ARKEO1200 Final

9300 BC - 8400 BC

1100-600 BC

800 AD - 1100 AD

Machu Picchu occupation (built around 1450, abandoned during Spanish invasion)

• Inka imperial fluorescence (1438)
• Spanish invasion of Peru (1532)

1864-1875

8900-9000 BC

Newfoundland, 1000AD. Small and short lived camp for timber-gathering and boat repair.

• Archaeological research funded by the state is vulnerable to state manipulation.
• The potential for political exploitation of the past seems to be greatest in countries experiencing internal instability.
• Kulturkreis (1920s): The identification of ethnic regions on the basis of excavated material culture. Whenever an artifact categorized as “Germanic” was found, that area was declared to be German. Through this, German claim to territories (Poland, Czechoslovakia) was justified.
• Altered prehistory also helped regain German self-respect after the defeat of 1918.
• Ahnenerbe / “Ancestor History” was run as a personal project of Reichsfuhrer-SS and Chief of Police Heinrich Himmler and funded by interested Germans to search, excavate and restore real and imagined Germanic cultural relics.
• SS archaeologists were sent out in the wake of invading German forces to track down important archaeological finds and antiquities to be transported back to the Reich.

It may be difficult to definitively determine the source population / descendants of a certain archaeological artifact. Scientists / contractors may have competing interests with descendant groups (Kennewick man). In addition, various descendant groups may have competing interests in claiming descendance from a valued cultural artifact (claiming Mayan ancestry in Honduras for social status)

• Usually through linking form and iconography to a distributed set of symbolic images from Olmec artefacts. It is important to distinguish between locally manufactured artefacts and imported artefacts.
• Large, hollow, seated figurines and abstract naturalistic animals and zoomorphic images on vessels, bowls and bottles connect Puerto Escondido iconography to the “Olmec” style.
• Reasons for the use of this iconography could be a way of symbolizing a new form of social inequality. (Makes sense, since such iconography is also connected to the consumption of luxury goods in Puerto Escondido as well). Additionally, Olmec geometric motifs were used.
• It’s important to note that despite the use of similar symbolism, the meanings and interpretations likely differed due to differences in the temporal and spatial context of these communities. (what was metaphysical for the Olmecs was likely a way to establish social difference for wider Honduras)

• Many of the objects identified as “Olmec” outside the Gulf Coast of Mexico are locally produced rather than imported.
• This paper seeks to understand what motivated communities to produce objects that stood out and belonged to the stylistic context of communities other than their own.
• Although previous explanations involve political domination and military control, these aren’t applicable to Honduras due to its geographical distance to the Gulf Coast. Were they trying to be Olmec? What did being Olmec mean to them?
• Radiocarbon dating and stratigraphy of “Olmec” artifacts in Puerto Escondido reveal that they were the contemporaries of the Olmecs.
• Large, hollow, seated figurines and abstract naturalistic animals and zoomorphic images on vessels, bowls and bottles connect Puerto Escondido iconography to the “Olmec” style.
• Reasons for the use of this iconography could be a way of symbolizing a new form of social inequality. (Makes sense, since such iconography is also connected to the consumption of luxury goods in Puerto Escondido as well). Additionally, Olme geometric motifs were used.
• It’s important to note that despite the use of similar symbolism, the meanings and interpretations likely differed due to differences in the temporal and spatial context of these communities. (what was metaphysical for the Olmecs was likely a way to establish social difference for Honduras)

A mother culture is a term for an earlier people's culture that has great and widespread influence on some later cultures and people. Though the original culture may fade, the mother culture's influence grows for ages in the future. In the context of the Olmecs, this is the argument that the Olmecs of the Gulf Coast were the mother culture of all Mesoamerican civilizations. (Flannery and Joyce dispute this) (Richard Diehl and Michael Coe argue for this)

• Stylistic similarities between the Gulf Coast and Mexican Highlands. Since Olmec centers have stone monuments and the highlands didn’t, it was assumed that the Gulf Coast was in the forefront with regard to being “civilized”.
• San Lorenzo and La Venta had multi tiered hierarchical settlement systems that occurred nowhere in Mesoamerica until centuries later.
• Coe argues that San Lorenzo is shaped like a giant bird flying East.
• The Olmec population was significantly larger than its contemporaries. (No data to support this, pure speculation)
• The Olmecs had a highly sophisticated symbol system expressed in a coherent art style not seen anywhere else.
• The Olmec invented monumental stone carving, which later on became a defining characteristic of every Mesoamerican civilization.
• “The Ball Game” finds its oldest known evidence in Olmec deposits.
• The first ritual use of rubber was observed in Olmec sites as opposed to the highlands.
• The Olmecs had the most extensive trade routes and moved a greater amount / diversity of goods than their contemporaries.

