal

Answer 37

Innovation (discovery or invention): can be the consequence of a society's setting itself a specific goal, like eliminating a disease Can be accidental or intentional - Push → cumulative series of results that end up in something new (things or ideas) - Pull → something happens and we respond to and come up with a solution Diffusion (how things spread around) - Direct contact → when elements of a society's culture are first taken up by neighbouring societies and then gradually spread farther apart (ex. The spread of paper across civilizations) - Intermediate diffusion → occurs through the agency of third parties (ex. our alphabet, traders carrying cultural traits across groups) - Stimulus diffusion → knowledge of a trait belonging to another culture stimulates the invention or development of a local equivalent (ex. Cherokee syllabic writing system - idea from the European english writing system - made up their own symbols) Acculturation (one group adopts thing from another group) ** this always involves inequalities of power between the groups A group is forced to abandon their own way of doing things - One of the earliest examples of acculturation = Inca - largest preindustrial empire that we've known (had the principle that empires expand) capture people in the area they're expanding, bring them into the centre and indoctrinate them into their way of living

Answer 38

The study of the form and function of the skeleton

Answer 39

Occurs after growth has ceased and replaces old tissue with new formed bone to maintain bone strength from microscopic fractures from normal biomechanical stress Used to see how microscopic fractures may occur normally from everyday wear and tear

Answer 40

Technique for accurate recovery of ancient DNA Requires only a few molecules for the amplification of DNA sequences from trace amounts of the original genetic material

Answer 41

In demography, a population is considered to be stationary when there is no in-migration or out-migration and the number of deaths equals the number of births per year

Answer 42

Specialty within archaeology used to explore a variety of historical questions, especially those related to diet and subsistence, by reproducing or replicating technological traits and patterns observed in the archaeological record

Answer 43

Study of anthropological questions using genetic evidence

Answer 44

Isotopes of the same elements with different atomic masses Helps us identify plant foods → comparing the ratio of certain isotopes (two pathways = C3 or C4) One pathway for temperate climate plants (C3) and one for tropical plants (C4)

Answer 45

Elements found in extremely small amounts within the body Can identify meat sources

Answer 46

Chemical changes that occur in materials after deposition in the ground

Answer 47

The study of pollen from archaeological contexts Can tell us about crops, vegetation, ground cover present when a layer was deposited

Answer 48

Phytoliths are silica bodies produced by plants Very durable and decay-resistant plant remains Can be transported easily

Answer 49

An integrated software package for the input, analysis, and display of spatial information

Answer 50

An analysis based on the assumption that the more dispersed resources are from habitation sites, the less likely they are to be exploited by a population

Answer 51

The study of burial customs from archaeological evidence

Answer 52

18th and 19th centuries, scientists increasingly interpreted evidence to suggest that evolution was a viable theory Thinkers who began to discuss evolution: - Carolus Linnaeus (18th century) → revolutionised the study of living things by classifying them according to similarities in form (his system provided a framework for the idea that humans, apes, and monkeys all had a common ancestor) - Georges Cuvier → proposed the theory that the earth is shaped by a series of catastrophic events (opposed evolution) - Georges Buffon → proposed the notion of uniformitarianism which was the idea that repeated uniform processes, like rivers cutting channels, and wind and rain eroding mountains, operated throughout time - Charles Lyell: the world is changing constantly and the world is older than we think because these geological processes take so long - James Hutton: The Theory of the Earth (first textbook of geology) → advanced the notion of studying the uniform, slow-acting processes of erosion to estimate the age of earth, and argued that using this measurement, the earth was at least a few hundred thousand years old - Lamarck → proposed that the use of a trait- such as an elephant using its trunk to get food higher in a tree - could influence an offspring's phenotype in the next generation - Darwin instead → showed that change could only occur across generations based only on the selective retention of some traits and the filtering out of others 19th century: emergence of cultural evolutionary theory by theorists like Herbert Spencer, Edward Burnett Tylor, and Lewis Henry Morgan (Human institutions progress from simple to complex forms and each culture passes through each stage of development) Anthropologist Franz Boas challenged many of the notions of cultural evolution and introduced the concept of cultural relativism

Answer 53

If the history of the universe is represented by 12 months, the history of human-like primates would only take up about 90 minutes Universe = 15 billion years Sun = 4.5 billion years ago Life = 3.6 billion years ago Plants, insects, fish = 425 million years ago Mammals = 65 millions years ago First primates = 55-65 years ago Monkeys and apes = 35 million years ago First human-like beings = 4 million Modern looking humans = 100 000 years ago

Answer 54

Believed the earth was 6000 years old Black people are the children of Adam's brother Ham Don't know where to put the Native Americans Appalled at the idea of being related to a monkey and believe in the great chain of being

Answer 55

4th century BC → They stated that animals and plants formed a single, graded continuum moving increasingly towards perfection Plato → variation in animals has no meaning Aristotle → grouped animals with similar characteristics into genera and the distinguished subgroups of species within the genera → humans at the top of the scale

Answer 56

Charles Darwin + Alfred Russel Wallace → proposed the mechanism of natural selection to account for the evolution of species 3 Basic Principles of natural selection: - Every species is composed of a great variety of individuals, some of which are better adapted to their environment than others - Offspring inherit traits from their parents, at least to some degree and in some way - Since better-adapted individuals generally produce more offspring over the generations than those that are more poorly adapted, the frequency of adaptive traits increases in subsequent generations. In this way, natural selection results in increasing proportions of individuals with advantageous traits Natural selection depends on variation within a population

