Archaeo 2 Midyear 2017 [Notes]
Midterms Part 1 Intro to Archaeology
I
POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY VS.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCPLINE
ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE:
the past is not a foreign land
Archaeological Heritage viewing the heritage in the
perspective of Archaeology
The past is not a foreign land - studying the past is not
only for the researchers. Its a part of who we are.
World Archaeology = study of the disconnect that
happened a long time ago [Lucy, Ice Age, etc.]
Burial jars - can be found in Catanauan
Trenches = squares that can be found in
archaeological sites
WHAT IS ARCHAEOLOGY?
Hukay ng dinosaurs? NO. Paleontology yun.
Treasure Hunting? NO.
Study of human past from material remains? YES!
Lithic Artifacts = stone tools
Microarchaeology = study of invisible remains [pollen
grains]
Geoarchaeology = study of the chemical and
geological processes na pinagdaanan ng isang site
<Pwede kasi matunaw yung remains depende sa
chemical composition ng sediments>
PREHISTORY VS HISTORY
PREHISTORY = no printed/written documentation
HISTORY = past based on documented records
Anthropology = study of humans in general
Archaeology studies prehistory and a part of history
The existence of human-like ancestor = start of
prehistory
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES
Pottery Features Structures
Human Remains Animal Remains Other Artifacts
Plant Remains Stone Tools
Cutmarks = evidence of human intervention
Lingling-O = an artifact made up of jade, clay, or
stone that is used as ornaments in South East Asia
Chevron beads = high status
Spindle whorls = used to make rope and fabrics
Postholes
= example of a feature or collective
artifact
= occurs after a post gets cut off then the
remaining part decays
christianreomales
201310372
WHY STUDY ARCHAEOLOGY?
1. Recognize achievements of our ancestors
o Stone tools absence of these = absence of knives
o Kung hindi sila bumaba sa puno , hindi bipedal
ang mga tao ngayon
2. Understand dynamics of change throughout time and
across space
o What changes occurred and how we reacted to
those changes. Are those changes happening now
also happened in the past?
3. Get to know ourselves better as a community, as a
nation, as a species
4. Provide bases for political arguments (?)
o West Philippine Sea Issue
II
BRIEF HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY
ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRACTICE
1.Prospection and Survey
o Deduction of formation process done by a
geoarchaeologist
2.Document and Excavate
o Examples of open site excavation:
Jar burials in Catanauan
Shell midden
3.Cleaning up Session and Accessioning
o Inventory
4.Analysis, Interpretation, and Reporting
EVOLUTION OF ARCHAEOLOGY
discoveries, methods, ideas
PRE-SPECULATIVE PHASE <around 6000 years ago>
- Ideas based from the bible
- What it was before = what it is now
SPECULATIVE PHASE <ca. 14th to early 19th Century>
- Nabonidus = last ruler of Kingdom of Babylon
> He was looking for evidences of the empire of
Babylon but Persia took over the capital of his
kingdom because he was not there
- During Renaissance (revival of learning in Europe;
14th to 17th centuries), many people and princes
began forming Cabinets of Curiosities where curios
and ancient artifacts were displayed with
exotic minerals and all manner of specimens
> practice = antiquarianism; people =
antiquarians
- Thomas Jefferson (1784)
> adopted a scientific approach for excavation
> dug a trench or a section across a burial
mound among hundreds of unexplained mounds
1

near the Mississippi River built by the race of
Moundbuilders
> applied the concept of Stratigraphy
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY <ca.
