Introduction to Archaeology

Anthro 304 / ARY 301 Spring 1997
Prof. Samuel M. Wilson
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas

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Course homepage

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Glossary Project

In this project we will begin a glossary of terms and concepts used in archaeology. There are a few others on the web, including SMU's Glossary of Archaeological Terms, and ArchNet's Glossary of Ceramic Attributes. We have the chance to add to this by building a glossary that includes more complete discussions of terms and concepts relating to history and theory in archaeology, along with examples and citations.

The assignment.

Each team must come up with glossary entries for 15 terms. Ten of them I will give you, and you must come up with 5 more yourselves. For each Glossary entry you should have 1) a few sentences of description, 2) some context -- for instance when this occurred in history, 3) an example, something from either book or from the web a reference for this, and 4) a citation to a work that gives a good example or is relevant (for example Gordon Willey's work in the Virú valley is relevant to "Settlement Patterns."

Good illustrations, if they are helpful in understanding a concept, are definitely a plus.

In selecting the 5 terms your team will contribute, please focus on the course readings up to the first exam. There may be some overlap with terms selected by the three teams, and we'll sort that out.

Teams:

Blue: Joe, Pat, Sara, Sally, Ted
Red: Annie, Bill, Matthew, Jenny, Will
Green: Sasha, Wellington, Rocco, Carlos, Carolyn

Other Resources

SMU's Glossary of Archaeological Terms

Glossary of Ceramic Attributes

The Cambridge encyclopedia of archaeology. New York 1980, and later editions. CC 165 C3 1980B PCL Reference Dept

The Oxford companion to archaeology. New York 1996 CC 70 O96 1996 PCL Reference Dept.

Texts and other archaeology manuals in the PCL at approximately CC 75

Terms

1. ascribed status
2. achieved status
3. assemblages
4. central place theory*
5. chiefdom*
6. complex society
7. context
8. cultural anthropology
9. cultural evolution
10. culture history
11. culture areas
12. diachronic
13. Diffusion and Diffusionist explanations
14. domestication
15. ethnoarchaeology
16. food production
17. Geochronological grid
18. Historical archaeology
19. lifeways
20. Middle Range Theory
21. multidisciplinary research
22. multivariate explanation
23. New Archaeology
24. particularism
25. peer polity interaction*
26. problem orientation
27. reciprocity*
28. redistribution*
29. sedentism
30. settlement survey
31. site-catchment analysis
32. social stratification
33. stratigraphy
34. synchronic
35. Uniformitarianism
36. world system*

* = skip these for now