STUDY GUIDE FOR ANT 2100 TEST 2 Chapter 5 Band A term used to describe small scale societies of hunters and gatherers generally less than 100 people who move seasonally to exploit wild undomesticated food resources Kinship ties are important in the social organization Tribes A term used to describe a social grouping generally larger than a band but fewer then 1 000 Unlike bands tribes are usually settled farmers though they can have nomadic pastoral groups Lots of kinship ties Ethnoarchaeology The study of contemporary cultures with a view to understanding the behavioral relationships which underlie the production of material culture Lineage A group claiming decent from a common ancestor Chiefdom A term used to describe a society that operates on the principle of ranking Different lineages are graded on a scale of prestige calculated by how closely related one is to the chief Permanent ritual and ceremonial center Segmentary societies Relatively small and autonomous groups usually of agriculturalists who regulate their own affairs Redistribution A mode of exchange which implies the operation of some central organizing authority and subsequently some of them are sent by that authority to other locations Obsidian A volcanic glass whose ease of working and characteristically hard flint like edges allowed it to be used for the making of tools Stele A freestanding carved stone monument Paleolithic hunter gatherer A collective term for the members of small scale mobile or semi sedentary societies whose subsistence is mainly focused on hunting game and gathering wild plants and fruits Ethnography A subset of cultural anthropology concerned with the study of contemporary cultures through first hand observation Material Culture The buildings tools and other artifacts that constitute the material remains of former societies KEY CONCEPTS FROM CHAPTER 5 Chart for the Classification of societies Pg 143 Methods of Social Analysis Settlement Analysis The main method of investigating past social organization Data are collected by survey and excavation but the specific methods used can vary greatly depending on the society in question Burial Analysis Rank and social status are best revealed by the analysis of grave goods within individual burials Monuments and Public Works The scale of monuments and public works as well as their distribution can be a good indicator of social organization Written Records An excellent source of information about the organization of early state societies Ethnoarchaeology The study of living societies in order to help interpret the past with a specific emphasis on the use and significance of artifacts buildings and structures and how these material things might become incorporated into the archaeological record Many aspects of individual human behavior are not a cross cultural given but are learned and differ widely across both ancient and modern cultures The existence of ethnic groups is difficult to recognize from the archaeological record an affiliation to a particular style of material culture for example does not necessarily equate to ethnicity It is important to recognize gender in the archaeological record particularly the roles of women which have traditionally been overlooked There is also a distinction between sex and gender sex is biologically determined whereas gender roles in different societies vary greatly Finding the Individual IN CLASS NOTES Elman Service 1962 developed a typology of Political organizations 4 types Band Tribe Chiefdom and State Sociopolitical types and economy Foragers Band level society Horticulturalists and Pastoralists Tribe level society Agriculturalists chiefdoms or state level government Better economy more complex social relations and lineages Bands Equilateral no ruler age can bring you respect Extremely mobile Hunter gatherer Small under 100 Have work Kill Butcher and Home base sites to find Tribes Segmentary Segmentary achieved ranks shaman kinship sexual division of labor Horticultural Pastoral subsistence Semi permanent housing The Village Head cannot force anything Can only suggest The Big Man regional authority across more then one village achieved through generosity to others decisions are binding important at religious events Tribal Lineage Typically Patrilineal smaller tribes melt into bigger ones inclusive every village claims ancestry exclusive small unit that stays Chiefdoms More permanent Office outlasts the individual holder What the Chief says goes Common ancestors More agricultural STUDY QUESTIONS Societies are typically classified into what four main groups Why is the analysis of burials important to the study of segmentary societies How can the ethnoarchaeology of modern societies inform us about the past What are the key methods through which the structure of societies is analyzed Why is it hard to study ethnicity in the archaeological record What is the difference between sex and gender Why is this difference important to archaeologists CHAPTER 6 Context An artifact s context usually consists of its immediate matrix the material around it and its association with other artifacts Ice Cores Barings taken from the Arctic and Antarctic polar ice caps containing layers of compacted ice useful for reconstructing paleoenvironments and as a method of absolute dating Deep sea Cores Cores drilled from the seabed that provides the most coherent record of climate changes on a worldwide scale The cores contain shells of microscopic marine organisms laid down on the ocean floor through the continuous process of sedimentation Variations in the ratio of two oxygen isotopes in the calcium carbonate of these shells give a sensitive indicator of past sea temperatures Palynology The study and analysis of fossil pollen as an aid to the reconstruction of past vegetation and climates Diatom Analysis A method of environmental reconstruction based on plant microfossils Diatoms are unicellular algae whose silica cell walls survive after the algae die and they accumulate in large number at the bottom of rivers and lakes Thus showing extinct past communities Flotation a method of screening excavated matrix in water so as to separate and recover small ecofacts and artifacts Paleoentomology The study of insects from archaeological contexts The survival of insect exoskeletons which are quite resistant to decomposition is important in the reconstruction of paleo environments Archaeozoology Sometimes referred to as zooarchaeology this