This document contains notes from 99% of the lessons from an introduction to archaeology class with the exception of a 1-2 lessons due to technology issues. This is an almost 40 page document filled with helpful information to guide you through your intro to archaeology class
1. Anthropological archeology
2. Learn to think like an archeologist
Skills:
1. Writing - 5 Units, content style, and grammar
2. Critical thinking- apply what you learn to real world data and examples
Course mechanics:
Weeks 1-3: method and theory
Weeks 4-10: world archaeology
1. Emergence of humans, hunting and gathering
2. Settled life and farming
3. Rise and fall of civilizations (states and inequality)
4. Classical and historical archaeology
5. Archaeology relevance today
1. Lecture (iclicker)
2. Section (mandatory)
3. Canvas discussion forum
4. Canvas study guide assignments
5. Textbooks
Group project is writing a short essay together
Final exam: what do you know question and reflection essay, question on second half of
class (take home)
Extra credit: online exhibit reviews (up to 4%)
Lecture 2:
Archaeology is the study of human culture through material remains
Anthropological questions: time depth and enhance diversity of examples
,Record everything in archeology, you are finding things no one has seen before
Context:
Very important, it tells the story of the people that came before us. Ripping away the
context of an artifact is ripping away the history and meaning behind the object.
Details can tell you a lot about the person’s wealth and religious background and allow
you to piece together what this person’s life may have been like. It also tells a lot about
tomb robbery and cultural interactions.
It’s hard to make assumptions about things that cannot be preserved in archeology: ex;
clothes on the buried that may have disintegrated or been eaten
Warfare and looting: iraq and syria
Does not help preservation
Gulf war
ISIS
1972 convention
Looting: demand is coming from outside people who don’t want to do it themselves
- Selling to dealers
- Selling to international art market archive
- Bribing people to get in and out of the country
History of archeology:
Acquisition of objects
Usually has a purpose that does not necessarily have to do with understanding
Nabonidus Babylon: excavated 555-538 BCE in a number of different temples
- Temples of Shamas and Anunitin at Sippar Naram-sin 2200 BCE
Antiquarians (18th and 19th century): treasure hunting
- Giovanni Belzoni 1816 one of the most famous
- Started acquiring things for the british collection even though he was
italian
- Rosetta stone (the british museum) technically legally excavated, but
morally wrong to keep it (the people want it back)
- He wanted to understand culture so he documented things well
- He would find various questions and answer them about the artifacts
(often biblical)
- Austen Henry Layard:
- Wanted to answer questions as well as acquire artifacts (also sent to the
British museum) from iraq
, - Some things acquired by Layard are at LACMA
- All legally exported
Culture history: late 19th to 20th century
- 1880’s: General Augustus Lane Pitt-Rivers
- Systematic methods and records
- Goal to understand the past
- Looking at every little fragment to help them understand better
- William Matthew Flinders Petrie, 1880’s
- First person to produce the first accurate plan of the stone heads and giza
pyramids
- Followed by Charles PIazzi Smyth and the “Pyramid Inch”
- Method and aims in archeology- book he wrote
- Rejecting looting and museum excavations
- The job of an archeologist is to save lives, to bring people back into
human memory who have been forgotten in history - his belief
-
Rise of colonialism
Lecture 3:
History and theory in archaeology:
- Antiquarian:
- Belzoni
- Layard
- Culture History:
- Pitt-Rivers
- W.M.F Petrie
- Cultural evolution:
- L.H. Morgan: Barbarism to Civilization, social darwinism
- Migration and diffusion
- Eurocentric
- Petrie - Correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois, Encyclopedia Africana
- Education of Egyptians and African Americans, classism
- eugenics = “high” and “low” races, regardless of region
- Du Bois wanted to education more African Americans while Petrie was very
opposed to that and thought the education would be wasted on them
- Destroy scientific racism
- The idea that black people are inferior
- Margaret Murry: one of the most prominent women Archaeologists
, - Studied under Petrie
- 1928: became the first women Archaeological prof in all of England
University College London
- Gertrude Canton Thompson: worked alongside Margaret Murry at UCL
- Great Zimbabwe
- Assembled an all woman team to go down and excavate
- Seen negatively in the archaeological community- likely due to
racism
- Product of the local shona culture
- Indigenous
- Diversity in archaeology: John Wesley Gilbert:
- Enslaved, after emancipation earned degrees from Brown university
- Studied at the American School in Athens, 1890
- Professor at Paine college in 1891
- President of Mills college, 1913
- One of the first americans to excavate using systematic archaeology
- V. Gordon Childe, 1920’s-1950’s
- Archaeology engaged with theory
- Particularistic culture history→ patterns of cultural evolution
- Diffusion: Agriculture and states = Middle East to Europe
- Cultural Ecology and Unilinear Evolution
- Prosessual (New) Archaeology: 1960’s, Lewis Binford, SMU
- Archaeology as anthropology = theorize cultural process
- Systematic, scientific approach with hypothesis testing, statistics
- Cultural ecology (adaptation to environment, subsistence) and now
multilinear cultural evolution
- Ethno and experimental archaeology
- Focus on ecology and Technology at expense of belief and ideology,
androcentric, reductionist simplification of scientific method
- Top down structuralist emphasis on culture and adaptation to
environment determining behavior downplays human agency
- Post processual Archaeology: 1980s: Ian Hodder, stanford
- Critique of New Archaeology = inappropriate use of scientific method
(reductionist); neglect of social, religious, historical; relevance today
- Argues for a focus on identity, belief, gender, ideology, ect
- Bottom up agent centered as opposed to top down structuralist approach
- Contextual or reflexive approach rather than experimental models
- Humanistic perspective flowing from post-modernist movement
- More critique than a new paradigm, overly relativist
- Everything result of unique historical context, return to particularism
Is it okay for archaeologists to sell the artifacts they find to museums?
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller bna123. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $7.99. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