Sister culture is a term for cultures whose interactions through the region produced shared attributes of religion, art, political structure and hierarchical society. The collective interaction of many different cultures develop the subsequent ones without a dominant influence of one of them. Sister culture within the context of the Olmecs argues that the Olmecs were a set of paramount chiefdoms that rose, peaked and eventually collapsed in a landscape of traditional and open chiefdoms.

• The Olmecs fit into the characteristics of a chiefdom rather than a “colonizing empire” or “supremely politically dominant” based on ethnographic analogy.
• Every major chiefly center of the period 1150-450 BC had a substantial amount of hierarchically lower villages below it. The Olmecs were no different.
• The plateau upon which San Lorenzo rests is majorly shaped by natural erosion as opposed to platforming.
• Although monumental stone carving is the defining characteristic of the Olmecs, it’s questionable to what extent it can be considered an indicator of political complexity.
• The ball game has been found in earlier sites.
• Each region has something it did first. Rubber trees are native to the Gulf Coast, which would explain why rubber was used there first.
• We have no quantitative evidence for how much was traded, especially for perishable goods. The argument that the Olmecs traded the most is speculative at best.
• Substantial interaction network connecting Mesoamerica (long distance interaction) were present long before Olmecs. This sets the stage for the Olmec period. You could argue that one of the things that provided the stimulus for the extensive Olmec network was the pre established interaction network prior to the Olmecs.

• After the 1820s and the independence of Latin American countries from Spain, governmental institutions of Honduras felt that they lacked a sense of national identity, which was thought to be politically advantageous in maintaining the stronghold of the new centralized government.
• Additionally, this allowed for areas that have Mayan artifacts to be connected by a common cultural ground (apparatus of kinship as a method of political control)
• The project of national identity building claimed that the rest of the sites except for Copan, everything indegenious, everything pre-Colombian in Honduras was Maya.
• The other strategy of negating non-Maya archaeological sites in Honduras was heavily focusing on the Maya artifacts, for example through the construction of neo-Maya sites.
• This was emphasizing a part of Honduran culture at the expense of the other components of Honduran culture. The effect of that in terms of indegenous people in Honduras is to privilege indigenous groups that are associated with the national Mayan identity.

• One of the large Maya cities found in Honduras.
• 400-800 AD
• “Romantic notion of antiquities peeking out of the tropical rainforest” became a key part of the appeal of the Maya.
• 1890s: Peabody Museum at Harvard took part in an archaeological project in Copan, focusing on Maya monumental artifacts. Investigated the nature of Copan and the ancient Maya. First large-scale investigation of any Maya city. Concentrated their efforts on the Stele and the temples.
• 1930s: Carnegie Institution of Washington, major force in doing Maya archaeology in the 20th century as a part of a project looking at a wide variety of Mayan cities for a comprehensive look at the Mayan world. The aim was to create an image of an exotic, elaborate, impressive culture for the Maya. The framing of the archaeological site in Copan as a “Parque” naturalized it. You wouldn’t dare to oppose the Maya as it was a part of nature, the same way you wouldn’t oppose contemporary Honduran politicians focusing on a basis of Mayan culture as they were a part of the “natural order of things”.
• The things that were coming to be a part of the national Maya identity were actually material things that were implicated in creating a pre-Colombian identity. All of the stuff that the Honduran government were fixated on were actually the things that celebrated Mayan rulers and served as political tools to keep them in power. This was a very narrow view into Mayan identity, only focusing on the elite of Copan and the monuments they created to ensure the continuation of their power.
• During the middle period of processual archaeology, there was a shift of focus on Maya identity from the doings of kings to a wider perspective including the activities in downtown Copan.

• Methods of obtaining calendar dates for archaeological sites or fossil finds.
• Dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, and potassium argon dating.
• Except for dendrochronology, yields dates with standard deviations, resulting in a time range within which a site or fossil can be places.

• There’s a trade-off between accuracy (scientific error) and covered temporal span.
• Not everything can be dated using the same method, each method has its own temporal limitation. (50,000 years for radiocarbon dating, as the half life of C14 is 5,730 years. After 50,000 years, the amount of C14 is too small to be accurately measured. ) However, 50,000 years is a generally good period of time, as it corresponds to around the time when neanderthals were being replaced by homo sapiens.

