Anthropology 2229F/G Study Guide - Final Guide: North American Land Mammal Age, Natural Disaster, Shanidar Cave

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 2229F/G
• Professor: Peter Timmins

Document Summary

Middle level theory in archaeology: taphonomy, experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology. Everything covered from now on will be middle level theory. Middle level theory links archaeological evidence to the human behaviour that produced it. Ethnoarchaeology - the study of contemporary peoples to determine how human behaviour contributed to the formation of the archaeological record. E. g. was it a sweat lodge that formed that feature. Experimental archaeology: experiments designed to determine the archaeological correlates of ancient behaviour. E. g. recreate stone tools or pots and try to understand things about them like how they break, acquire residue, longevity etc. Experimental studies that help us understand more about the artifact and the people who used it. We make inferences from artifacts and attribute meaning to them. Archaeologists must be students of human behaviour and the natural world. Most archaeological interpretations involve making a correlation between the archaeological data and some aspect of human behaviour or some natural process that could have produced the observed remains.