Scottish Archaeology Essay

The Repton Long Barrow sits between the parish church and the River Esk in Repton, Bluffshire, U.K. Last summer, I examined evidence for previous disturbance(s) of the site and assessed the extent to which the original Neolithic burial mound remained intact. I excavated two different sites on the mound, one on the east end and another on the west end of the barrow. While excavating and cleaning each of the sections, I recovered artifacts and human bones. I was also able to draw a stratigraphic profile of each excavation site. Using documentary sources pertaining to the Repton Long Barrow site to assist in my interpretation of the history, I was able to reconstruct the

Looking at an artifact’s physical attributes is always the first step to uncovering the archaeological significance

Archaeology is the study of the ancient past, through the recovery and analysis of material culture. During the development of archaeology, various different kinds of scientific techniques have been established to aid in archaeological investigation. Recent archaeological techniques and processes such as Scanning Electron Microscopy, Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and Radiocarbon Dating are utilised to help better understand a civilisation, specifically the site of Lindow Man. These modern methods have supported in recognizing Lindow Man’s identity and important information regarding his death such as his appearance, his stomach content, what he had eaten prior death and his age. This information has since helped lead scientists to believe in

An unscrupulous archaeologist by the name of Henirich Hochstetter excavated the Shoen-Tell site in Turkey in the late 1920s. Hochstetter was interested more in antiquities than in data, so he provided little substantive information tot eh professional community about his dig or his findings. However, a conscientious assistant of Hochstetter’s, Roxanne Browne, managed to collect detailed information on fifty of the burials Hochstetter plundered. Her data is

Death by Theory, written by Adrian Praetzellis, is an engaging and informational book written in a novelistic way that engages the reader to think critically about archaeology. Compared to other forms of informational text about archaeology, Death by Theory teaches archaeological theory by telling a story that incorporates the different theories of archaeology in a realistic setting. While standard textbooks about the theory of archaeology can come off a bit dry, Death by Theory skips the standard definitions and applies this in a way that aids the reader in understanding how these theories and terms can be applied in an actual archaeological setting. This text illustrates the adventure of plucky archaeologist Dr. Hannah Green and her nephew Sean Doyle as they seek to explain an unusual archaeological site while dealing with real life archaeological struggles. The protagonists deal with an egotistical colleague of Dr. Green who sought her out as a consult on a particularly strange archaeological case. All the while dealing with cults, the media, and incompatible data.

The author Joy McCorriston, was a student at the Institute of Archaeology in London and found out about the chance to visit the Lascaux cave from a radio show contest. Although she didn’t “win” she was lucky enough to join the tour. She listens to stories from Monsieur Jaceues Marshal, a discoverer of the cave and the cave’s guard as she gets to tour the cave. Lascaux Cave’s discovery had come about because four local boys found a hiding place to tease and abandon an outsider, a Jewish boy sent south to flee Occupation in the north. (An alternative story of a lost dog negated the real and non-politically correct truth of the cave’s discovery).

This essay will aim to cover several archaeology techniques and methodologies that would have been used during excavation of archeological sites, in particular the New Kinord site. These methods will provide an insight into a wide range of information that I am interested in discovering. These include what the inhabitants of the site did for a living, their diet and how the term of occupation can be determined.

The findings of the interviews are identified in the table below (information including but not limited to what is listed). These families of different cultures ascribed their health traditions to different things. The African American family states that their health traditions are passed down by elders (grandparents), of both sexes. The Mexican American family ascribes their traditions to the women of the family, stating that it is a female responsibility to pass down traditions regarding heath. The Caucasian American family states that they received their knowledge of health from what is or has been proved by science, and usually each mother of the household is responsible for the health of the family.

The Neolithic Era lasted from about 9,000-3,000 BCE. We are not exactly sure of when it started but this is the best estimate. The Neolithic Era was a period of human history when the start of agriculture arose and came before the first civilizations. The Neolithic Revolution took place in many different regions of the world. They where not that advanced so they made tools out of wood, stone and bone.