• Popular "knowledge" is like a scrapbook: a snippet here, a picture there, and not much effort to construct a logical, ordered exposition.
• Controversies that most people associate with archaeology are generally not controversial among archaeologists, or, as with dinosaurs, not even archaeology. (Lionel Dahmer won the Creation Research award by “demonstrating” the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans. He sent chips from a fossil he acquired from a local natural history museum and sending it to a radiocarbon laboratory. Despite the laboratory telling them there wasn’t enough organic collagen material to accurately date the chips, Dahmer went along and published the dating that they could get from the analysis which was around 20 thousand BC. This is 1) not peer reviewed 2) not reproducible 3) not critical 4) not scientific)
• Popular Archaeology: not reproducible (in different labs), not peer-reviewed (often self published).
• While scientists attempt to disprove their hypotheses in their methodologies, supporters of fringe popular archaeology claims do the opposite, attempting to continuously prove their hypotheses.

• 420 burials of enslaved Africans found near NYC Hall
• Protests by the city Black community started as soon as excavations began
• At the height of the American Revolution, New York had one of the largest number of slaves in English colonies
• Lower Manhattan churchyards were banned for blacks so they buried their dead far from the city center
• In the 1990's a government agency bought land to build two office towers that were situated in the cemetery area
• Construction efforts did not begin until historical preservation efforts removed the burials
• After construction started excavating burials the African-American community was outraged as they were not consulted and it was highly disrespectful to unearth the dead
• One major incident destroyed several graves
• Michael L. Blakey, expert from Howard College was appointed as scientific director
• African Burial Ground Memorial, exhibition and museum was built along with the office buildings.

Is a protected area similar to a national park that is owned by the federal government. Since in the US, people own whatever is found on their land, this is how the US government protects mostly Native American artifacts and cultural heritage. In 2016, President Obama declared the Stonewall Inn a national monument, commemorating the Stonewall riots and the struggle of the LGBT community for rights in the US.

• Until late 19th century
• Focused on the objects themselves for their particular aesthetic qualities.
• Wasn’t related to trying to understand what the objects meant about the past. (How to best display things, how they look, aesthetic appeal, collecting objects.)
• Set the stage for making classifications and mapping the distribution of the objects, which allowed for the actual study of archaeology to take place. “Antiquarian appreciation”

Context is the place where an artifact is found, Not just the place but the type of soil, the site type, and what the artifact was found with or in relation to.

• Author of Stag Nights and Horny Men
• Argues that rather than a purely ecological hunting camp, which is what the processual archaeologists often paint it out to be, Star Carr is a site where necessity and metaphor overlapped, where curation and manipulation of the artifacts reveals that they possessed an emotional value that transcended their economic value.
• Considers the various interpretations that can be made regarding the red deer frontlets such as: construction of mesolithic masculinity, shamanistic rituals, reproductive and territorial prominence, ritual collection and disposal to pay respect to the souls of the game animals.
• Although this hypothesis is perfectly possible, it’s not exactly persuasive.

• Radiocarbon dating measurements produce ages in "radiocarbon years", which must be converted to calendar ages by a process called calibration.
• Calibration is needed because the atmospheric carbon-14 to carbon-12 ratio, which is a key element in calculating radiocarbon ages, has not been constant historically.
• Dendrochronology is used to develop a calibration curve. Dendrochronology (tree ring sequences) served as a natural archive to know about the concentration of C14 in the past. Bristlecone pine and European Oak were used, as they live for a long period of time.
• Dead wood samples (dendro archaeological samples) and living tree samples from the same species are combined to go further back than the lifespan of trees.

• There are many architectural and functional similarities between the sequential regional centers Chaco Canyon (900-1125), Aztec Ruins (1110-1275) and Casas Grandes (1250-1500).
• There appears to be meridian alignment in the three sites along 630 kms with a mere 1 km shift.
• Steve Lekson argues that the alignment of all three centers is intentional and symbolizes cultural continuity through meridian symbolism.
• This isn’t very controversial, as the alignment of artifacts to express cultural connection to the natural world is noted very often in various ethnographic records. Additionally, thew alignment would require a substantial amount of time and labor, making it very unlikely for the alignment to have occurred coincidentally.

