Lecture 3 ANTH 160A1Outline of Last Lecture I. What is Anthropology?Outline of Current Lecture II. Evaluation of DepositsCurrent Lecturephase 2 - Evaluation of depositsCarefully excavating test units level by levelPhase 3 - Full scale mitigation - often but not always begins with stripping off non-cultural deposits with heavy machinery reveal intact history and prehistoric living surfaces to expose hearth and storage features and structure patterns.Fully excavated prehistoric site showing palisade wall, structures, and features.Digging in extreme climates. Excavations are careful and meticulouswe take lots of notes, once dug we cannot put it back. Some sites aren't shallow. we keep and record everythingPedastooling large artifacts and keeping walls and floors even. take lots of photosRecord lots of info: unit and level provenience, soil color, texture (munsell book), number of artifacts, temporally diagnostic artifacts, features, disturbance, other dataCollecting other samples: micromorphology, sediments, pollen, radiocarbon, all samples have 3D proveniences as wellPreliminary sorting, water screen for washing artifacts, flotation system for recovering small artifacts and organic remainsstart looking for patternsCOMPLETE scientific methodevaluate hypothesis, come up with new questions/hypothesis, start new cycle, share results.PHase 1: find the site through walking, documents, aerial photography, and nativesPhase 2: evaluate, excavate a portion of the site, interested in how deep it is, how spread out it is, specific artifacts, Phase 3: full scale mitigationArchaeology: The systematic study of the human past through the recovery and examination of its material remains and context.Why do we study archaeology?Provides a means to interpret past human culture and behavior that would otherwise be unknown. If we order these cultures chronologically and we understand the various behavioral processes involved, we can observe culture change. By understanding culture change from our earliest ancestors up through the present day. We anappropriate the past to help address questions relevant to the presentHistory of Archaeology:Old World - archaeology emerged as part of the development of science itself, from the Renaissance onward. It had its roots in geology and the gradual documentation of the great antiquity of the earth, and the processes by which the earth and the life forms on it changed over time. New World - The rise of scientific archaeology was closely tied with the study of the Native American peoples and developed as an anthropological discipline.Antiquarianism - the 18th and 19th century tradition of collecting antiquitiesAs long as ther have been people there has been an interest in their historyEx. Aztec collected and buried Olmec jade masks in the foundations of their larger pyramids. Olmec lived on the southern mexican Gold Coast.But the aztecs did not do archaeology - nor did the others with similar interestsUnlike antiquarianism, archaeology is the scientific approach to understanding the past in relation to our presentGreek and roman historians like Herodotus and Tacitus described exotic people like the celts, germans, and other. HIstory of archaeology - biblical concepts of History: CreationismArchbishop James Usher used concept of deep time and immutable universeSir John Lightfoot believed the instant of creation occured at nightfall.The oblivious or literal sense of scripture is the true and real one, where no evidence can be given to the contrary. That which is clearly accountable in a natural way, is not, without reason to be ascribed to a miraculous power.Some suggested their were people before christians, but still based upon biblical scripture. Isaacde la Peyrere argued that stone tools were the work of lawless pre adamites. He was imprisoned forced to recant and his work was publicly burnedArchaeologists believe in Creation.. WE believe in the Age of Enlightenment led to the creation of archaeology. Age of discovery = development of scientific theoryThe european renaissance: renaissance rediscovery of classical antiquityMichele Mercati described ancient stone tools, and argued they were used before It isn't until the 18th century that scientist began to try and explain the existence of antediluvian(pre-flood) peoplesImportant theories of the time:Catastrophism - extinction due to major natural even, such as a flood. Supported primarily by the French and led by Georges CuvierUniformitarianism - Geologic processes observed in the present are the same as those that occurred in the past. The english explanation led by James HuttonRenaissance exploration: Mapping and excavation of stone monuments begans in the 17th and 18th century by John aubrey, Inego Jones and William Stuckeley who mapped sites like Stonehenge and AveburyWilliam Stuckeley - Stonehenge First to try to date it. arguing it was not built by giants or devils, but by people of some antiquityGeorges Cuvier (father of paleontology) Invented the concept of extinction but explained it by catastrophism. In order to prove existence of antediluvian people, cuvier came up with 3 conditions:1. open air site, 2. sealed context, 3. buried human bone associated with extinct animal fossils.Early discoveries1. Began to find stone tools in context with extinct animals 2. Neanderthal skulls first discovered in Engis Cave and Gibraltar 1. Did not look like us, found with tools.Uniformitarianism (Hutton): processes that operate on the earth today also operated in the past. concept popularized by Lyell in principles of geologyThe present is the key to the past - James Hutton Rejected the theory of catastrophism, which proposed that only violent disasters could modify the surface of the earth. Earth had to be much older because of geological processes take thousands of years.This concept is a crucial theoretical foundation of all historical sciences (eg. archaeology, astronomy, geology)Stratigraphy by William Strata SmithHired to drain swamps in the sussex region of England.He noticed that road and train cuts exposed layers of rock and soil or strata and that some of these strata contained marine fossils, whereas others had terrestrial fossils.Some areas now on land were once underwaterNicholas Steno - a century earlier than smith, steno proposed theories related to the concept of stratigraphy. Most important to archaeology being: Law of superposition and principle of original horizontality. In the first half of the 19th