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Revealing^® Archaeology

Version 3.4

Copyright © 2001-2011 Thinking Strings, LLC

Table of Contents

Humanity's Imprint

The Presence of the Past

• Goals: Presence of the Past
• Our Imprint & the Record
• Archaeologists
• Material Culture
• The Patterned Record
• Archaeological Preservation
• The Record is Contemporary
• A Non-Renewable Resource
• A Fragile Record
• Summary: Presence of the Past
• Try It: Presence of the Past

What is Archaeology?

• Goals: What is Archaeology?
• Imagination & Questions
• Observations & Questions
• Message, Codes, & Patterns
• Archaeological Data
• Research Design
• Archaeology's Challenge
• Archaeological Translation
• Theory & Interpretation
• What Archaeology Isn't
• Summary: What is Archaeology?
• Try It: What is Archaeology?

Archaeology's Goals

• Goals: Archaeology's Goals
• Defining Archaeology
• Archaeology & History
• Archaeology's Agenda
• Reconstruct Culture History
• Reconstruct Past Lifeways
• Archaeological Explanation
• Scales of Explanation
• Questions & Answers
• The Search for Meaning
• Summary: Archaeology's Goals
• Try It: Archaeology's Goalsf

Archaeology's Earliest History

• Goals: Archaeology's Earliest History
• Origins of Archaeology
• Archaeology's Roots
• Archaism
• Speculative Antiquarianism
• Ancient Archaeology?
• Medieval Times & the Past
• The Renaissance & the Past
• Summary: Earliest History
• Try It: Archaeology's Earliest History

Archaeology Emerges

• Goals: Archaeology Emerges
• Antiquity & the Enlightenment
• Diverse Speculation
• Artifacts & Human Antiquity
• America's First Archaeologist
• Expansion & Exposure
• Archaeologists & Antiquaries
• Establishing Human Antiquity
• Discovering Early Civilizations
• Summary: Archaeology Emerges
• Try It: Archaeology Emerges

Empires & Archaeology

• Goals: Empires & Archaeology
• Lubbock's Cultural Evolution
• Cultural Stages
• Misguided Evolution
• 19th Century Expansion
• The Moundbuilder Myth
• Demise of the Moundbuilders
• Ethnocentrism at Great Zimbabwe
• Summary: Empires & Archaeology
• Try It: Empires & Archaeology

Contemporary Archaeology

• Goals: Contemporary Archaeology
• Classification & Culture History
• Ecological Approaches
• Archaeology as Anthropology
• New Archeology
• Middle-Range Theory
• Historical Archaeology
• Interpretive Archaeologies
• A Diverse Future
• Summary: Contemporary Archaeology
• Try It: Contemporary Archaeology

Leaving a Trail

The Archaeological Record

• Goals: The Archaeological Record
• Leaving a Patterned Trail
• Artifacts
• Ecofacts
• Features
• Structures
• Sites
• Summary: The Archaeological Record
• Try It: The Archaeological Record

Context & Variability

• Goals: Context & Variability
• The Importance of Context
• Provenience
• Matrix
• Association
• Archaeological Variability
• Preservation Variability
• Variability of Scale
• Summary: Context & Variability
• Try It: Context & Variability

Cultural Deposition

• Goals: Cultural Deposition
• Cultural Deposition Processes
• Loss
• Discard
• Abandonment
• Burial
• Storage & Caching
• The Record Accumulates
• C-Transforms & N-Transforms
• Summary: Cultural Deposition
• Try It: Cultural Deposition

Cultural Modification

• Goals: Cultural Modification
• The Past Transformed
• Uniformitarian Reasoning
• Formation & Transformation
• A Complex Cultural Record
• Recycling
• Maintenance & Reuse
• Trampling
• Summary: Cultural Modification
• Try It: Cultural Modification

Natural Transformation

• Goals: Natural Transformation
• Dynamic Landscapes & Environments
• Natural Transformations
• Weathering
• Deposition, Erosion, & Deflation
• Soil Genesis, Paleosols & Buried Soils
• The Time Factor
• Cryoturbation & Pedoturbation
• Taphonomy
• The Future of the Past
• Summary: Natural Transformation
• Try It: Natural Transformation

Preservation Environments

• Goals: Preservation Environments
• Artifact Materials
• Cycles of Change
• Spectacular Rarities
• Organic Preservation
• Wet Environments
• Dry Environments
• Cold Environments
• Natural Disasters
• Summary: Preservation Environments
• Try It: Preservation Environments