• There is the interpretation of additional / earliest (depending on how insane you are) migration from Europe to the New World based on the similarities of the shapes of the tools (fancy flaked spear points called clovis points). This is also called the Solutrean Hypothesis based on the Solutrean lithic technology involving the production of clovis points.
• Solutrean culture is the culture of France, Spain and Portugal roughly 21000 17000 years ago.
• Although this hypothesis is generally rejected, it becomes periodically relevant after the discovery of more clovis points.
• This hypothesis can be manipulated by different stakeholders (for example white supremacists) to claim ownership of cultures and lands.

In industry, an archaeologist’s work involves “cultural resource management”. Whenever there is land development taking place, “clearance” involves the confirmation that the land has been properly surveyed and excavated to ensure that there aren’t any historically or culturally significant artifacts.

Chetro Ketl is the largest Ancestral Puebloan great house and archeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. Construction on Chetro Ketl began c. 990 and was largely completed by 1075, with significant remodeling occurring in the early and mid-1110s. Following the onset of a severe drought, most Chacoans emigrated from the canyon by 1140; by 1250 Chetro Ketl's last inhabitants had vacated the structure.

• The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders.
• The heads are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica.
• All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly crossed eyes.
• The backs of the monuments often are flat.
• The boulders were brought from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas mountains of Veracruz.
• Given that the extremely large slabs of stone used in their production were transported over large distances (over 150 kilometres), requiring a great deal of human effort and resources, it is thought that the monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers.
• Colossal heads looking african (noses and lips) has caused people to argue for trans-oceanic contact between the Olmecs and Africans.
• However, these features also exist as major components of the phenotypes of indegenious people in Mexico.
• Africa-supporters argue that those similarities came into these populations through the very connection.
• However, you could also argue that a significant african connection could be brought upon the African input after Cortez and the Spanish Invasion (slaves).

• Beginning in late 19th century
• Tyler and Morgan.
• Societies and cultures were thought to fit into various stages of cultural evolution and civilization development.
• A single developmental trajectory was hypothesized (convergent evolution of all societies).
• Scale and complexity was thought to increase as the civilization went along the stages of cultural evolution.
• Based on the assumption of seriation, things were expected to change in a regular way with a particular order. Societal development is linear, there aren’t any trajectories.
• (Dismissiveness was observed when cultural evolutionists looked at early societies.)

• Early half of the 20th century
• History of cultures were thought to be nice discrete, defined concepts.
• Archaeologists were interested in classifying objects and putting them in discrete groups called “cultures”.
• Systematic description, chronology, normativeness. (tree ring dating, carbon14).
• Changes in cultures were explained by migration events (which was, eventually, the “big smoking gun”)

• 1960s-1970s
• Binford, science model (hypothesis testing), epistemology, explicit problem solving mindset. (especially about ecology, democracy, economics - rarely about religion or social orientation),
• Archaeology as a science with objective inferences.
• Processualism and its concerns seen most clearly in Chaco: interested in the larger context (such as the immediate environment, variation in the region as a whole, how do sites distribute themselves alongside landscapes, what does that tell you about the cultural processes going on).

• Called tree ring dating.
• Based on the principle that trees add a yearly growth ring that varies in thickness depending on whether the year was dry (thin ring) or dry (thick ring).
• Overlaps in the ring patterns (thick vs. thin) from living trees and logs can be matched to date ancient structures.
• Limitation: Can only be used in limited sites that have used wood and timber.
• Limitation: Can only go back as far as 12,000 years.

• The research design employed at Virginia city was shaped by historical documents. Several literature reviews were done to collect information on the existing sights while being aware of the fact that these documents were mostly biased with racial implications.
• A public release was issued to ask for information regarding Virginia City

The great fire of 1875 created a layer of ash in the stratigraphic layers in the Boston Saloon excavation. This served as an absolute time marker that helped distinguish which events happened when.

• Yes
• With historical archaeology, historical record which only compels us to look at a distinct population of a more diverse western town can be further analyzed
• Archaeological excavations revealed many important aspects of each saloon such as what clientele they served to and what food, drink, services they provided. These combined with historical documents paint a more intricate picture of western boomtowns.

