Student Resources

Learning Objectives

Chapter 1

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe the beginning of modern archaeology.
2. Explain the motivations of the various people who originally explored human antiquity.
3. Show how archaeology functions as prehistory.
4. Demonstrate how archaeology is a scientific study of the ancient past.
5. Describe the major developments in human prehistory.
6. Analyze why an understanding of archaeology and world prehistory are important to society.
7. Detail the rise and modernization of American archaeology, including its ascent into scientific archaeology.
8. Review the use of anthropological theory, such as unilinear evolution, diffusionism, and ecology in scientific archaeology.
9. Show how contemporary archaeological theory is an outgrowth of the development of scientific archaeology.

Chapter 2

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Show how archaeology is a systematic study of the human past; of behavior, technology, and every other aspect of human culture.
2. Describe how archaeology is an integral part of anthropology, with archaeologists studying past societies from all time periods.
3. Chart the various types of archaeologists from Classical to underwater, to cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists.
4. Explain how the looting, industrial development, and tourism are eliminating much of the data available to archaeologists through site destruction.
5. Analyze various world view's and perceptions of history by different societies versus the archaeologist's view of the past.
6. Assess world prehistory as practiced by archaeologists especially their concern with human origins, the emergence and spread of modern humans, the origins of food production, and early civilization.

Chapter 3

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Discover why archaeologists are concerned with the study of ancient cultures and societies.
2. Define the concept of culture, explain its importance to the development of society, and its ability to aid in survival.
3. Compare and contrast the various views of culture that archaeologists hold.
4. Describe the debates about culture surrounding issues of cultural and social change through time.
5. Chart the four basic goals of archaeology: construction of culture history, the reconstruction of ancient lifeways, the explanation of cultural and social change, and the conservation of the archaeological record.
6. Explain the components of the archaeological record related to the various types of finds that archaeologists make.

Chapter 4

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explain the concept of culture history and its development by the discipline of archaeology.
2. Detail the various methods models used by culture historians to characterize culture change; these include inevitable variation, invention, diffusion, and migration.
3. Demonstrate how processual approaches to archaeology are deductive research. Further explain how the processual approach is related to systems-ecological approaches.
4. Show why many archaeologists have reacted against materialist processual approaches and have focused on the entire spectrum of human behavior.
5. Describe the field of historical materialst (postprocessual) archaeology and how it emphasizes the importance of individuals and groups in cultural change.
6. Relate the development of cognitive archaeology to processual archaeology.
7. Explain why archaeologists tend to use a range of theoretical backgrounds in their attempts to understand the past.
8. Examine the various disciplines necessary to develop a general theoretical framework for archaeology.

Chapter 5

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explain the use of the concept of space in archaeolgy.
2. Correlate the law of association with the concept of space in archaeology.
3. Define the terms assemblage and subassemblage and show how they relate to archaeology.
4. Differentiate between linear and cyclical time.
5. Correlate the law of superposition to the concept of relative chronology.
6. Chart the various forms of relative chronology in archaeology.
7. Demonstrate the applications of the various forms of relative chronology in archaeology.
8. Apply concepts of absolute chronology to archaeology and specifically demonstrate the usage of tree-ring dating, also known as dendrochronology.
9. Relate the multiple methods of chronometric dating to archaeology.
10. Explain the various types of chronometric dating in archaeology.
11. Apply the proper type of chronometric dating in archaeology to the proper materials found by archaeologists.

Chapter 6

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe the process of fieldwork including the finding, assessing, and excavating of archaeological sites.
2. Explain the role of accidental discovery in the archaeological process.
3. Detail the methodology used to survey and locate archaeological sites.
4. Apply knowledge of the research designs, remote-sensing techniques, and pedestrian survey to site location.
5. Show the relationship between formal statistical sampling methods and the ability to make generalizations about site distributions.
6. Show how computer aided mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow researchers to manipulate large amounts of data during complex analyses of of ancient settlement patterns.
7. Demonstrate the various site assessment techniques, including sophisticated electronic means.

Chapter 7

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explain the importance of the research design to archaeological research and how it helps to maximize information with minimal disturbance of the finite archaeological record.
2. Explain the process of acquisition of data in the field and processing and analysis of data through the laboratory.
3. Demonstrate that publication is the culmination of the entire research process including the use of anthropological and historical models.
4. Analyze the various forms of excavation used by archaeologists and excavation's correlation to context.
5. Correlate stratigraphic recording to the principle of superposition.
6. Distinguish between human and natural-caused disturbances to archaeological sites.
7. Review the types of excavation in reference to the specific excavation environment.
8. Discuss the need for reburial and repatriation of skeletal materials in the United States.