Tracking Down Time

Geologic Time

• Goals: Geologic Time
• What is Geologic Time?
• Religion & Geology
• Modern Historic Geology
• Geologic Nomenclature
• Humanity's Imprint in Geologic Time
• The Geologic Time Scale
• Hominids & Archaeology
• Summary: Geologic Time
• Try It: Geologic Time

Thinking & Talking About Time

• Goals: Thinking About Time
• Thinking About Time
• Talking About Time
• What is Time?
• The Human Time Scale
• Ordering Time
• Cyclical Time
• Serial Time
• Perceiving Time
• Temporal Scales
• Summary: Thinking About Time
• Try It: Thinking About Time

Temporal Sequences

• Goals: Temporal Sequences
• Anthropology's Time Dimension
• Time & Sequence
• The Fog
• The Flat Past
• Unflattening the Past
• The Three-Age System
• Temporal Models
• Making Time Tangible
• Relative Chronology
• Summary: Temporal Sequences
• Try It: Temporal Sequences

Stratigraphy & Sequence

• Goals: Stratigraphy & Sequence
• Sedimentary Signatures
• Deposition of Sediments
• Sedimentary Sequences
• Strata & Profiles
• Stratigraphy
• Superposition
• Original Horizontality
• Lateral Continuity
• Summary: Stratigraphy
• Try It: Stratigraphy & Sequence

Stratigraphic Correlation

• Goals: Stratigraphic Correlation
• Regional Stratigraphic Correlation
• Correlating Stratigraphic Sequences
• Correlation Limitations
• Summary: Stratigraphic Correlation
• Try It: Stratigraphic Correlation

Biostratigraphy & Index Fossils

• Goals: Biostratigraphy
• The Biostratigraphic Alternative
• Fossils & Natural Historians
• William Smith
• Correlating Discontinuous Strata
• Cuvier & Brongniart
• Index Fossils
• Evolution & Biostratigraphy
• The Coelacanth
• Biostratigraphic Correlation
• Summary: Biostratigraphy
• Try It: Biostratigraphy

Seriation & Sequence

• Goals: Seriation & Sequence
• Sequencing Change
• Seriation
• Seriation & Style
• The Battleship Curve
• Kinds of Seriation
• Sir Flinders Petrie
• Nels Nelson
• Relative Frequency & Change
• Seriation & Gravestones
• Summary: Seriation & Sequence
• Try It: Seriation & Sequence

Charting Time

Scales of Time

• Goals: Scales of Time
• Pinning Down the Sequences
• Linear Time
• Temporal Flexibility
• Archaeological Time Scales
• Tempo
• Absolute Time
• Association & Context
• Summary: Scales of Time
• Try It: Scales of Time

Radioactivity & Time

• Goals: Radioactivity & Time
• Chronometry & Archaeology
• Radioactive Clocks
• Radiometric Dating
• Radiometric Dating Tools
• Half-Life
• Summary: Radioactivity & Time
• Try It: Radioactivity & Time

Radiocarbon Dating

• Goals: Radiocarbon Dating
• Discovering Radiocarbon
• Radiocarbon's Instability
• Radiocarbon's Origin
• Distributing Radiocarbon
• The Radiocarbon Clock
• Calculating 14C Ages
• Radiocarbon Samples
• Beta Counting
• AMS Counting
• Summary: Radiocarbon Dating
• Try It: Radiocarbon Dating

Tree-Rings & Calibration

• Goals: Tree-Rings & Calibration
• Dendrochronology & Climate
• Tree-Rings
• Dendrochronology & Archaeology
• Tree-Ring Variability
• Dendrochronology & Radiocarbon
• Early Problems with Radiocarbon
• Calibrating Radiocarbon Dates
• Summary: Tree-Rings & Calibration
• Try It: Tree-Rings & Calibration

Radiopotassium Dating

• Goals: Radiopotassium Dating
• Radiopotassium Decay
• Using Radiopotassium
• Radiopotassium Samples
• Dating with Radiopotassium
• Argon-40/Argon-39 Dating
• Summary: Radiopotassium Dating
• Try It: Radiopotassium Dating

Fission Track Dating

• Goals: Fission Track Dating
• Fission Tracks
• Uranium-238
• Uranium in Glass
• Counting Fission Tracks
• Fission Track Dating Olduvai Gorge
• Summary: Fission Track Dating
• Try It: Fission Track Dating