• Newspaper articles, maps, photographs, diaries, business directories, tax, property and census records.
• Many newspaper articles and tax, property records referred to a specific Saloon (Boston) as a popular destination for the colored folk
• As historical documents did not thoroughly record African-Americans, it was still able to point the research in the right direction
• Oral history was also consulted to find traces of the social aspects of the saloons via a nationwide press release

• Piper’s Old Corner Bar:
• Owned by German John Piper, owner of the opera house
• Served mainly Europeans
• Historically well documented
• Water filter
• Stoneware, german mineral water
• Boston Saloon:
• Owned by African-American William A. G. Brown
• Primarily served clients with African backgrounds
• Served the best quality meat
• Elaborate glassware (plates etc.) indicative of highest emphasis on food.
• O’Brien and Costello’s Saloon and Shooting Gallery:
• Irish owners, Irish customer base
• Shell casings
• Hibernia Brewery:
• Irish, probably
• Served craft beers through a deal with the brewery
• Lowest on the economic scale

• Gets its name from an exhibition at the Grolier Club in New York City.
• An almanac that charts the movements of the planet Venus.
• It is the oldest surviving codex from the Americas. Most of the codices were burnt by Spanish priests as they were considered “falsehoods of the devil”. Hence, the remaining codices are especially important.
• Its authenticity was questioned because of the lack of predictive data in the document, as Mayan codices existed to inform their readers of certain predicted events in the future.
• Radiocarbon testing dated it around 1000 CE. However, Thompson argued that it was likely that looters found unmarked bark paper and painted convincing images on it.
• Micheal Coe: After microscopic analysis, Maya blue has been identified as components of the ink used. No modern ink components were found.
• One thing that is probably most suggestive of it being fake is a chunk of red paint that is directly on the bark paper doesn’t have any plaster coating. There are, however, cases of repainting of books as a result of tears.

A great house is a large, multi-storied Ancestral Puebloan structure; they were built between 850 and 1150. Archeologists differ as to their purpose, but they might have been residences for large numbers of people, or ceremonial centers that only priests occupied. Archeologist Stephen H. Lekson has proposed that they might have been the palaces of Puebloan royalty, particularly those found at Chaco Canyon.

Moiety is a descent group that coexists with only one other descent group within a society. Hurin and Hanan groups in Cuzco is an example.The city was divided into two sections, hanan (upper or high) and hurin (lower), which paralleled the social organization of Inka society into upper and lower moieties (social divisions).

• There’s debate about which modern Pueblo culture is descendant from which archaeological Pueblo.
• There are famous cases where the descent is not as clear. An example is the set of skeletal remains found along a river in Kennewick, Washington.
• The Smithsonian Institute, whose agenda was exaggerated and pushed by the media, stated that the skeletal remains would be exempt from NAGPRA, as it more closely resembled Polynesian or Southeast Asian peoples. This led to a 9 year lawsuit between the descendants (Colville tribes), who called the man “The Ancient One” and refused his scientific study, and the scientists (Army Corps of Engineers), who claimed the scientific right to study the skeleton.
• After the 2004 court ruling allowed for the scientific study of the skeletal remains on the basis that no direct link to a modern Native American tribe could be established, the remains were studied by the University of Copenhagen, who determined that the remains did in fact connect to modern Native Americans, specifically Colville tribes. It also turned out that this information was communicated to the Army Corps of Engineers in 2013.

• The Kennewick Man is also significant for its implications for the origins of Native American people. Academic wisdom states that there was a single source of migration from the Bering Land Bridge. Owsley, however, suggests that the similarity of the craniofacial features to the Ainu of Japan may suggest a roughly synchronous waterborne migration from coastal Asia. This, however, is largely contentious, as studies of skulls is considered an ancient practice in anthropology.
• Kennewick man belonged to haplogroup X, found most often in Anatolia and Northeast America, used to suggest a possible Caucasian founder population in the early Americas, as it is relatively absent in Asia as opposed to other haplogroups found in Native American populations. However, full genetic analysis of the Kennewick man allowed for the confirmation that the haplogroup X2a has no European ancestry and belongs exclusively to Native Americans. The subclade X2a is derived from an independent clade that has no relation to the European subclade, and the X haplogroups possibly came to the New World from Siberia or the Altai Region of Central Asia through the Bering Land Bridge.

A kiva is a room used by Puebloans for religious rituals and political meetings. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo people, kivas are square-walled or circular, and underground, and are used for spiritual ceremonies.

• Based on law of superposition which assumes that the bottom layer is the oldest and the upper layers get progressively younger.
• Can be used across multiple sites as long as all include at least a portion of the same sequence.
• One of the most basic of these sequences is the Three Age System: stone-bronze-iron.

