1 / 16

Week of 2-6 – 2-10-06

Week of 2-6 – 2-10-06. Culture History: Construction of Regional chronological sequences sequences in the absence of Writing Constructing Time from the analysis of space and form Stratigraphy Seriation Taking results of both types of analysis and creating Time-Space Charts.

keola
Download Presentation

Week of 2-6 – 2-10-06

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Week of 2-6 – 2-10-06 Culture History: Construction of Regional chronological sequences sequences in the absence of Writing Constructing Time from the analysis of space and form Stratigraphy Seriation Taking results of both types of analysis and creating Time-Space Charts

  2. STRATIGRAPHY • Definition: the interpretation of the sequence of strata. • Based on the stratification ( strata of depositional units) • Stratum: a coherent layer or depositional unit • Law of superposition: Geological principle established in the 16th C. • In an undisturbed rock and soil column, the old remains are lower and the more recent on top

  3. Examples of Stratigraphy Geological strata

  4. Application of the Law of Superposition to Archaeology Required knowledge of origin (geological processes) of natural units Cultural materials in those natural strata How cultural material sorted by natural layers Example: Nels Nelson’s work in the Galisteo Basin

  5. Archaeological SERIATION • A wholly archaeological method that operates on styles of artifact • Artifact style ( culture history definition): attributes of a type of artifact ( ceramics or projectile points or building morphology) that is influenced by time. To Culture historians: Such artifacts were called ‘temporal types’ Two requirements to construct a seriation 1.artifact location ( within a single site or several sites) 2.one kind of artifact ( typically you need large samples

  6. sites Types A B C 1 2 3 The how of seriation Define stylistic artifact units Count the number of artifacts by location Put into a seriation Matrix rows = locations columns = types Seriation Matrix

  7. How to make rows and columns into a seriation?(Or what constitutes a successful seriation) • Rearrange rows so that all columns are continuous ( There can be no breaks in the presence of a type once it appears) • If working with percentages, the shape of a type curve must be “unimodal” [BATTLESHIP SHAPE]

  8. Examples of Successful Seriations

  9. How does a seriation tell us time: • If you have successfully ordered a series of sites or locations in one site (and you have some independent way of knowing time, you know • that urn and willow is younger than both cherubs and deaths heads

  10. When there are no calendrical dates to help you out: 1. Use stratigraphy– in this example, we know from stratigraphy that site 1 is oldest and site 5 is most recent. We also know that Type C is younger than bothB and A.

  11. Time Space Chart- Germany

  12. Time-Space Charts

  13. Southwest Chronology

  14. Assumptions and Method of Time-Space Construction • Artifacts = culture, i.e., “archaeological culture”. • Similar assemblages of artifacts within a region meant same time and same people. Boxes on T-S charts = same culture • Change occur between boxes • How change between boxes occurred • Diffusion of ideas, people or independent invention • Radical change caused by invasion or what culture historians described as “ site unit intrusion • Within regions, cultures became more complex through time

  15. Comparison Sites Traits a b c d e 1 x x x 2 x x x x 3 x x x x x 4 x x x 5 x x x x 6 x x x x x 7 x x x x x Temporal Order 3-6-7 2 -5 1-4 Construction of Time Space Charts

  16. STRUCTURE OF CULTURE HISTORY • Methodologically skilled. They knew how to extract time from space and form. And their sequences have lasted more than 100 years • CH was largely empirical. They built chronologies from the ground up. • Viewed themselves as scientists. They were doing science • Science has two major ways of drawing conclusions • INDUCTION: Conclusions are greater than premises • DEDUCTION: Conclusions are subsumed within premises. • WERE CH INDUCTIVE OR DEDUCTIVE?

More Related