Anth 235, the Variety of the Evidence

ANTH 235, THE VARIETY OF THE EVIDENCE: WHAT IS THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD?

Three principal interrelated questions to be addressed today: 1. What constitutes the archaeological record? 2. What are the minimal bits of data archaeologists use? 3. How do archaeologists organize and manipulate those minimal bits into larger data sets with which to understand past human behavior?

American archaeologist, Lewis R. Binford, 1960s: Binford, a key figure in the “New Archaeology,” opposed the then conventional wisdom that “No one ever excavated a kinship system.”

The archaeological record is material culture, but non- material aspects of culture are reflected in material ways. PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD:

 artifact

 feature

 structure

 burial

 ecofact (“ecological artifact”) or biofact (“biological artifact”)

 site (many types) o general purpose or habitation sites o cemeteries & burial sites o kill sites (including butchery) o ports & trading centers o ceremonial sites o quarry-workshop & resource extraction sites o art sites o shipwrecks & other submerged sites FOUR WAYS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES CAN BE CLASSIFIED:

1. by function (already discussed above)

2. by archaeological context (Where do artifacts occur in a particular site? On the surface? Only in particular strata?)

3. by artifact content yielding cultural affiliation (Neolithic, Mayan, etc.)

4. by topographic location (cave sites, valley-bottom sites, hill-top sites, etc.)

HIERARCHICAL PATTERNING OF ARTIFACTS:

 attributes (reflect individual behavior)

 artifacts (reflect group behavior)

 tool kits or sub-assemblages (reflect communities)

 assemblages (reflect archaeological cultures)

 industries: all tools made of one material found in a site (e.g., stone, pottery, bronze, etc.) Provenience (where something is found; its spatial context) versus provenance (where something was made; its origin); don’t confuse these terms!

Law of Association (J. J. A. Worsaae, 1843): “Artifacts accompanying a human burial are in most cases things which were in use at the same time.”

ASCENDING LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD:

 archaeological culture

 culture area

 archaeological region Regional Archaeology: Gordon Willey, Virú Valley, Peru (1940s)

Gordon Willey (foreground) and colleagues excavating in the Virú Valley, Peru in the 1940s

The intent of regional archaeology is to orient local archaeology to some larger, meaningful geographical unit.

Research strategy of regional archaeology stresses sampling a region – not just readily identifiable sites, but areas in-between as well…

The archaeological record is non-random. It is unintentional for the most part, but definitely not random. Don’t confuse unintentional and random! Interpretation of the archaeological record rests on two principal concepts:

1. clustering

2. patterning

“Cluster” and “pattern” are, in a sense, analogous to “site” and “region”…

CONCLUSION: archaeological data must be viewed in a hierarchical fashion to extract the maximum amount of information. An analogy of the archaeological record. Incomplete, out of focus, hard to properly orient…seemingly random. Richard Gregory’s Dalmatian illusion And if you really like optical illusions, stare at the dancing almonds below for a while. This is not an animated .gif; just your own little synapses playing perceptual mind games with you!