• Minor character in Honduran mythology.
• Famous for having led the resistance against the Spanish in the 1530s.
• He became the poster child for indegenious resistance against the Spaniards.
• A martyr of the resistance, he died while resisting.
• In the early 20th century, he became an important figure in Honduran national identity. (He is featured in the national anthem and the currency is named after him.) Part of the reason for that was the racist rejection of the black component of Honduran society. The United Fruit Company was relying more and more on foreign black labour which they imported to work on the banana plantations. That simulated a lot of resistance among pro-labour factions on the Honduran government, who believed that they could send a message to the black component of Honduran society by focusing on Lempira, an indigenous figure.

He argues against Chatterton’s idea of deliberate deposition (ritual discard) in Star Carr. He refutes this idea by arguing that the area that Chatterton argues ritual discard occurred is beyond the reach of Lake Flixton’s waters. Additionally, the items argued to be discarded by Mellars were small items, as opposed to other ethnographically documented sites where larger items were discarded. He also argues that this idea of ritualistic deposition showcases the dangers of post-processualist thought with regard to the tendency to attempt to promote a fashionable and exciting interpretation while ignoring the many aspects of published archaeological data.

(Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) which states that the descendants have the right to decide whether the remains will be studied. However, this law doesn’t explicitly state how this relation of descendance will be established, which has led to disputes in the past (for example the Kennewick man)

• How did they end up in Britain? During conflict and moments of conquest, we can see an exchange of cultural objects.
• Earl of Elgin was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 19th century.
• According to him, at an attempt to “rescue” the Parthenon marbles from further destruction (the area was harmed by early Christians, turned into a mosque and later on a weapons artillery by the Ottomans). The Turks, he claimed, were grinding the statues down to make mortar.
• Elgin and Britain claims the removal was legal and was done through the issue of a firman (ferman) by the Ottoman sultanate. However, despite the wealth of documents from that period of time, no such firman has been identified. Elgin himself presented an English translation of an Italian document to get permission from the then British government, which has been disputed by historians to be a legitimate firman.
• Artifacts are packed up and shipped to the explorers’ countries of origin without regard to the heritage it represents and the repercussions this might have for the cultural recollection of their countries of origin. In a way, artifacts are framed in a way to appeal to the Western gaze and put on pedestals in museums as works of art.

• English writer, archaeologist, historical writer. Became an important figure in British Imperial policy.
• Formed the Iraqi archaeological museum with the goal of maintaining Iraqi and Mesopotamian culture in Iraq. Contains Mesopotamianm, Babylonian and Persian history. The museum was looted during the war, but the artifacts were returned after a global search.
• According to Bell’s biography, she supported the retaining of archaeological artifacts in their country of origin, rather than being shipped to Europe. Her foresight allowed for Baghdad to retain one of the largest collections of Mesopotamian artifacts in the world.

• Post 70s
• Rejection of the notion that everything needs to be purely scientific and objective.
• Skepticism about archaeology as a science and the objectivity that can be established through archeological analysis.
• Less strained interpretation (takes on the issues of gender, social hierarchy, belief systems, kinship). Cognitive and gender archaeology are examples of this.
• The meanings behind how materials were used and their significance in the societies they belonged to. Going beyond societies and studying significance at an individual level, including emotional, religious, political implications of objects.

Used to refer to the location (in modern research, recorded precisely in three dimensions) where an artifact or other ancient item was found. Looting: The objects can’t be authenticated without their provenance.

It is a process in which the broader public can engage with excavations and can participate in research design methods. In Virginia City, for instance, the excavation site was open to visitors who were allowed to volunteer and aid the excavation. They were especially instructed to identify common well-known items such as pipes.

• They assumed that all of the antlers were acquired at the time of settlement (no antlers would lie around until they were picked up and made into tools).
• They also initially didn’t document where in the site these animal remains came from because it was assumed that the animal remains were uniform. Clark did, however, plot where the tools were excavated.

• The red deer masks were thought either to be of ceremonial or hunting purposes (in order to fool deer into thinking that they were facing other deer). However, the fact that the antlers on the masks were slightly cut (possibly in order to prevent the mask from falling) would not serve the purpose of fooling deer. Thus, ceremonial / ritual activity, particularly relating to shamanism, was hypothesized by post-processualists as the reason behind red deer masks. However, no connection or assertion that this interpretation was better than others was present. Although this hypothesis is perfectly possible, it’s not exactly persuasive.
• Another hypothesis was based on the psychological effects of wearing red deer masks. It was thought that impersonating an animal for a long period of time changed one’s perception of self and perception of animals, thus deeming hunters more effective by enhancing their confidence and solidarity.
• Another hypothesis was there was a ritual deposition of such objects into the lake (open lake). This was based on the archaeological record and the “fact” that these artifacts were only found in open water. In the 1980s, it was later on found out that the bones were not in open water, but were in the shore. Additionally, the seemingly equal distribution of these bones across big areas wasn’t indicative of deposition.

