ASB 222 Midterm: Book #1

• School: ASU
• Department: Anthropology (Social and Behavioral)
• Course: ASB 222
• Professor: Charles Perreault

Document Summary

What types of data and evidence do archaeologists use to understand early. Historical archaeology: study of past people based on the things they left behind and the ways they left their imprint on the world. Interviews: fallible but not impossible corroborative purposes. Probate records the most useful; listings of the houses and properties of persons, taken for tax purposes at their death. Materials are studied with related sets of information; there might be contradiction between what is excavated and what is written down. Typology the classi cation of objects based on similarity of form; allow controlled comparison between collections from different sites; formal. Chronology the determination of the age of archaeological site. Stratigraphy archaeological deposits are laid down like layers of cake with the oldest deepest. Culture is an adaptive device, so to be successful, it tends to a close t with the environment, therefore, the archaeological data is most correct. Material culture is not culture but its product.