Name: __________________________________________________________________ Mr. Shalaby
Date: ___________________________________________________________________ Collier High
Period: _________________________________________________________________ Anthropology
Analyzing the Evidence
How Are Artifacts Recovered from Sites?
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Only one way to recover artifacts and fossils –________________.
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Excavation is a complex process with two goals:
1. To find every scrap of ______________.
2. To record the horizontal and vertical location of that evidence with _____________.
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Few sites can even be fully excavated. The ________ involved would be tremendous, and
most archeologists feel it is important to leave some archeological ____________
undisturbed for future archaeologists using new _______________.
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As a result archaeologists usually use some method of ________________.
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Sampling however requires that archaeologists carefully plan where excavations will be
conducted so that all areas of the site have an equal ______________ of being examined.
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To date, no one has figured out a way to recover artifacts and fossils without
___________ the site in the process.
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For this reason most excavation by professional archaeologists today is done only when
a site is threatened with _______________.
Analyzing the Evidence
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Once archaeologists have found a site and recovered artifacts and other materials from
it, they are ready to begin “____________” what they have found to learn the story of the
past.
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The reading of the archaeologists is called _____________.
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Much of what is lost and discarded by humans never ____________. Much of what does
survive comes to us in ___________ and in a fragile, deteriorated state.
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Before doing analysis, then, archaeologists and paleoanthropologists must first
____________ and reconstruct the materials they have found.
Conservation and Reconstruction
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Conservation is the process of _____________ artifacts to stop decay and if possible,
reverse the deterioration process.
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Some conservation is very simple, involving only ______________ and drying the item.
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Some conservation is highly ___________, involving long-term chemical treatment and
long-term storage under controlled ______________.
The 5,000 year-old “Ice Man” found in 1993 has to be kept permanently in
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___________-like conditions.
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Reconstruction is like building a three-dimensional ___________ where you’re not sure
which pieces belong and you know not all of the pieces are there.
First, archaeologists typically __________ the form or shape of an artifact.
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For most common artifacts, such as ____________, forms are known well
enough to be grouped into a __________ or set of types, which is the
primary purpose of formal analysis.
Typology provide a lot of information about the artifact, including:
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Its ___________.
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___________ and culture where it comes from.
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Sometimes, how it was made, used, or _____________.
Second, archaeologists often measure artifacts, recording their __________ in
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various, often strictly defined, dimensions. This is called __________ analysis.
Third, archaeologists, often attempt to understand how an artifact was ________.
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By examining the ______________ the artifact is made from and how that
material was ____________, archaeologists can learn about the
technology, economy, and exchange system of the people who made the
artifact.
Finally, archaeologists attempt to understand how an artifact was ___________.
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Knowing how an artifact was used gives the archaeologist a direct window onto ancient
life.
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For stone, bone and wood tools, there is a technique called ____________ analysis which
can determine how a tool was used through the careful examination of the kind of
__________ on its edges.
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Knowing how an artifact was __________ allows the archaeologists to understand the
______________ and technical abilities of people in the past. For example: Thomas Wynn
analyzed both the final forms and the methods used by early humans – Homo erectus – to
make stone tools roughly 300,000 years ago. He found that manufacturing these tools
was a multistage process, involving several distinct steps and several distinct stoneworking techniques to arrive at the finished product. He then took his information and
evaluated it in term of measure of human ______________ ability developed by Jean
Piaget, and concluded that the people who made these tools probably had
_________________ abilities similar to those of modern humans.
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Knowing how an artifact was _________ allows the archaeologists to know something of
people’s __________ and activities. Lawrence Keeley conducted detailed use-wear
analyses on Acheulian _______________ made by Homo erectus peoples and found that
they had a variety of uses.
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Some cut meat.
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Others for wood
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To dig in the group (probably for edible roots).
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Therefore hand axes appear to have been multipurpose tools for our Homo erectus
ancestors – something like a Swiss Army knife.
What Can We Learn from Ecofacts and Fossils
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Ecofacts are ____________, and what archaeologists and paleoanthropologists can learn
from them is highly diverse as well.
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______________ (studying humans or other species) can tell a great deal about an
____________ animal from its fossilized bones or teeth, but that knowledge is based on
much more than just the fossil record itself.
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Paleontologists rely on ___________ anatomy to help reconstruct missing skeletal pieces
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New techniques, such as _____________ microscopy, CAT scans and computer provide
much information about how the organism may have moved about.
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Chemical analysis of ___________ can suggest what the animal typically ate.
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Paleontologists are also interested in the _____________ of the fossil finds
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Much of the evidence for primate evolution comes from __________, which are the most
common animal parts (along with jaws) to be preserved as fossils.
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Animals vary in ____________ – the number and kinds of teeth they have, their size, and
their arrangement in the mouth.
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Dentition provides clues to _____________ relationships because animals with similar
evolutionary histories often have similar teeth.
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For example, no primates, living or extinct, has more than two __________ in each
quarter of the jaw. That feature, along with others, ___________________ the primates
from earlier mammals, which had three incisors in each quarter.
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Dentition also suggests the relative _________ of an animal and often offer clues about
its _____________.
For example, comparison of living primates suggested that __________eaters
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have ___________, rounded tooth cusps, unlike leaf- and insect- eaters, which
have more _____________ cusps.
