Week 7: The Archaeological Record:
Subsistence and Society
This lab consists of three main parts:
Part I, Training, splits up each group. Each member of the group will discuss
an assigned topic at an assigned station for 8-10 minutes.
Part II, Report Back, allows 5 minutes for your reassembled group to report on
the main information you received from your discussion in part I.
Part III, Site Interpretations, leads your group through the consideration of
two important sites in human prehistory (8-10 minutes each).
Please read the entire lab, as well as review chapter 7 in the textbook before
coming to lab. Bring your textbook to the lab.
This lab has two main goals: 1) to examine how early hominid groups obtained
their food, by examining archaeological evidence from four early sites; 2) and
to consider the nature of the evidence we have of economic activity.
Archaeology is the study of human behavior through the consideration of material
remains of past human or hominid activity. The complex behaviors of humans and
our recent ancestors leave many kinds of traces on the world, and archaeologists
can make educated guesses about past behavior by a careful consideration of the
evidence they uncover. This lab will incorporate ethnographic models and
archeological reconstructions for comparison with site reports. By careful
attention to the information presented below, you should be able to discuss and
answer the questions in this lab. (Subsistence includes what food is eaten, how
it is obtained and who obtains it, how it is distributed or shared, and how it
is prepared, stored, or preserved.)
The information for this lab is adapted from Images of the Past (Price and
Feinman, 1993) and Archaeology (Renfrew and Bahn, 1991).
Tips for reading an archaeological site report:
For this lab, you are asked to examine short versions of several site reports,
or summaries of the data collected at sites. Most site reports contain some
conclusions or interpretations by excavators about the activities that occurred
at the site and, perhaps, about the reasons for those activities. The summaries
you are given below do not include many conclusions or interpretations: you are
asked to make those interpretations directly from the data. However, any
archaeologist reading any site report wishes to judge whether the excavators'
conclusions and interpretation are correct, so you will read the site report
with the same critical judgment any archaeologist would apply. To help you
visualize what is described in each report, some similar materials from actual
sites (although not, unfortunately, from the specific sites you will discuss)
will be available for you to examine in lab.
When reading a site report, you should consider:
1. The period in which activity occurred at this site, and where the site lies
in the world. Think about who might have been living at that place and time, and
what that species was capable of doing. Hominid behavior has become steadily
more complex through time. Hunting, for example, is more difficult than
scavenging; and killing the healthiest young adults in a herd is more difficult
than picking off the old, the young, and the sick; and hunting in way to kill
many individuals at once requires very complex coordination of behaviors.
2. What the local environment was like at the time the site was in use, and
what resources were available to the hominids who left behind signs of their
activity. Remember, for example, that a bone is not just the remains of an
animal; it is raw material that could be reused in many other ways.
3. Where the materials were found on the site. The association of materials
together may help you understand what happened at a site. To put it in terms of
modern artifacts, a single knife could have been used for many things, but a
knife found with some forks, a garlic press, and some pots, may indicate an area
of food preparation and use.
4. The scale of the map, if there is one, or the size of the area described.
Pay close attention to how big things are, and how far apart. This will help
you visualize what activities could have taken place there.
5. The conventions used in any illustrations. It takes imagination or "read"
the simplified information on the drawings of a site, so pay attention to any
extra information that may help you, for example, sort out the bones from the
stones.
6. Remember that archaeologists only find the material that is preserved. Most
of what was used at a site may have been carried away when the people moved on,
or eaten by animals, or rotted or washed away. Animals or weather may also have
rearranged things after the hominids left.
Part I Training 8-10 minutes
Each group will send one member to each lab station to discuss the use of space,
cutmarks, stone tool production, or material culture. This material will be
essential to answering questions in each of the archaeological record labs
(Weeks 7, 8, and 10). Each group member is responsible for bringing their
experiences at these stations into future group discussion.
1) Material culture
At this station you are given a representative selection of the artifacts that
could be used by hunter-gatherers. This selection represents materials we know
have been used by modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) and therefore probably
represents both a wider range of objects and a more complex technology than the
tools that would have been used by the ancestors of modern humans. Although
these artifacts are not directly representative of the artifacts that would have
been in use at any of the sites considered in today's lab, a consideration of
this material may help you to see some of the problems presented by
archaeological evidence.
a. Identify as many of the artifacts as possible, by material (stone, plant
fiber, leather, fur or hair, etc.) and by purpose. What might the artifact be
used for?
Object material purpose
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b. Given time, much of this material would not survive to be uncovered by
archaeologist. Of the artifacts discussed, what would survive?
2) Use of space
Think in terms of your own use of space. Where would you place areas for the
following? How close are these areas to each other, or do they over lap? Do
the answers of members of your group seem to vary if they grew up in a city, or
suburb, or a small town, or on a farm? Or outside the U.S.?:
a. garbage keeping/ disposal
b. communal gathering
c. cooking
d. sleeping
e. ritual and religious acts
f. defense
g. burial
h. recreation
How would these differ for life in a camp? Make a thumbnail sketch of such a
camp labeling areas according to use. (assume that you lived in the camp long
enough to bury people).
