random ideas are presented about artifacts and structures
Classificatory - Descriptive Period (1840-1914)
data collection, people start asking questions about the physical, as opposed to speculating on the origin, aspects of the artifacts/structures and document those statistics
Classificatory - Historical Period (1914-1940 : 1940-1960)
first period dealt with the chronology of the artifacts/structures
chronologies are put together on local and regional scales
in the middle of the two periods the development of stratographic excavation occurs
pot shards and seriation is major aspect
the next period deals with context
questions as to where the artifacts are found (i.e. in burial mound, house, kiva, etc.)
spatial patterns in settlement and chronological patterns in settlement
Modern Period (1960-??)
the question WHY is asked
the questions go beyond the data and devel into the realm of interpretation
the scienitifc method begins to be seen
Processual vs. Post-Processual
the study of processes vs. science is a wasteland of biases
paradigm: a person's world view; muslims can understand the christian faith, but have trouble with the idea of aethists, agnostics
Willer & Willer will be on first midterm
What is science?
a search for the universe in nature
science is simply searching and discovering what the universe is, while the scienctific cycle is the process by which the discovering occurs
science does not have all the answers, and cannot place meaning on all things, the questions of why cannot be answered
religion and science are two different sense-making systems
empiricism is a generalization: works best with specific circumstances or probabilities
the sciencitific cycle
begins with empiricism: an observation
explanation/hypothesis
test/gather data
evaulate results
then back to the beginning
Epistomology: how we know what we know
science simply increases the probably that what we think we know is what actually occurs
Four truths of science
A universe does exist
it is knowable
it is governed by laws
those laws of immutable
creativity is key to developing
Speculative Period 1492-1840
Anglo-oriented / ethnocentric
No Data
No tradition of scientific reasoning
Main topics considered
origins of the people in America (these they saw)
moundbuilders: where did they go(these they thought had left)
ideas from lost tribes of isreal to nordic peoples were presented
the idea of peoples coming from Asia was presented, but was mostly ignored
Crania Americana was a book published in the later times that pretty much gave credence to the idea of asian origins
the moundbuilder problem was not resolved and a lost people was still thought about as being the builders of the mounds
thinking of the natives as savages is easy than admitting that the natives had built the structures and makes grabbing land easier
Early Chroniclers
Bishop Landa: recorded a great deal of information about the maya, including political and social aspects, then wrote the Mayan heiroglyph with the spanish sound associated with it, then burned every maya book he could get his hands on
Fray Bartolene' de las Casas: bishop of chapus at on time, first to discuss progressive stages of development and environmental determinism, was also one of the first ones to suggest that the old world's population was old
Forerunners
Thomas Jefferson: used stratigraphy, after jefferson the next use of stratigraphy in america was in the early 1900's, president of the american philosophical society and made a call for data on indian burial mounds but was ignored
Caleb Atwater: postmaster and really enjoyed archaeologically, described mounds in detailed maps and descriptions on his off time, he wrote well and had a great influence on others; thought that the real Indians had built the mounds
Dr. James McCulloh Jr.: an armchair antiquarian, wrote two books 1817 and 1829, all his material is coming from other people's work, he denied a seperate moundbuilder race and that the ancestors of those indians presently living in the new world built the mounds
the old world
in 1798 napolean invaded Eygpt; this was a pretty wacky idea and the egyptians really didn't like the invasion; there were also many more egyptian than there were europeans, the rosetta stone was taken as well as all types of other artifacts (cuniform writing was also discovered)
Three Age System
Stone, Bronze, and Iron: Thomsen in 1819 from Denmark came up with a way to organize collections by style through time (seriation)
Classificatory - Descriptive Period (1840-1914)
Squier & Davis
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley(1848)
drawing and describing the mounds
Haven - 1856: armchair arch, brought froth the idea of the native americans as the builders of the mounds, book was published by the smithsonian
Schoolcraft - 1851-1857: six-volume set of books that said what haven said, badly written with no index; nobody read them
powell(BAE) hired cyrus thomas to go and solve the problem of the moundbuilders, answer was published in 1894; thomas believed in the moundbuilder theory to begin with, but by the end he had changed his opinion and believed that native americans had built the mounds
Dunnel(modern) says that by the mid-1800's real archaeologists believed that native americans built the mounds
Professionalization of the discipline
soceities were established (Anthropological Society of Washington>later became AAA, Archaeology Institute of America)
professional journals started being published (American Antiquarian:1878, American Anthropologist:1888, Anthropology section was added to American Association for the Advancement of Science,
universities are starting to offer degrees
Smithsonian(1846); BAE(1879), National Museum of Natural History(1879), Peabody Museum(1866)
