1.
Archaeological Record: All material objects constructed by humans or near-humans revealed by archaeology.
2.
Archaeology: A cultural anthropology of the human past focusing on material evidence of human modification of the physical environment.
3.
Artifacts: Objects that have been deliberately and intelligently shaped by human or near-human activity.
4.
Assemblage: Artifacts and structures from a particular time and place in an archeological site.
5.
Band: The characteristic form of social organization found among foragers. They are small, usually no more than 50 people, and labour is divided ordinarily on the basis of age and sex. All adults in these societies have roughly equal access to whatever material or social valuables are locally available.
6.
Biostratigraphic Dating: A relative dating method that relies on patterns of fossil distribution in different rock layers.
7.
Chiefdom: A form of social organization in which a leader (the chief) and close relatives are set apart from the rest of the society and allowed privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige.
8.
Cosmopolitanism: Being able to move with ease from one cultural setting to another.
9.
Ethnoarchaeology: The study of the way present-day societies use artifacts and structures and how these objects become part of the archaeological record.
10.
Excavation: The systematic uncovering of archaeological remains through removal of the deposits of soil and other material covering them and accompanying them.
11.
Features: Non-portable remnants from the past, such as house walls or ditches.
12.
Feminist Archaeology: A research approach that explores why women's contributions have been systematically written out of the archaeological record and suggests new approaches to the human past that include such contributions.
13.
Gender Archaeology: Archaeological research that draws on insights from contemporary gender studies to investigate how people come to recognize themselves as different from others, how people represent these differences, and how others react to such claims.
14.
Historical Archaeology: The study of archaeological sites associated with written records, frequently the study of post-European contact sites in the world.
15.
Isotopic Dating: Dating methods based on scientific knowledge about the rate at which various radioactive isotopes of naturally occurring elements transform themselves into other elements by losing subatomic particles.
16.
Law of Crosscutting Relationships: A principle of geological interpretation stating that where old rocks are crosscut by other geological features, the intruding features must be younger than the layers of rock they cut across.
17.
Law of Superposition: A principle of geological interpretation stating that layers lower down in a sequence of strata must be older than the layers above them and, therefore, that objects embedded in lower layers must be older than objects embedded in upper layers.
18.
Nonisotopic Dating: Dating methods that assign age in years to material evidence but not by using rates of nuclear decay.
19.
Numerical Dating: Dating methods based on laboratory techniques that assign age in years to material evidence.
20.
Relative Dating: Dating methods that arrange material evidence in a linear sequence, each object in the sequence being identified as older or younger that another object.
21.
Seriation: A relative dating method based on the assumption that artifacts that look alike must have been made at the same time.
22.
Site: A precise geographical location of the remains of past human activity
23.
Sodalities: Special-purpose groupings that may be organized on the basis of age, sex, economic role, and personal interest.
24.
State: A stratified society that possesses a territory that is defended from outside enemies with an army and from internal disorder with police. It has a separate set of governmental institutions designed to enforce laws and to collect taxes and tribute, is run by an elite that possesses a monopoly on the use of force.
25.
Status: A particular social position in a group.
26.
Stratum: Layer; in geological terms, a layer of rock and soil.
27.
Subsistence Strategy: Different ways that people in different societies go about meeting their basic material survival needs.
28.
Survey: The physical examination of a geographical region in which promising sites are most likely to be found.
29.
Tribe: A society that is generally larger than a band, whose members usually farm or herd for a living. Social relation in these are still relatively egalitarian, although there may be a chief who speaks for the group or organizes certain group activities.