Obsidian Hydration Dating

• Goals: Obsidian Hydration
• Creating Obsidian Surfaces
• Obsidian Hydration
• Hydration Rinds
• Obsidian Hydration Ages
• An Archaeological Example
• Summary: Obsidian Hydration
• Try It: Obsidian Hydration

Luminescence Dating

• Goals: Luminescence Dating
• Luminescence: Trapped Electrons
• Electron Traps
• The Luminescence Clock
• Luminescence Techniques
• Luminescence Time Range
• TL Dating
• ESR Dating
• OSL Dating
• Summary: Luminescence Dating
• Try It: Luminescence Dating

Magnetic Dating

• Goals: Magnetic Dating
• Magnetic Dating Methods
• Measuring Magnetism
• Paleomagnetism
• Archaeomagnetism
• Summary: Magnetic Dating
• Try It: Magnetic Dating

Following the Trail

Designing Fieldwork

• Goals: Designing Fieldwork
• Field, Research Design, Fieldwork
• Responsibilities
• Fieldwork Scale
• Sampling
• Budgets & Funding
• Summary: Designing Fieldwork
• Try It: Designing Fieldwork

Locating Our Imprint

• Goals: Locating Our Imprint
• Finding the Record
• Exposing Our Imprint
• Documentary Sources
• Accidental Discovery
• Interviews
• Searching Systematically
• Summary: Locating Our Imprint
• Try It: Locating Our Imprint

Regional Survey

• Goals: Regional Survey
• Why Do We Survey?
• Planning, Sampling, Preparing
• Visibility & Remote Sensing
• Systematic Regional Survey
• Site Distributions
• Rank/Size Distributions
• Summary: Regional Survey
• Try It: Regional Survey

Excavation Principles

• Goals: Excavation Principles
• Planning to Dig
• Site Maps
• Site Assessment
• Matrix, Provenience, Association
• Excavation Units
• Plotting Precision & Accuracy
• Database Management
• Summary: Excavation Principles
• Try It: Excavation Principles

Digging a Site

• Goals: Digging a Site
• At An Excavation
• Making Baulks & Taking Samples
• Fieldwork Surprises
• The Field Lab
• Screening
• Flotation
• Customized Recovery
• Illustrating the Evidence
• Organization & Conservation
• Summary: Digging a Site
• Try It: Digging a Site

Detecting Technology

Shifting Frameworks

• Goals: Shifting Frameworks
• Time, Space, & Form
• Taxonomy & Systematics
• Artifacts, Data, & Variability
• Artifacts & Attributes
• Assemblages
• Interassemblage Variability
• Summary: Shifting Frameworks
• Try It: Shifting Frameworks

Archaeological Typology

• Goals: Typology
• Typology & Types
• Constructing Types
• Patterning & Variability
• Types, Types, & Types
• Formal Types
• Temporal Types
• Functional Types
• Summary: Typology
• Try It: Typology

Thinking About Technology

• Goals: Thinking About Technology
• Studying Stuff
• Materials
• Tools
• Techniques
• Technology, Systems, & Change
• Invention vs. Innovation
• Knowledge & Creativity
• Diffusion
• Technical Choices
• Summary: Thinking About Technology
• Try It: Thinking About Technology

The Prehistory of Technology

• Goals: Prehistory of Technology
• Monkeys & Tools
• Chimpanzees, Tools, & Learning
• The Search for Early Tools
• Choppers & Planning
• Handaxes & Cognition
• Fire: Heat & Light
• The Mousterian
• The Upper Paleolithic & Beyond
• Summary: Prehistory of Technology
• Try It: Prehistory of Technology

Studying Technology

• Goals: Studying Technology
• The Life of an Artifact
• Technological Organization
• Studying Form
• Analyzing Data
• Histograms
• Scatterplots
• Pie Charts & Contingency
• Functional Analysis
• Experimentation
• Summary: Studying Technology
• Try It: Studying Technology

Stone

• Goals: Stone
• Archaeology & Stone Tools
• Flintknapping
• Debitage
• Ground Stone Tools
• Studying Lithic Technology
• Stone Tool Morphology
• Stone Tool Function
• Refitting
• Lithics & Experimentation
• Summary: Stone
• Try It: Stone

