Post-Ex Flashcards
John Leland
Claimed that ʻin 1533 Leland was made Kingʼs antiquary, office in which he had neither predecessor nor successorʼ. The only evidence for this is a pamphlet addressed to King Henry VIII, in which Leland himself signed as ʻJoannes Leylandus antiquariusʼ. What is certain is that he travelled widely in England and Wales, and published in 1546 the preface of his planned book De Anquitates Britanniae. Much of his archaeological/antiquarian work published after his death.
William Camden
Wrote his volume Britannia in 1586. Focused on the topography of England and reamins found around Stonehenge. Founded the London Society of Antiquaries and the Archaeology chair at Oxford. Presented evidence of indigenous coinage in pre-Roman Britain.
John Aubrey
The first to link stonehenge to druids. Wrote his Monumenta Britannica in 1675. Drew Avebury and Stonehenge and applied systematic classification taken from the study of ancient writing (palaeography) to study styles of buildings and objects to date them.
William Stuckeley
Responsible for the association of Stonehenge and Druids. Part of 18th century enlightenment. Religion affected his views. Thought druids were descendants of Phoenicians, who were predeccessors of Christians. Dated barrows due to the Roman Roads running through them, and his daughter dated the White Horse due to stylistic similarity to pre-Roman coins.
Grand Tour
the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means.The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transport in the 1840s. Took in many famous archaeological sites.
Julian Steward
Culture history archaeologist. Cultural ecology is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments.
Lewis Binford
Pioneer of proccessual archaeology in the 1960s. developed Ethnoarchaeology in the arctic looking at the way the Nunamuit disposed of waste and manufactured tools, and their diets
Culture History
- Late 19th century and early 20th century intellectual climate
- Rising European nationalism
- Pronounced impact of Marxism
- People envisioned en masse as distinct cultures or groups - changes blamed on diffussion and migration
V Gordon Chile
- Ecological ideas
- Society viewed as a stable, ‘cohesive system’
- Deals with people as groups rather than persons
- Does not allow for conflict or failure, or for deviant or ‘unhelpful’ behaviours
- Places limitations of change and creativity
Middle Range Theory
Taking ideas from archaeological evidence and ethnographic comparisons to form ideas about sites and past societies.
Taphonomy
the study of decaying organisms over time and how they may becomefossilized.
Typology
A means of constructing a relative chronology
- Arranges objects into sequences from simple > complex - allows them to be placed in a chronological order
Oscar Montelius - typology of 19th century railway carriages exhibited gradual evolution
Seriation
Invented by Flinders Petrie
- puts assemblages of objects into sequence based on the relative frequency of artefact types
- ‘Battleship curve’
Stratigraphic Dating
Deposits on archaeological sites may be arranged in a sequence (with the earliest at the bottom)
- Stratigraphical sequences may be dated with the help of the artefacts they contain
- Pitt Rivers and a new approach to recording in the late 19th century
Harris Matrices
Way of graphically representing the stratigraphical relationship between different archaeological contexts - invented by Edward Harris in Winchester in 1974
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen
Danish antiquarian. Developed The Three-Age system - Age of Stone, Age of Bronze, Age of Iron - Originally primarily a method of classifying the collections in the Danish National Museum
Mortimer Wheeler
Grid Square Method of Excavation. Wheeler argued that excavation and the recording ofstratigraphic context required an increasingly scientific and methodical approach, developing the “Wheeler Method”. 1920s-60s.
N-transforms
(natual factors that affect the archaeological record) - e.g. erosion, animal burrowing, etc. Objects deposited outside a rabbit burrow. Michael Brian Schiffer is one of the founders and pre-eminent exponents of behavioral archaeology.
C-transforms
(cultural factors that affect the archaeological record) - e.g. refuse disposal, ploughing. Developed by Schiffer.
Dendrochronology
Dating limit currently approx. 10kya
• Seasonal growth in wood
- Counting rings gives age (of tree! Not date)
- Width of annual rings in wood varies according to climate, local conditions Dating wood (often very precisely) by matching patterns of annual growth
Ring porous (image) = oak, ash, elm or diffuse porous = birch, maple, cherry Using a master chronology, can be dated back to 11kya. West European master chronology of oaks. Used to calibrate radiocarbon dates but can also be used for direct dating.
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid. Mostly in cell nucleus, some in mitochondria • Very specific • Degrades easily; survives best in cold and dry conditions • Can be subject to contamination!!
Ancient DNA
Preservation • Contamination • Expense • Mitochondrial DNA (from mother only) • Nuclear DNA (from all ancestors)
Radiocarbon Dating
Used for dating carbon-containing materials, e.g. bone collagen, wood, seeds, hair, shell, leather
• Destructive – mgs to grams required
- Only calibrated back to ca. 20 kya
- Maximum limit of 40 – 60,000 years
- A radioactive isotope of carbon ( 14C) is formed in the upper atmosphere
- Incorporated into plants (and hence foodchain) by photosynthesis
While an organism (e.g. plant) is alive, 14C is constantly being replenished; however once it dies, the amount of 14C decreases
Time for half of the 14C atoms left to decay Half life of 14C is 5,730 yrs Originally thought to be 5,568 yrs; for historical reasons this is still used to calculate the radiocarbon date
Uranium-thorium dating
Uranium-thorium dating is a radiometric dating technique commonly used to determine the age of calcium carbonate materials such as coral.
Varves
A varve is an annual layer of sediment or sedimentary rock. Similar to dendrochronology, varve layers can be counted and a mastetr chronology created back to 52,800 years.
U series dating
• Radioactive isotopes of Uranium decay to various radiogenic (and insoluble) isotopes, e.g. thorium, protactinium
Dating of stalagmites and flowstones
• The daughter isotopes (Th, Pa) will only start to accumulate once the carbonates have precipitated; therefore can measure relative amounts and date when flowstone formed
K-Ar and Ar-Ar
- 40K decays to 40Ar (half life 1250 million years)
- Argon is a gas: when a rock is molten (e.g. volcanic eruption) all argon should be released. When solidifies, 40Ar is trapped in rock as 40K decays
- Therefore by measuring the accumulation of 40Ar in a volcanic layer, can date time passed since the eruption - can date artefacts between layers of volcanic ash.
Need to measure current abundance of parent and daughter isotopes, either: 40K and 40Ar (K-Ar dating) or 39Ar and 40Ar (Argon-Argon dating)
hermo- and optically stimulated luminescence dating
Measuring luminescence which builds up in crystal lattices due to exposure to background radiation
This luminescence is released on heating/light; then it builds up again
Date: how long since last heating/light
Materials: fired pottery, burnt flints, aeolian sediments
Soil Marks
stand out in a non-soil landscape. Show that the soil has been moved or disturbed, and shows that building, burial or farming took place there.
Crop Marks
buried walls cause plants to grow shorter above them, and buried pits nad ditches cause plants to grow taller above them as they have more moisture.
LiDAR
Light detecting and ranging
Uses radar to measure distance to grounds surface
-Igrnores tree cover which aerial photography cannot
Earthworks
The most commonly studied archaeological ‘monument’ is the earthwork. In archaeology, earthworks are artificial changes in land level, typically made from piles of artificially placed or sculpted rocks and soil. Earthworks are often known as barrows in England, and mounds in North America. Earthworks can themselves be archaeological features, or they can show features beneath the surface.
Field Walking
collecting objects such as pottery sherds and bone that are on the surface, before or sometimes instead of more destructive approaches such as excavation.
