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Archaeological Research

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Archaeologist as collector. Focus on things. Archaeologist as anthropologist. Focus on what ... Wide range of potential questions about what people did in ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Archaeological Research


1
Archaeological Research
  • What do we want to know?

2
False Impressions
  • Archaeology as treasure hunt
  • Archaeologist as collector
  • Focus on things
  • Archaeologist as anthropologist
  • Focus on what things tell us about people
  • Wide range of potential questions about what
    people did in the past based on the physical
    remains they left behind

3
Archaeology is Research Driven
  • Must have a question in mind before you start
    digging up stuff
  • Research Design
  • RD determines where one looks, how one excavates,
    what types of analysis etc.
  • plan of attack
  • No plan survives first contact with the enemy
  • Planning with flexibility
  • Questions Data Methodology Analysis
    Interpretation Publication

4
Example Tomb of Tutankhamen
  • 1917, Howard Carter sets out to find unlooted
    tomb
  • Knew name (king lists) date (New Kingdom, 14th
    cent. B.C.) probable region (Valley of Kings)
  • Ruled out areas of VoK already investigated,
    conducted systematic excavation of remainder
  • Five year project finds tomb in 1921 aided by
    clearly defined research design

5
Tomb Interior
6
Basic, Low-Order Questions
  • Where are archaeological sites located?
  • Most basic landscape studies survey
  • What kinds of archaeological sites are present?
  • What ranges of behavior are represented?
  • What lifestyles were practiced?
  • What are the ages of sites present?
  • Can be very difficult question to answer
  • Baseline Data

7
Example Willey and the Virú Valley
  • 1946 Gordon Willey undertakes extensive survey
    of Virú Valley, N. Peru
  • First major regional survey in Americas
  • Previous focus on individual urban sites
  • First to look at all types of sites over entire
    landscape
  • Research questions for survey
  • How did different kinds of sites relate to
    landscape features and available resources?
  • What were relationships between sites?
  • Significance first to look not at collections of
    things at single places, but at the activities
    and relationships between people over large areas
    in relation to their environment
  • Pioneered Settlement Pattern Analysis

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9
Middle-Order Questions
  • Food Diet
  • What people ate related to how they lived
  • Technology
  • Tools tell us about the activities they were used
    for
  • Trade and Exchange
  • How did people acquire resources?
  • Health and Mortality
  • How people died tells you what their lives were
    like
  • Materialist Data-relatively easy to study based
    on material remains

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Highest Order Questions
  • Social Organization
  • How did people relate to one another?
  • Gender, rank
  • Ritual and Religion?
  • How did beliefs relate to activities?
  • Art
  • What were ancient aesthetics? What did ancient
    art mean?
  • Idealist Data-hardest to study objectively

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