Archaeological Research

1
Archaeological Research

• What do we want to know?

2
False Impressions

• Archaeology as treasure hunt
• Archaeologist as collector
• Focus on things
• Archaeologist as anthropologist
• Focus on what things tell us about people
• Wide range of potential questions about what
  people did in the past based on the physical
  remains they left behind

3
Archaeology is Research Driven

• Must have a question in mind before you start
  digging up stuff
• Research Design
• RD determines where one looks, how one excavates,
  what types of analysis etc.
• plan of attack
• No plan survives first contact with the enemy
• Planning with flexibility
• Questions Data Methodology Analysis
  Interpretation Publication

4
Example Tomb of Tutankhamen

• 1917, Howard Carter sets out to find unlooted
  tomb
• Knew name (king lists) date (New Kingdom, 14th
  cent. B.C.) probable region (Valley of Kings)
• Ruled out areas of VoK already investigated,
  conducted systematic excavation of remainder
• Five year project finds tomb in 1921 aided by
  clearly defined research design

5
Tomb Interior
6
Basic, Low-Order Questions

• Where are archaeological sites located?
• Most basic landscape studies survey
• What kinds of archaeological sites are present?
• What ranges of behavior are represented?
• What lifestyles were practiced?
• What are the ages of sites present?
• Can be very difficult question to answer
• Baseline Data

7
Example Willey and the Virú Valley

• 1946 Gordon Willey undertakes extensive survey
  of Virú Valley, N. Peru
• First major regional survey in Americas
• Previous focus on individual urban sites
• First to look at all types of sites over entire
  landscape
• Research questions for survey
• How did different kinds of sites relate to
  landscape features and available resources?
• What were relationships between sites?
• Significance first to look not at collections of
  things at single places, but at the activities
  and relationships between people over large areas
  in relation to their environment
• Pioneered Settlement Pattern Analysis

8
(No Transcript)
9
Middle-Order Questions

• Food Diet
• What people ate related to how they lived
• Technology
• Tools tell us about the activities they were used
  for
• Trade and Exchange
• How did people acquire resources?
• Health and Mortality
• How people died tells you what their lives were
  like
• Materialist Data-relatively easy to study based
  on material remains

10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
Highest Order Questions

• Social Organization
• How did people relate to one another?
• Gender, rank
• Ritual and Religion?
• How did beliefs relate to activities?
• Art
• What were ancient aesthetics? What did ancient
  art mean?
• Idealist Data-hardest to study objectively

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)