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Lesson 1 Keywords

Terms in this set (23)

Altithermal
of or belonging to a time during which the climate is relatively warm - often used of a part of postglacial time; a warm, dry postglacial period in the western United States approximately 5600-2500 BC.; coined by Ernest Antev in 1948, the term describes a time during which temperatures were warmer than at present; other terms, like long drought, are used
Artifact
an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest; a portable object manufactured, modified, or used by humans
Beringia
land bridge connecting Russia and Alaska; the land bridge that existed between Alaska and Siberia that enabled migration of humans and animals to North America
Cherts
a hard, dark, opaque rock composed of silica (chalcedony) with an amorphous or microscopically fine-grained texture; it occurs as nodules (flint) or, less often, in massive beds
Primary Cherts and Locations
Edwards chert (Northern Texas), Florence-A/Kay County chert (Northeast Oklahoma), Frisco chert (Southeast Oklahoma), Alibates chert (Texas Panhandle), Ouachita Mountain chert (Eastern Oklahoma - above and to the right of Frisco cherts), Boone chert (Mideastern Oklahoma - below Florence-A cherts), Peoria chert (Ozark Mountains in far Northeastern Oklahoma)
Context
the relationship among the individual artifacts and features and their locations on an archaeological site
Culture (Archaeological)
a distinctive set of material culture remains (artifacts and features) within a specific geographical area and time range
Culture Area
large geographical area coinciding with broad ethnographic units identified by early anthropologists
Culture History
descriptive approach oriented toward reconstructing the past by collecting detailed information on sites, artifacts and chronologies for each culture; based on inductive rather than deductive research methods; tends to describe rather than explain allowing us to construct a chronology of people and events
Dendochronology
dating by tree rings; created by astronomer A.E. Douglass in the 1930s; tree rings provide a yearly growth sequence and these rings change width depending on growing conditions; dry years result in narrower bands compared to normal years, and greater growth of the trees in wet years produces wider rings
Experimental Archaeology
attempts to determine the archaeological correlates of ancient behaviors; attempts to generate and test archaeological hypotheses, usually by replicating or approximating the feasibility of ancient cultures performing various tasks or feats
Feature
non-moveable part of an archaeological site which will be destroyed when removed, either through excavation or other disturbance
Geoarchaeology
studies archaeological sites in relation to past climates, how cultural remains were deposited at a location, and how the environment modified these deposits over time
Habitation
camps and villages where people lived and how they built houses and other features and what the size and extent of these sites tell us about populations
Holocene
our current geological epoch; this is the second epoch in the Quaternary period and it followed the Pleistocene
Lithics
stone items including tools and debris from making stone tools
Pleistocene
the Ice Age; came before the current epoch, the Holocene
Hunter-Gatherers
groups of usually lesss than 150 individuals hunting wild game and harvesting wild plants; represent the majority of human adaptations during the last 13,000 years
Site
the place where archaeological study or digs are taking place
Stratigraphy
study of strata (layers) of deposits at archaeological sites; based on the law of superposition (in any undisturbed sequence of rock deposited in layers, the youngest layer is on top and the oldest on bottom, each layer being younger than the one beneath it and older than the one above it)
Social Organization
what material remains tell us about the social and political structure of past groups
Subsistence
what foods (animals and plants) were eaten and how they were obtained and prepared
Technology
what tools were used for what activities and how they were made
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