Anththo quiz week 6
Terminology used to describe peroids isnt absolute
Created based on pattens in artifacts found on archaeological sites
New cultural peroid is created when people are seeing important changes in the material
Names are regionally spesific
Archaeological cultures:
Patterns in materials are interpretted as coresponding to a culture
Not always representive of what was actually happening in the past
-Cultural peroids and archaeological cutures were often created in the 19/early 20th century
Most widely used terms to talk about 20,000-5,000 years ago in North America are the PALAEOLNDIAN (14,000-9,000) AND ARCHAIC (9,000-5,000 YEARS AGO)
-Outdated terms but still widely used
Popular terms for other geographhical areas
Upper Palaeolithic
Mesolithic/Epipalaeolithic
Neolithic
Upper Palaeolithic
approx 40,000-12,000 years ago
Last glacial maximum has a big impact on the climate and environment
Example-Lascaux cave (FRANCE)
Lots of tech developmemts (rope, fish hooks ect)
Mesolithic
approx 12,000-10,000 years ago
Correletes with warming an deglaciation in Europe
Mix of microlithic technology and composite tools
Sites tend to be located near water
Wider range of foods used vs. previous focus on large game
ex. Star Carr England (term mostly used in Northern Europe
Epiplaeolothic (appex 20,000-10,000 years ago in the near east.
Neolithic
approx 10,000 to 5000 years ago
Neolithic package = generally included the intro of farming, domestication of animals and change from a mobile lifestyle to more fixed settlements
-Occured all over the world
Ex. Catalhöyük (turkey)
Archaeology in NA
Humans arrived on the continent (debates on how/when)
ex- Bluefish caves and yukon radio carbon dating approx 25,000 years ago
Most archeologists accept an age of 14,000 years ago for the earilest reliable evidence of human occupation because....
Natural/cultural processes have likely destroyed many older sites
Low archeogolocal visibiliy of early migrants
RESEARCHERS ACCPET THAT THE FIRST HUMANS WOULD HAVE CAME FROM ASIA AND CROSSED BERINGIA TO GET TO NA
Once in NA, what route did they take?
Ice free corridor hypotheses:
Humans would have gotten past the glaicer through a corridor between 2 ice sheets that were then coving most of Canada.
Costal migration hypothesis:
People came down the coast of what is now Alaska and British Columbia using boats or walking down the coastline
(This is the most popular explantion right now)
Example- Triquet Island site and Calvert Island site (Both are in BC)
Rapid Adaptation to new ecological niches
Some populations focused on maritime resources, others on inland resources
Populations probebly expanded fairly quickly begginning about 14,000 years ago
Important demographic increace starting approx 12,000 years ago, likely connected to the apperance of fluted points
Created by removing a flute or channel flake from one or both sides of the point.
WEll known types of fluted points =Clovis and Folsom
Evidence that they were used to kill large Pleistocene Fauna
Stop being used after approx 9000 years ago
MEGA FAUNA remans increace archaelogical visability
People also relied on other types of resources for food but they are not visable archaelogically
Overall diet was varried throughout the continent before 5000 years ago
Evidence from coprolites- Hinds cave in Texas
People likely lived in small groups of a few dozen or more and interacted with populations around them
Steady signoficat population growth over time
By 5000 years ago, likely hundreds/thousands of people living in NA and prob a dozen ethnic groups with their own culture
Transition to food production:
Had significant impacts on all other aspects of life/culture
People were manipulting/modifying their environments before that time but not to the same extent
Food production involves creation of surplus, which requires domestication of plants/animals
Pastoralism def
Focus on animals
Horticulture def
Focus on plants
Domstication developed independently in the middle east, asia and the americas then spread to Europe/Africa.
What were the fist demesticated foods?
Wheat, barely, rice, potatoes, corn, sheep, goats and cattle
What led people to domestication?
Thousands of years of living near and with plants/animals
Initiatly supplemented a diet a primarly wild foods
Food production made life easier but not at first (POOR NUTRITION AND DISEASES, INJURIES)
PROVIDES food surplus which can be helpful
Reduced mobility but increaced carrimg capasity of an area.
Why domestication? (Hypotheses)
-Environmetal chnages reduced the number of people who coulf effectively forage in a region
-Increaced welath and status
-To make alchohol
Dog domestication
(approx 40,000-20,000)
Not for food, mutually benificial relationship
How do archeologists study the orgins of domestication?
-Need to be able to identiify the traces left by different subsistence strategies
Foragers def
Wide variety of wild plants/animals small and temporary (seasonal) settlements
Pastoralism/Horticulture def
little diversity of plant/animal remains, larger, more sedentary settlements
Domestic vs. wild plant/animal
-Size of edible part of the plant
-Size of compleanters of skeletons
-Age and sex ratios
-Plants/animals found outside their natural ranges
-Other types of indirect evidence
Settlement/Technology
-Food production had a direct impact on settlement patterns
-Reduction in mobility
-Leads to people spending more time building structures=more people living together
-Cities (approx 5000 residents) eventually emerged
SIGNIFICANT TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT- Pottery
-Had been developed as early as the Palaeolitic in certain places but never fully used.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS- bow/arrow tech, wheel, metal- working etc
SOCIAL/ POLITICAL SYSTEMS
IDEA that the change to food production led to larger populations which required new kinds of social/polotical structres
Pastoralists usually exhibit the begginnigs of social stratification/leadership
-Tribes of pastralosts were usually divided into several villages(each with their "big Man" with a population under a few thousand
Horticulturalists are typically organized as either a tribe or a cheifdom, depending on scale
Agriculture (larger scale farming technique than horticulture)
1-Can support a large pop using advanced tools/irigation
2-Requires more preperation/mainteiance of the soil
3-Significantly increaces the carrying capasity of a region
4-Leads to more people, bigger settletment and new problems
Agricultural populations aew usually organized as states
Archeologists use remains indicative of subsistance staregy indications of social stratifcation
ex- Size of houses, monumental architecture, distribution of high value artifacts to study social/political systems
Evidence for social complexity and hierarchy mostly start to appear after 5000 years ago