Skeletal Materials

• Goals: Skeletal Materials
• Not Just Stone
• Early Osseous Tools
• Bone & Antler
• Shell
• Studying Osseous Artifacts
• Worked Bone & Antler Typology
• Studying Manufacture
• Function
• Summary: Skeletal Materials
• Try It: Skeletal Materials

Pottery

• Goals: Pottery
• Pottery & Its Origins
• Studying Pottery
• Clay & Temper
• Making Pottery
• Sourcing Clay
• Pottery Typology
• Pot Form & Function
• Pottery & Culture
• Summary: Pottery
• Try It: Pottery

Provisioning Society

Human Subsistence

• Goals: Human Subsistence
• Provisioning People
• Nutrition & Human Evolution
• Archaeological Accessibility
• Different Grocers
• Mobile & Sedentary Foragers
• Intensification & Domestication
• Explaining Subsistence Change
• Subsistence Variability
• Summary: Human Subsistence
• Try It: Human Subsistence

Subsistence Resources

• Goals: Subsistence Resources
• Food Resources
• Plant Resources
• Animal Resources
• Wild Foods
• Domestic Foods
• Cooking
• Seasonality
• Preservation & Storage
• Summary: Subsistence Resources
• Try It: Subsistence Resources

Studying Plant Remains

• Goals: Studying Plant Remains
• Archaeobotany
• Macrobotanical Remains
• Microbotanical Remains
• Pollen
• Phytoliths
• Comparative Collections
• Summary: Studying Plant Remains
• Try It: Studying Plant Remains

Studying Animal Remains

• Goals: Studying Animal Remains
• Zooarchaeology
• Durability & Part Abundance
• Taphonomic History
• Sampling & Counting Bones
• Age & Sex
• Scavenging, Hunting, & Sharing
• Animal Domestication
• Summary: Studying Animal Remains
• Try It: Studying Animal Remains

Other Evidence

• Goals: Other Evidence
• Human Remains
• Coprolites
• Bone Chemistry
• Subsistence Tools
• Summary: Other Evidence
• Try It: Other Evidence

Preserving the Trail

Preserving Our Imprint

• Goals: Preserving Our Imprint
• What is the Trail?
• Cultural Resources
• Who Owns the Past?
• Summary: Preserving Our Imprint
• Try It: Preserving Our Imprint

Preservation Efforts Begin

• Goals: Preservation Efforts Begin
• Antiquities Research & Preservation
• National Parks & Reservations
• As the 19th Century Ends
• Antiquities Act of 1906
• National Monuments
• Summary: Preservation Efforts Begin
• Try It: Preservation Efforts Begin

Before the Bulldozer

• Goals: Before the Bulldozer
• WPA Archaeology
• HABS
• Collection & Documentation
• Historic Sites Act of 1935
• Archaeology & Urban Expansion
• River Basin Surveys
• Highways, Reservoirs, & Pipelines
• Preservation & the New Archaeology
• Summary: Before the Bulldozer
• Try It: Before the Bulldozer

Cultural Resource Management

• Goals: CRM
• CRM
• National Historic Preservation Act
• The National Register
• The Section 106 Process
• Preservation in the 60s & 70s
• CRM & the Academy
• The Sunken Past
• Protection on Non-Federal Land
• Summary: CRM
• Try It: CRM

Organizing the Past

• Goals: Organizing the Past
• Curation & Management
• Curation Regulations
• Collections Management
• Collections-Based Research
• What Should Be Saved?
• Site Management
• Presenting the Past
• Public Education
• Summary: Organizing the Past
• Try It: Organizing the Past

Owning the Past

• Goals: Owning the Past
• Looting & Vandalism
• The Past for Private Sale
• Landowners & Guardianship
• Human Burials
• Just Compensation
• The Archaeological Conservancy
• Summary: Owning the Past
• Try It: Owning the Past

A Past Without Borders

• Goals: A Past Without Borders
• Global Culture
• Global Past at Risk
• Global Responsibility
• UNESCO & World Heritage
• World Heritage List
• Endangered World Heritage
• World Heritage Fund
• Summary: A Past Without Borders
• Try It: A Past Without Borders

Negotiating the Past

• Goals: Negotiating the Past
• Appropriating the Past
• Archaeology & Native Americans
• NAGPRA
• Repatriation
• The African Burial Ground
• Patrimony in Peril
• Understanding & Compromise
• Summary: Negotiating the Past
• Try It: Negotiating the Past

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