the socieities and jounrnals provided a place for interaction, new techniques are spread throughout the archaeological world very fast, the interaction aides the development of archaeological theory
Frederick Putnam: helped find the chicago field museum, the anthropology dept at berkely, the american museum of natural history, he got the serpentine mound purchased and then donated back to Ohio, he also did his own research
Hrdlicka & W.H. Holmes: the old world anthropologists were beginning to look at the age of man, early stone tools and humans skeletal remains, americans wanted to get on the band wagon as well, there were others, beside putnam, that were out in the world searching for the antiquity of man in the new world, to prove the antiquity stratigraphy must be used; these two guys make a living debunking the claims made during this period, Hrdlicka looked at every skeleton and then made scathing remarks, hrdlicka had evidence to support his position, but his effect on the discipline was to stagger research because no one would acknowledge antiquity
Southwest
Cushing
Gila River Valley (1886-1889)
Hemenway Expedition
work with Zuni(became zuni)>called back due to his helping the Zuni
looked at burials and postulated that there were classes
Antiquities Act in 1906 (influenced by the Hyde expedition)
Hamilton
Fewkes: working among the Zuni and Hopi, looked at archaeologically sites and saw there was a tradition among the pueblo people, named the hohokom, and saw that there was trade of shells between hohokom and mexico, cleaned out several rooms at Mesa Verde
Meso-America
Stephens & Catherwood
Stephens was a lawyer, and catherwood was an architect and artist
both had traveled in the middle east, went to the petra (indiana jones: last crusade)
decided to go to meso-america
wrote two books
stephens would take a few notes and then go to the bar
catherwood worked hard at drawing the mayan artifacts
stephens went on to be an ambassador
catherwood was always broke, until he decided to work on a mural(moved with music for an audeniece) but the building all his work was in burned down
catherwood's work is of such high quality that you can read the mayan heiryglyphs from them
1839 and 1843 were the publication dates (catherwood go malaria during first expedition)
Peabody Museum
major sponsor of work in meso-america
copan
Teobert Maler: photographer
Hieroglyphics
Forstemann: Dresden Codex
figured out the numerical system and parts of the calender
great benefit because things could be dated really easy
all of this had been figured in 1832 by someone else
Forstemann didn't publish until the 1880's
South America
Max Uhle
found microstragraphic changes in san francisco shell midden, but was denounced as being wrong and that "micro" didn't happen
worked in south america
when at the Dresden museum he worked with ceramics
this gave him an advantage because he can see stuff others wouldn't
noticed something right away with the pottery
everyone knew that the Inca and Tiahuanaco pottery existed
used seriation to determine where two other pottery types went
one of them must have preceded both Inca and Tiahuanaco because it had neither styles
the other must have come between inca and tiahuanaco
so he developed a 4 period sequence for the pottery
later archaeologists proved his sequence correct with stratigraphic excavations
this was a horizonal style which was used by Kroeber and such
he did no stragraphic excavations on his own but simply used his pottery sequence when collecting data
W.H. Holmes worked in the eastern US and came up with the idea of a culture area
this is different from a horizon style due to the time depth of the style
the US still had no horizontal time model
by the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, straigraphic techniques are beginning to be used
these techniques were brought over from Europe, who was way ahead of us in techniques
Classificatory - Historical Period I (1914-1940)
classification is still the focus, but its beefed up
chronology is now a big part of the classification system
even though there were horizontal chronologies during the last period, there were still no vertical chronologies
"pot sherdology"
people forget that pot sherds have other significance, being that they came from whole pots and people used the pots in daily life
that is why the period is broken into two section, during the second half pot sherds are put back into their place
during this period we have use of stratigraphic excavations and seriation
post facto stratigraphic excavation: the stratigraphy was recongized only after the excavation had been done, so that the levels were seen in the walls of the dig
there has been some talk of a few people doing stragraphic excavation, but no one was writing about it
stratigraphic excavation was seen in the new world until now because the new world archaeologists were looking for large macro evolutionary changes, which weren't present, and people still looked at the age of american inhabitation as being relatively new
some people, nelson, used arbitrary or metric leveling techniques
others, kidder, were using natural levels to excavate
natural levels are hard to seen except afterwards
the influence of Gamio, nelson, kidder were influenced by the old world
nelson traveled to spain and saw stratigraphic excavations
kidder was influenced by Reiser who had done excavations in egypt
Gamio was influenced by Boaz, who was influenced by the old world
the politics that were going on during this period where Boaz was kicked out
this was a revolution in archaeology
the old guard continued their methods for doing archaeology and were vocal about their opposition to the stratigraphy and chronological studies
Kroeber went to zuni and put a chronology on the white on black to red on black pottery
Kidder outlined a strategy