19th Century>
- People are now more open to scientific ideas
- Significant Achievements in Geology
> James Hutton
>> Theory of Earth (1785) The Principle of
Uniformitarianism states that stratification of
rocks was due to the processes still ongoing
> Charles Lyell
>> Principles of Geology (1833)
geologically ancient conditions are similar to
those of our time
- Three Important Concepts
1.Antiquity of Humankind
a. Jacques Boucher de Perthes (1841)
- fossils of extinct animals and stone tools
- world that existed before we know
how
- French archaeologist working on
gravel quarries of Somme River
b. John Lubbock
- Prehistoric Times (1865)
> where the word prehistory came
f r om
2.Concept of Evolution
a. Charles Darwin
- On The Origin of Species (1859)
> Natural Selection or survival of the
fittest
> established the concept of
evolution as the best explanation for
the origin and development of all
plants and animals
- The Descent of Man (1871)
> human species had emerged as
part of this same process (evolution)
3.The Three Age System
a. Colt Hoare (1808)
- started recognizing a sequence of
stone, brass, and iron artifacts within the
barrows he excavated
b. C. J. Thomsen
- A Guide to Northern Archaeology
(1859)
> collections can be divided into
those coming from a Stone Age, a
Bronze Age, and an Iron Age
christianreomales
201310372
Archaeo 2 Midyear 2017 [Notes]
Midterms Part 1 Intro to Archaeology
The Three Age Classification
1. Stone Age
2. Bronze Age
3. Iron Age
Ethnography
- Edward Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan (1870s)
> human societies had evolved from a state of
savagery (primitive hunting) through barbarism
(simple farming) to civilization (the highest form
of society)
CLASSIFICATION AND CONSOLIDATION
[Classificatory Historical Period] <ca. Late 19th
Century to early 20th Century>
- Gordon Childe (1892 - 1957)
> Assemblage [constantly recurring collection]
or Culture or Aspect
>> artifacts that belong to a certain group of
people in a certain period of time
>> certain set of materials, clothing, etc.
> Man Makes Himself (1936)
>> went on to try and answer the much more
difficult question: Why had civilization arisen in
the Near East?
Ecological Approach
- Julian Steward
> anthropologist who christened cultural
ecology
> highlighted the fact that cultures do not
interact simply with one another but with the
environment as well
- Grahame Clark
> collaboration with new kinds of specialists was
essential
> need for the alliances with other sciences
THE NEW ARCHAEOLOGY (Post World War II
Development)
- Carbon Dating
> resulted to setting aside of the Three Age
Classification
- Attempts to answer the Why did things change
Processual Archaeology [Scientific Method in
Archaeology]
- Lewis Binford (Father of Modern Archaeology)
> sought to explain rather than
simply to describe
> sought to avoid the rather vague talk
of the influences of 0one culture upon another,
but rather to analyze a culture as a system which
could be broken down into subsystems.
- Functional-Processual Archaeology
> asking for the function of a certain artifact
2

- Cognitive-Processual Archaeology
> uses processual approach
> seeks more actively to include the
consideration of symbolic and cognitive aspects
of early societies into the program of research
Post-Processual Archaeology - Anything goes
III
ARCHAEOLOGY TODAY
Archaeoastronomy - Boat burials => nakapoint
somewhere (examples: Sea or Milky Way) tapos
interpretation
SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY
- People, connections among people, exercise of
power, nature and organization
- Importance: Relationships within and outside the
community will be known
- Top-Down Approach (General to Particular)
1. Scale (Society)
2. Dominance
o Civilization of 6000? How was it related to
other groups around it? Was it autonomous?
Was it a periphery? Was it a core (central
area)? Was it a semi periphery (ex. Cebu [not
main core of the Philippines but center of
Visayas])?
3. Internal Organization
- Bottom-Up Approach
> Archaeology of Individual Identity
> Focus on a particular individual (Based sa burial:
Hari ba siya? Pesante ba siya? Working Class?
Slave?; Isang taong may fracture, pwedeng
namatay siyang hindi napagaling yun o kaya
napagaling kasi pwedeng may katungkulan siya)
ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
- What was the environment like? Is it possible to
reconstruct the environment?