Answer 57

Jacques Boucher de Perthes: Found bones of extinct animals associated with things hat could not have been made by animals (stone handaxes) Law of stratigraphy Eugene Dubois: Found a series of fossils in Asia that were kind of like humans but were not exactly like us → Pithecanthropus erectus→ standing ape

Answer 58

Provided a way to organise materials that were not found in stratigraphic areas (archaeology Methodology) Originally just for museum purposes and just a way to organize material Three age system: stone age, bronze age, iron age

Answer 59

Savagery - hunting and gathering Barbarism - farming and herding Civilization - cities, complex societies Band → tribe → chiefdom → state model Cannot go backwards, can only follow the line

Answer 60

Robert: both simple and complex societies participated in the exchange of ideas Marshall: both biological and cultural evolution move in two directions at the same time, providing diversity and progress

Answer 61

Speciation: the development of a new species, may occur if one subgroup in a population becomes separated from other subgroups In adapting to different environments, these two populations may undergo enough genetic changes over time to prevent them from interbreeding, even if they re-establish contact Once species differentiation occurs, the evolutionary process cannot be reversed and speciation has occurred

Answer 62

The attitude that a society's customs and ideas should be viewed within the context of that society's problems and opportunities

Answer 63

The spread of ideas by the spread of people

Answer 64

A population that consists of organisms able to interbreed and produce fertile and viable offspring

Answer 65

Gregor Mendel: Monk and ammature botanist his research on pea plants helped scientist to understand the biological mechanisms by which traits may be passed from one generation to the next The basic units of heredity are genes : - Gnese occur in pairs - Each member of a pair is called an allele - Genes are inherited through sperm and egg cells, which are created through meiosis Genes made up of DNA, which provide instructions for cells to make proteins (major function of DNA = make copies of itself to allow hereditary information to be passed down) Proteins = long chains of amino acids Segments of DNA are transferred from the cell nucleus by mRNA → the mRNA is then "read" by a ribosome in the cell to construct proteins Mitosis: The process of normal somatic cell division that occurs during the life of an organism Meiosis: The process of cell division that ensures half the number of chromosomes appropriate for the species is carried in each sex cell The phenotype of an organism is the product of its genotype and the environment in which it developed and grew

Answer 66

Genetic recombination: - Involves a random reshuffling of the parent genes as a consequence of segregation or crossing-over Mutations: - Changes in the DNA sequence that can be detrimental to the fitness of an organism or they can be beneficial → many are neutral because they do not lead to any change in protein structure or function - The rate of natural mutations is always slow and fixed within a population - Mutations that are adaptive (and valuable)will multiple relatively quickly by natural selection

Answer 67

Natural selection can operate on the behavioural characteristics of populations Sociobiology and behavioural ecology involve the application of evolutionary principles to the behaviour of animals Controversy on this topic but more agreement that biological and cultural evolution in humans can influence each other

Answer 68

Directional selection → favouring of a particular trait on one end of the extreme Normalizing/Stabilizing selection → stabilized trait → the trait in the middle of both extremes is favoured(ex. Baby's birth eight(=) Balancing selection → heterozygote advantage (sickle cell anaemia)

Answer 69

Genetic drift: - Random processes that affect gene frequencies in small, isolated populations - INCREASES differences between populations - Can be a result of population fission → the breaking apart of a previously large population into smaller, distinct groups Some alleles can become permanently selected, while some can disappear Gene Flow: - Movement of genes between populations through reproduction - DECREASES differences between populations - Can occur between distance and close populations - Long-range movement of people → to trade or raid or settle may result in gene flow but not always - A-B-O blood groups → Type O less frequent in India than it is in America

Answer 70

- Effects of the cold modifies cultural traits of living in houses, the clothing you wear, etc.) - Cultural practices leading to physical variations (ex. Elites in andean societies head binding - skull took on an elongated shape) - Culture of drinking cows milk led to the increasing of genes that help us digest milk - Physical environment : acclimation → impermanent physiological changes that people make when they encounter a new environment ; can have underlying genetic factors but are not themselves genetic; developed over a lifetime rather than being born with them - Ex. shivering (short-term) and increased metabolic rate (long-term)

Answer 71

Dominant vs. recessive

Answer 72

The random sorting of chromosomes in meiosis

Answer 73

Exchanges of sections of chromosomes from one chromosome to another

Answer 74

The gradually increasing or decreasing frequency of a gene from one end of a region to another

Answer 75

Could be a new source of variation in some populations The creation of a viable offspring from the mating of two different species

Answer 76

Form of genetic drift Original population composed of red and blue genetic members Bottleneck event in which the population is greatly reduced Only a few red individuals survive to pass their reduced number of genes to the new red population

Answer 77

Changes in the gene expression (without changes in the DNA itself) that are inheritable

Answer 78

The study of how all kinds of behaviour may be related to the environment The theoretical orientation involves the application of biological evolutionary principles to the behaviour (including social behaviour) of animals, including humans Also called sociobiology (when apple to social organisation and social behaviour)

Midterm #1 Flashcards

(103 cards)