• Used until the mid 20th century.
• Includes dating techniques that provide a sequence of “older” and “younger” rather than calendar dates. Examples include stratigraphy and seriation.

• A similar method to stratigraphy but is based on the popularity of certain artifact styles over time.
• Each artifact style has a period of low frequency, to high frequency, and then low frequency again.
• The beginning and end points of these popularity curves help put artifacts in chronological order.

• The remote town where Inca rulers led the resistance against the Spanish colonization.
• Bingham initially misidentified Machu Picchu as Vilcambamba due to his belief that its ruins would be much grander than anything in the archaeological record.
• Bingham’s interpretation shifted more and more as academia proved (by referring to colonial records stating that Vilcabamba is clearly to the south of Cuzco) that the site he had discovered could not be Vilcabamba.

• Highly contentious supposed 15th century map of the Norse exploration of North America.
• Authenticity questioned / denied due to following reasons:
• chemical composition of the ink used doesn’t correspond with medieval ink,
• the Latin form of Leif Erikkson’s name is used which is 17th century tradition,
• there is no provenance for the map which means it can never be authenticated

• Chacoans’ traded with the other mesoamerican societies in the greater region. They imported cacao and macaw feathers in exchange for turquoise.
• Theobromine, the chemical marker for cacao, is detected in the majority of the vessels.
• Most local and non-local vessels from unit-pueblo sites contained cacao traces. Done using mass spectrometry.
• Elite vessels identified by their shape are examined in detail and contain theobromine.

• Examined prehistoric drug trade of cacao in Mesoamerica and propose the existence of extensive trade and interaction among the people of the American Southwest and Mesoamerica.
• Detect presence of theobromine, the biomarker of cacao, in 50 out of 75 vessels used by the Anasazi, including not only elite vessels, but local vessels as well.
• The importance of this is to determine the extent to which Mesoamerican influence played a role in the development of Southwestern cultural traditions.

• There are many depictions of hybrid creatures (people and cats, reptile people, reptile cats, bird cats, human jaguars etc.) in San Lorenzo.
• Matthew Sterling, the archaeologist working in the 30s and 40s, was the first to realize that Olmec stuff was substantially widespread and that it was likely to have been the first complex society in Mesoamerica. Since human and feline combinations were so common, he invented an Olmec myth in which a jaguar copulated with an Olmec female and produced “were-jaguars”. “Seems like that position might not work well.” Jaguar eating a monkey rather than copulating with a woman. “Tells us more about Sterling than it does about Olmecs, in my opinion.”
• There’s a lot of Mesoamerican art that shows the transformation of humans into animal spirits under the influence of psychoactive substances. Such an interpretation is more likely.

• The inscription purports to be a record left behind by Scandinavian explorers in the 14th century.
• Scholarly consensus has identified this runestone to be a hoax.
• Scott Wolter: Claims that the geological weathering, microscopic analysis, historical, epigraphic and linguistic analysis of the runestone proves it to be authentic. This implies that Europeans were a major component of Native American people, which is being manipulated by far-right discourse to claim ownership of culture and land.

• One of the first “modern” archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct history.
• His most famous work is in the Sumerian site Ur, the first museum Ennigaldi Nanna
• During WW2, he became a part of the “Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program” of the Allies, responsible for protecting cultural monuments during the war. They found and returned important artifacts stolen by the Nazis or hidden for safekeeping.

• Convention for the protection of cultural property during armed conflicts
• Broadly, the Hague Convention requires that States Parties adopt protection measures during peacetime for the safeguarding of cultural property. Such measures include the preparation of inventories, preparation for the removal of movable cultural property and the designation of competent authorities responsible for the safeguarding of cultural property.
• The Convention also requires the establishment of special units within national military forces, to be charged with responsibility for the protection of cultural property.
• An important example is the Gulf War, where cultural properties were protected by a special division of the military and no target zones were established.