Chapter 8

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Show how the use of formal classification systems allows archaeologists to organize data into manageable units.
2. Demonstrate the use of types by archaeologists so as to allow archaeologist to study assemblage variability in the archaeological record.
3. Examine how archaeologists develop typologies in order to permit comparisons from different levels and sites.
4. Demonstrate the combination of artifact features that distinguish various types.
5. Explain the usage of statistical methodology in manipulating attribute clusters, and permit researchers to discern patterns that relate to past human behavior.
6. Differentiate between the archaeological units: components, phases (cultures), horizons, and traditions.
7. Describe the various ancient technologies which included the usage of wood, stone, metal, and bone as the primary materials.

Chapter 9

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Demonstrate that the archaeological record is static. Examine the various site formation processes, such as human activity, animal activity, soil chemistry, floods, volcanic events, etc., that alter the archaeological record.
2. Explain the two major types of site formation processes: cultural and noncultural.
3. Discuss the level of preservation found in a particular site and generally the processes that control it. Describe the operation of the various preservation conditions such as cold, dry conditions, waterlogging, and volcanic eruption.
4. Review the agents of deterioration such as water, wind, sunlight, and earth movement.
5. Analyze the use of middle-range theory and its application to any period, anywhere in the world.

6. Examine the use of ethnographic analogy and experimental archaeology to construct relationships between behavior and material remains.

Chapter 10

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explain why the study of long- and short-term climatic and environmental change is of vital importance to archaeologists concerned with human societies' changing relationships with their surroundings.
2. Chart the various methods, such as deep-sea cores, ice core drilling, isotope sampling, etc., used for describing climatic and environmental changes.
3. Analyze the Pleistocene and its effects on human societies.
4. Detail the climate changes during our own recent past, the Holocene.
5. Describe the flooding of the Black Sea and the conditions that led the Mediterranean Sea to burst through the Bosporus Levee.
6. Interpret climate information on past El Niños and drought on the rise and fall of human societies.
7. Review the contributions to archaeology of the discipline of geoarchaeology in its multidisciplinary approach to the study of human adaptation to the environment.

Chapter 11

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Review the archaeological evidence for subsistence; artifacts and food remains, including animal bones.
2. Explain the difficulties involved in reconstructing entire diets. Describe the efforts necessary to reconstruct ancient diets using information available such as corpses, human feces, and stable carbon isotope analysis.
3. Correlate the terms Number of Identified Specimens (NISP), Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) and minimum numbers of species to the field of zooarchaeology and studies of ancient diets.
4. Show the relationship between zooarchaeological studies and information on hunting preferences, seasonal occupation camps, and on early domesticated animals and animal husbandry.
5. Describe the methods used to study wild and domesticated plant remains; including flotation and AMS radio-carbon dating.
6. Explain why archaeologists think that bird, fish, and shellfish remains are good sources on seasonal occupation and intensive foraging.

Chapter 12

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Show how the study of environment, economic practices, and technological skills can help determine settlement patterns.
2. Correlate the study of settlement patterns in archaeology with human interactions with, and adaptations to, the natural and social environment.
3. Describe the three basic levels of human settlement: the single building, the arrangement of such buildings in the community, and the distribution of such communities against the landscape.
4. Explain how archaeologists study the relationships between hierarchies of different sites located in ancient landscapes, using both site catchment analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
5. Review the ability of archaeologists to determine intangibles such as sacred landscapes.

Chapter 13

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explore the essential qualities of someone seeking to become an archaeologist.
2. Discover the wide range of possible career opportunities in the field of archaeology.
3. Examine the levels of college and university education to obtain various jobs in the discipline of archaeology.
4. Explain why artifact collecting is so damaging to the understanding of the past.
5. Discuss the value of attending a field school so as to gain excavation experience.
6. Relate the possibilities of not becoming an archaeologist, but rather becoming an informed layman contributing time and skills to the overall research process.
7. Detail the ethical concerns of the discipline of archaeology and their focus on protecting the past.

Chapter 14

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explain the rationale for the various legislative acts passed in the United States to control cultural resources.
2. Distinguish between archaeological resources that are and are not protected.
3. Evaluate the process of identifying, assessing, and managing archaeological resources.
4. Differentiate between cultural resource management and the problem-oriented research of academic archaeology.
5. Detail the strategies of cultural resource management.
6. Examine the management challenges facing cultural resource management.
7. Relate the interrelationship between Native Americans and the concerns over cultural resource management in the United States.