3) Cutmarks
Examine the three sets of bones at this station. Describe (and/or sketch) the
cutmarks on each of the following:
a.
b.
c.
Cutmarks made by stone tools are significantly different from those made by
animal teeth. The overlapping patterns can tell researchers much about the way
in which the bone was processed. If it was found that animal teeth marks were
made before stone tools, what scenario would you hypothesize? Were the stone
tool users scavengers or hunters? Why?
If 'a' was made by stone tools, and 'b' was made by animal teeth, can you
determine the pattern of 'c'?
4) Stone tool production
a. At this station you are presented with examples of Oldowan and Acheulian
tools as discussed in last week's lab. Imagine the process of making each.
Which took the most effort? Why?
b. What sorts of by-products would be left from the construction of each? More
importantly, how would the they differ?
c. What would be the significance of finding stone flakes that fit together as
if they came from the same source?
Part II Report Back 5 minutes
Return to your base group. Each group member should briefly summarize the
material discussed at each station. One minute should be sufficient for each
(4-5 minutes total).
Station 1
Station 2
Station 3
Station 4
Part III Site Interpretations 8-10 minutes each
1. Olduvai Gorge, Sites DK1 and FLK North (8-10 minutes)
Located in the Serengeti Plain of eastern Kenya, Olduvai Gorge was formed 200
kya by a series of earthquakes and volcanic activity, with subsequent erosion
and drainage. These processes exposed several depositional layers, with each
step down into the gorge covering 6, 000 years.
This East African site has produced a huge variety of finds from the period
between 1.75 mya and 400 kya. Some of the most discussed finds are those from
the lower levels of the site, which contained the oldest known stone tools at
the time of their discovery. These levels are the type site for Oldowan stone
tools. The stone for these tools generally came from hills about 6 miles away.
This lab focuses on two Oldowan sites that date between 1.8 mya and 1.2 mya (see
cross section).
DK1
The site labeled DK1 consisted of a group of several hundred rocks in a roughly
circular arrangement. The bones of giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope, tortoise
and elephant were scattered around the rock concentration. Stone tools were
also found throughout the site. Mary Leakey interpreted this as the foundation
of a very early dwelling or crude hut.
FLK North
At another Olduvai site, called FLK North, a nearly complete elephant skeleton
was found scattered on the ground (see illustration below). Stone cores and
flakes were also found mixed in among the bones. Striations and cutmarks on the
bones indicate that the stone tools were used in butchery activity.
Recent studies of bone material from Olduvai have looked at the difference in
marks left by stone tools as opposed to carnivore and scavenger teeth. Pat
Shipman and Richard Potts studied bones that had overlapping stone cutmarks and
tooth cutmarks. On a substantial percentage of the bones, the tool cutmarks
were clearly on top of the tooth cutmarks.
Discussion Questions
1. What hominids might have been active at these sites?
2. Mary Leakey's interpretation of the rock concentration at DK1 as a
habitation has been criticized by other scholars. What evidence supports her
hypothesis?
3. What evidence is lacking from the area of the rock concentration that might
have strengthened Mary Leakey's interpretation? What might you expect to see at
a habitation site? (Hint: consider Part I of this lab.)
4. What activities do you think took place at the site of the elephant skeleton
(FLK North) ? What evidence supports this? (Was this hunting or scavenging?
Why?)
5. Does the study by Shipman and Potts support the argument that early hominids
were hunters or scavengers?
2. Terra Amata (8-10 minutes)
This site, located in Nice (southern France), was found in 1965 during
construction of an apartment building. It is located on a fossil beach formed
approximately 350 kya when the Mediterranean was 80 feet higher than at present.
The area was also a river delta.
Traces of several structures were found in the sands. Stones from the beach and
nearby hillside were found in oval patterns. Just inside the stone ovals,
excavators found the impressions left by the ends of small branches. Near the
center of each structure they found larger post-holes. The structures also
contained near their centers small burned patches ringed with pebbles. Artifacts
and food refuse were concentrated around these burned patches, decreasing in
density toward the surrounding stone rings. Most of the stone rings were
approximately the same size, about 20 x 40 feet. The structures have been
interpreted as dwellings, and it has been estimated that about 10 to 20 people
could have lived comfortably in each. (See illustration.)
The animal bones found include red deer, elephant, rhinoceros, mountain goat,
wild boar, and wild cattle. Studies of age profiles for the animals showed that
they contained an unusually high proportion of juvenile animals. Seafood was
also part of the diet, as was demonstrated by the presence of shells and fish
bones.
Stone tools found at the site were generally of the Acheulian type. Some of the
this stone came from sources 40 miles inland.
Discussion Questions
1. What kind(s) of hominids might have left the evidence at this site?
2. What are the burned patches at the center of the structures described above?
3. What features make it seem likely that the structures found here were
dwellings? How is this different from the feature at Olduvai Gorge that Mary
Leakey interpreted as a dwelling?
4. What is the significance of the high percentage of juvenile or young animals
identified among the animal bones?
5. The excavator interpreted this as a site that was used repeatedly for short
periods of time over for several years. How would a site that was used
continuously for a period of a year or more look different from this site? What
kinds of evidence might you look for? (Hint: consider Part I of this lab)
SEE YOU LATER!
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