• In 1978, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco became the owner of a number of murals from the world-famous Aztec site of Teotihuacán (Mexico) through the donation from a rich collector.
• The Mexican Government failed in its attempts to obtain the return of these wall paintings through a court action in the United States.
• Nevertheless, representatives of the Fine Arts Museums met with representatives of the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History to negotiate a solution for the conservation and restitution of the murals.
• A joint custody agreement was reached in 1984, through which about 80% of the murals were returned to Mexico.

• Mexico’s most famous archaeological site.
• Mayan
• 800-850 to 1050 1100 AD

• Most famous section of Chichen Itza.
• Sinkhole that happens when there is a limestone crust that weakens and falls in, creating a big hole.
• The ancient occupants of Chichen Itza threw stuff into the Cenote as past of their ritual interaction with the rain gods and spirits that lived beneath the sinkhole.
• The sacred Cenote continued to be a part of the ceremonial culture and pilgrimage even after the governmental structure of Chichen Itza disintegrated.
• Many interesting things have been found in Cenote, suggesting that it was an important site for the people (not only of Chichen Itza) as a focus of pilgrimage.
• Gold, wooden carvings (with Maya blue, a difficult kind of color to produce. A particularly rare kind of clay with Indigo was combined to achieve the color. Used all over Mesoamerica for mural painting, pottery decoration. The working out of the production of Maya blue took a substantial amount of time.) These artifacts ended up at Peabody Museum at Harvard due to Edward Thompson.
• Recently, the Peabody Museum at Harvard has returned a significant portion of the artifacts acquired from the Cenote back to the descendant communities and the Mexican government.

• Wanted to devote most of his life to researching the Maya, but was not economically well-off.
• Convinced his wealthy acquaintances to be appointed in Mexico.
• He bought the area that had almost all of the archaeological artifacts associated with the Cenote.
• For him, this meant that he also owned all of the antiquities present on the area that he bought. However, the government of Mexico claimed those things for the benefit of the Mexican people. Although this dispute continued, Thompson turned into dredging, taking the artifacts and sending them to Peabody museum.

• “Ancestor History” run as a personal project of Reichsfuhrer-SS and Chief of Police Heinrich Himmler and funded by interested Germans to search, excavate and restore real and imagined Germanic cultural relics.
• SS archaeologists were sent out in the wake of invading German forces to track down important archaeological finds and antiquities to be transported back to the Reich.

• In the 1980 excavations, the idea of Clark that the area was a small settlement was refuted and it was proven that Star Carr was in fact a relatively large settlement.
• While Clark’s interpretation was that the site was a hunting camp, the 1980 excavations focused more on the cultural aspects of the people of Star Carr, making interpretations regarding ceremonies and rituals.
• Clark thought the accumulations of wood were artificial constructions such as platforms. In the 1980s and later on the 2000s, the archaeological community came to the conclusion that these were naturally accumulated woods. (As there were no posts and there was virtually no evidence that the wood had been worked. There was, however, one area in which worked wood and linear posts were found.)

• Processualists: putting Chaco in a geographical context. The systematic relations of the Chaco canyon to the surrounding terrain. Inferences about ecology on one hand and social and economic relations on the other.
• Post-processualists: belief systems, symbols

• Processualists: putting Chaco in a geographical context. The systematic relations of the Chaco canyon to the surrounding terrain. Inferences about ecology on one hand and social and economic relations on the other.
• Post-processualists: belief systems, symbols

• Kulturkreis (1920s): The identification of ethnic regions on the basis of excavated material culture. Whenever an artifact categorized as “Germanic” was found, that area was declared to be German. Through this, German claim to territories (Poland, Czechoslovakia) was justified.
• Archaeologists who refused to take part in Kulturkreis or condone / take part in research tailored to the Nazi ideology were persecuted.

• The Past as Propaganda
• Ahnenerbe, Himmler, Kulturkreis

Kensington Runestone is fake

As anthropologists, we should already know part of the answer. They usually do not share the same cultural experiences as archaeologists. Probably more important, while archaeological authority stems from application of scientific method to questions about the past, its conclusions are limited, made from within the very definite strictures imposed by seeing a culture primarily through its remnant material culture. A community's purposes are usually very different from those of archaeology, and frankly, a community probably has more at stake, as Michlovic (1990) pointed out. Their economy, self-image, and even their cultural identity can be at risk. Is an archaeologist's need for validity more important than a community's need for truth? I doubt it.

Stewardship, accountability, public outreach,