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Paleontologists can tell much about an animal’s ____________ and _____________ from
fragments of its skeleton.
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Arboreal ______________ have front and back limbs of about the same length; because
their limbs tend to be short, their center of ____________ is close to the branches on
which they move. They also tend to have long grasping _____________ and toes.
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___________ quadrupeds are more adapted for speed so they have _____________ limbs
and shorter fingers and toes. _________________ limbs are more characteristics of
vertical clingers and leapers and brachiators (species that swing through the branches).
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Vertical clingers and leapers have longer, more powerful ___________ limbs,
branchiators have longer forelimbs.
What can we learn from Features?
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Because we cannot ____________ features to the lab, we cannot subject them to the same
range of analyses as artifacts, ecofacts, and fossils.
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Archaeologists developed a number of powerful _______ to analyze features in the field.
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The primary one is detailed ___________, usually using a surveyor’s transit.
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Geographic information system (GIS) allow the archaeologist to produce a map of the
features on a site and combine that map with __________________ about other
archaeological materials found there.
Putting It All in Context
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Archaeologists do not study fossils and artifacts as _______________ objects.
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They put all the materials discovered in one site in ___________. This means how and
why are the artifacts and other materials are ___________ – This is what archaeology is
all about.
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Fossils and artifacts maybe beautiful or interesting by themselves, but it is only when
they are placed in context with the other materials found on a site that we are able to
“_________” and tell the story of the past.
Dating the Evidence
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An important part of putting artifacts and other materials into context is putting them in
_______________ order
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Dating methods include:
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_________ dating is used to determine the age of a specimen.
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_________ dating or chronometric dating is used to measure how old a specimen
or deposit is in years.
Relative Dating Methods
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Stratigraphy
The study of how different rock and solid formations are laid down in successive
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layers or ____________.
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Oldest layers are generally deeper or ___________ than more recent layers.
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The ___________, and still the most common used.
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Indicator artifacts or ecofacts are used to establish a ______________ sequence.
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If a site has been ______________, stratigraphy will not be a satisfactory way to
determine relative age.
Absolute, or Chronometric Dating Methods
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Many of the absolute dating methods are based on the decay of a _______________
isotope. Because the rate of ___________ is known, the age of the specimen can be
estimated, within a range of possible ____________.
Radiocarbon Dating or Carbon 14 dating
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The most popular known methods of ________________ the absolute age of a specimen.
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It is based on the principal that all living matter possesses a certain amount of radioactive
form of ___________ (Carbon 14). After an organism dies, it no longer takes in any of the
radioactive carbon. Carbon-14 _________ at a slow but steady pace and reverts to
_______________. The rate at which carbon decays –its half life – is known: C-14 has a half
life of 5,730 years
Thermoluminescence Dating
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Many minerals emit ___________ when they are heated.
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This cold light comes from the release, under heat, of “outside” ___________ trapped in
the crystal structure.
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Thermoluminescence dating makes use of the principle that if an object is ________ at
some point to a high temperature it will __________ all the trapped electrons it held
previously. The amount of Thermoluminescence emitted when the object is tested during
testing allows researchers to calculate the age of the object.
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Thermoluminescence dating is well suited to sample of ancient ___________, brick, tile,
and other objects that are made at high _________________.
Electron Spin Resonance Dating
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Measures trapped electrons then expose them to ____________ fields.
Paleomagnetic Dating
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When ________ of any kind form, it records the ancient magnetic field of the __________.
Since the earth’s magnetic field has reversed itself many times, the _________________
patterns in rocks can be used to date the fossils within the rocks.
Potassium-Argon Dating
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Potassium-40 decays at an established rate and forms _____________. The half-life of K-40
is a known quantity, so the age of a material containing ___________ can be measured by
the amount of K-40 c0mpared with the amount of Ar-40. Potassium-Argon Dating is used
to date samples from 5,000 years up t0 3 billion years old
Uranium-Series Dating
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The decay of two kinds of uranium U-235 and U-238 into other isotopes.
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Used especially in _________ where stalagmites and other calcite formations form,
because water usually contains uranium but not _________________.
Fission-Track Dating
It entails counting the number of ___________ or tracks etched in the sample by the
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fission-explosive division- of uranium atoms as they _______________.
The Results of Archaeological Research
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One goal is the description or _______________ of what happened in the past.
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Archaeologists attempt to determine how people lived in a particular place at
a particular time, and when and how their lifestyle _____________.
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Another goal is testing specific ____________ about human evolution and behavior.
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Understand general trends and patterns in human biological and cultural ____________.
Ethics in Archaeological Research
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Archaeology does not simply describe past ____________. It can also have a profound
effect on living people.
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For example, many people find the idea of archaeologists ________________,
cleaning, and preserving the remains of ancestors to be ____________.
Therefore, archaeologists must be sensitive to the desires and ____________ of
the populations that descend from the ones they are researching.
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Artifacts from some ancient cultures are in great demand by art and antiquities
_____________, and archaeological digs can lead to uncontrolled _____________ if
archaeologists are not careful about how and to whom they report their discoveries.
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Archeologists must report all their findings to the ___________. Since by excavating a
site, they damage it, they must ______________ everything for future archaeologists who
are excavating the same site.