when entering a new archaeological site probe the site area for initial data
develop a seriation
excavate
then survey work is possible
did the Pecos valley classification and established the pecos conference
Seriation
Assumptions:
styles(not function) change over time
change is unimodal
restricted area and contigiuos block of time
styles are continious
Thompson was the first to apply these ideas to archeaological artifacts
"popularity principle"
2 types of seriation
evolutionary
organizing artifacts based on the assumption that complexity increases through time
Similary (Similarity)
things that look appear most similar to each other are more closely related in time and space than disimilar
Quantities
frequency: counts and list of items; let's you do seriation
occurence: presence/absence; won't let you do seriation
Culture Classification systems
Pecos
Northern Southwest: Kidder
organized first Pecos conference in 1927 where they hammered out a classification of the southwest (at least northern part)
basketweaver I, II and so on
decided what was going on in each period such as basket weaving, agriculture
Gladwins in Hohokom said that these stages look like evolutionary stages because different groups were developing at different speeds; the pecos classification was not a time stage and it didn't work at all for the hohokom
change doesn't occur quickly but gradually over time and space
Gladwins developed own classification of the hohokom, has a root, stem and branches: has since been rejected (no tree ring dates)
used arbitrary dates (50 years) to seperate their groupings
Midwest taxonomic system also known as the McKern system
had more problems because they still believed they had sites with no strata
didn't even have a good relative chronology
they did a similary seriation with they basically looked at pottery and organized the pottery according to precieved similarity
they didn't know which was older, but could say A was similar to B which was similar to C which was similar to D and so on, later on they could apply dates to the seriation
Old guard of the classifortory-historical vs new guard
Bordes paleolithic tool types
french paleolithic anthropologists; studied tool types
his types became the bible of typology in europe
mid 1980's two guys in penn. (dibble and chase)
borde had single scraper people and double scraper people and so on
dibble and chase had a wild idea that borde's typology was too random and that maybe single scraper people lived close to a stone quarry site, double may be farther away from source and so on
tested theory and found that farther sites had smaller scrapers and vice-versa
Spaulding: patterns of attributes that co-occur
Classificatory-Historical Period II (1940-1960)
period of transistion
a couple of themes
use of context to address artifact function
study of settlement patterns and sometimes using those patterns to say something about the site
prehistoric environment is addressed as important aspect of prehistoric life; including diet and possible adaptations
change in archaeology was coming from both student innovations and cultural anthropologists crictizes (steward suggested that things like pop. studies, and diet, and other things other than pot sherds and projectile points)
Kluckhohn was also a cultural anthropologists who critized archaeology, pointed out that by the start of this period, archaeologists had come to the point that theory was presented as theory, he said that theory was being presented all over the place (cultural diffusion) and that archaeologists were trying to pretend they didn't.
context: full associational setting of any arcaheological object or feature
context includes overall view of surrounding lands/sites
function: the way artifacts and features were made and used by a vanished people and the meanings they once had for them
these were studied as a reaction to both chronology buildings and evolutionary thought
the reaction was to study these synchronoically and diachronoically
so that even though they're thinking about these two they are not thinking about cultural processes
Linton: starts looking at function of cooking pots, doesn't consider through time changes at any site, looks at cooking pots' shape and evidence for cooking through space, notices a difference in cooking pots shapes (looked at drawings and descriptions: arm-chair), theorized that different pot shapes would be beneficial to different cooking styles, he was combining environment, settlement patterns, and was trying to say who was using the pots, what type of pot their were using, why their were using the pots. Hypothesis, Hypothesis, Hypothesis!!!
Settlement Patterns: Willey's Viru Valley Survey; first book-length survey done in the america's
KC Chang: Neolithic; 1958 used ethnographic information of the old world to look at how villages where set up spatially, and then looked at new world sites and tried to compare the two, concluded that archaeologists should focus on households and communities before they try to do cultural horizons
Environment
tried to reconstruct past environment and diet
would mostly deal with larger animals and biology is being brought into the process
no numbers are given, all bones were not examined, qualitative study
presence of animals or lack thereof would determine what type of environment was present
leslie white 1950's: environment affects core aspects of a culture
radio-carbon dating became available in the 50's which gave both rates of change and dates for periods in chronologies
dendrochronolgy was refined
flourine analysis: pilt down man
archaeomagnetism
interest in statistics
cultural tradition: a theme or aspect of style that continues in one area through time
horizon style: a style of distributed spatailly but synchronocially
All questions and comments about this site should be directed to the Webmaster.
