ANT 304 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Taphonomy
Document Summary
Artifacts - objects used, modified or made by people. A single artifact can be analyzed in many ways and tell us a lot about a culture. Ecofacts - study of organic and environmental remains. Human skeletons, animal bones, and plant remains. Indicate what people ate or environmental conditions they lived in. Matrix - material surrounding it, like sediment, gravel or clay. Provenience - horizontal and vertical position within the matrix. Association - occurrence together with other archaeological remains, usually in the same matrix. Formation processes - processes affecting the way in which archaeological materials came to be buried and their history. Cultural formation processes - involve deliberate or accidental activities of human beings as they make or use artifacts and such. Natural formation processes - natural events that govern both the vural and the survival of the archaeological record. Those that reflect the original human behavior and activity before a find or site became buried.