- kind of materials (stone tools), sources of raw
materials (pottery, di pwedeng random na lupa lang
gamitin)
- Importance:
>How early humans used to interact with the
environment will be known
> Environment plays a crucial part in the
development of species
- Subfields
> Archaeobotany study of plant remains in
archaeological context
> Archaeozoology study of animal remains in
archaeological context
christianreomales
201310372
Archaeo 2 Midyear 2017 [Notes]
Midterms Part 1 Intro to Archaeology
> Geoarchaeology climates, isotopes
SUBSISTENCE AND DIET
- What did they eat and how did they acquire what
they are eating
- Meals = What people are eating at a particular
time (ex. Longsilog for breakfast)
- Diet = pattern of consumption over a long period of
time (ex. how often a person eats Longsilog)
- Subsistence Strategy = acquisition of food
1. Hunting and Gathering
o Practiced by nomadic people
o Use of stone tools for butchering
o Group effort
2. Foraging
o Getting whats already there
o Di ikaw yung nagcultivate or nagtanim
o Pag naubos na, hintaying magreplenish or lipat
3. Farming
o Planting tapos harvest
> Subsistence strategies do not exist on their own
> Scavenging (animals) = na-hunt na ng
ibang animals tas abang na lang
TECHNOLOGY
- How did they make and use stone tools and other
artifacts? Ano yung technology nila para magkaroon
ng pottery, jewelry?
- Approaches in Studying Technology
> Purely archaeological
> Classify where it belonged. Look at it by itself
> Scientific analysis of objects
>> applications
>> use of methods from other sciences
>> more technical study
> ethnographic
>> current practices to determine what
happened to the artifacts
>> e.g. sa Cordillera, may pottery na may marks
tapos in-observe nila yung activities ng mga tao
roon na possible magpaggawa ng markings sa
pottery
> experimental
>> i-reproduce kung ano yung nakita
>> knap way para makagawa ng stone tool
Obsidian
= formed from rapid cooling of lava; black and has a
glass-like property
= rare (due to specialized condition of formation)
kaya ginagamit lang for ritual purposes
3
 Archaeo 2 Midyear 2017 [Notes]
Midterms Part 1 Intro to Archaeology

TRADE AND CONNECTIONS 4. Population and Demographics

- cultural influences na meron ang isang community o Average age kung kalian namatay
- Indicators of Contact
1. Technology We have to ask the right questions and derive the right
2. Design means in answering them
o Originated from them or influenced (ex. Golden
Tiara [Agusan] Buddhist cultural influence in
Mindanao; Porcelain ng Europe na di naman sa
kanila originally; Blue and (in?) White design
hindi lang Chinese pero pwede ring Islamic)
3. Material
4. Genetic Makeup
o Ethnolinguistic Groups or races came in
contact with the Philippines
Obsidian
= found in Polynesia and Australia
> more or less traded kasi wala raw volcanoes
sa regions na yon
COGNITIVE ARCHAEOLOGY, ART, AND RELIGION
- How did they think? What was their cosmology?
(How the world works, Mythology)
- Subfields
> from written source to cognitive map
> symbols of organization and power
> layout of structures
> Archaeology of Religion: symbols for the other
world
> Depiction: Art and Representation
Venus of Willendorf (Austria)
= fertility symbol , aliens => hypotheses
Manunggul Jar
= burial jar found in Manunggul Cave in Palawan
> boat sa cover na may 2 taong nakasakay
(analogous sa Greek myth tungkol sa River Styx
at kay Charon)
THE BIOARCHAEOLOGY OF PEOPLE
- studies who they were and what were they like
- Aspects of Bioarchaeology
1. Physical Attributes
2. Assessing human abilities and activities
o Makapal ba yung Tibia nila = lots of walking /
bipedalism
o Squatting facets = squat a lot
3. Disease, Deformity, and Death
o Scurvy, tuberculosis (may markings sa bone),
scoliosis
King Richard III
= kuba na hari tapos hindi alam kung san siya inilibing
pero nahanap (daw) dahil sa deformity niya
4
christianreomales
201310372