In the 7th Century AD, an important individual was buried inside a ship in East Anglia. The ship most likely hauled up from the nearby river, a burial chamber was built in the center of the massive vessel. Luckily grave robbers did not reach the ship burial as they did other nearby burial mounds, because the ship was rich in history and artifacts including gold, silver, bowls, spoons, weapons, drinking horns and much more. Originally discovered in 1939, the artifacts and ship burial have been closely examined another 2 times. The artifacts found within the magnificent burial site have created a lot of stir over the past 80 years. Theories have changed on the significance and origins of the artifacts due to changing hypothesis or the arrival of new and different evidence. Because there are dozens of artifacts within Sutton Hoo, this paper will be focusing on a select four of them including; the ‘baptismal’ spoons, the Merovingian coin hoard, the whetstone, and the scepter. According to scholars over the past 80 years, how have opinions, evidence, or assumptions changed relating to these exact artifacts? This paper will be taking a contemporary look at the perspectives of different scholars on different artifacts and, finally, analyze why these perspectives have shifted or changed over time. To my knowledge, scholars do give credit to previous perspectives, but no scholar has every brought all the perspectives together and analyzed their findings.

The Archaic was a time of mostly small societies that engaged in intensive foraging, with the adoption of farming coming in the late Archaic. By the Middle Archaic we see more cemeteries with burials in mounds, a move towards sedentism, and groups claiming the rights to resources. During the Late Archaic there was a move towards population growth, the beginning of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, trade, pottery, storage, and sedentism. Two Archaic mound building societies were Watson Brake and Poverty Point. Watson Brake in Louisiana is one of the oldest mound sites in North America with dates of 3500 – 3000 B.C., with 11 mounds that are up to 25 feet, connected by ridges, interior ritual spaces, and was occupied year round. Poverty Point is located in northeastern Louisiana and was a pre-agricultural ceremonial center. Poverty Point covers 494 acres and took more than 1,236,007 cu ft of soil to construct (Fagan 2005: 418). Objects discovered at Poverty Point show that they took part in long distance trade and made use of a variety of exotic materials. These materials included: slate, copper, jasper, quartz, and as stated in our lecture there were materials coming from as far as 1,400 miles

Living in today’s society it is extremely hard to imagine growing up in a house that is occupied by eight other families. However, this was the case for all children living in seventeenth century Huronia. Due to the fact that the seventeenth century was so far in the past, that it is difficult to fathom what life must have been like growing up in these circumstances, as the inhabitants of this time are not around anymore. With the help of archaeology we are able to distinguish many aspects of seventeenth century Huron life. Using applied archaeology, replicas of the longhouses can be made to represent the true size of these buildings. There are evident soil burns, which show hearths within a long house, implying the amount of families that occupied the building. Although this archaeology paints a general picture of their civilization, to get a truer representation of seventeenth century life, analysis of actual Jesuit missionary accounts should be conducted.

The ongoing argument concerning the rise of civilization is centered almost wholly around the domestication of plants and animals. The prevailing view of V. Gordon Childe’s principle “that social structure and organization were bent to the demands of technology.” (Childe 1954:23-4), is now directly challenged by what archaeologist Klaus Schmidt is determining from the excavation of Gobekli Tepe; “that far from causing sedentism, agriculture actually responded to it.” (James

Kathleen’s first archaeological experience was in the Great Zimbabwe in Southern Rhodesia as a photographer where she was joined by Gertrude Caton-Thomson. This expedition had been made possible by her father’s facilitation and connections along with Margaret Fry’s persuasion. As she would prove useful on this excavation, being both industrious and reliable, her duties would expand beyond taking pictures to overseeing the workers assisting at the site. After she returned to England, at the completion of the Zimbabwe expedition, Kathleen joined Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s staff at his excavation at Roman Verulamiun (St. Albans), north of London. While there she would study Wheeler’s method of stratigraphic excavation. Wheeler’s findings were based on the concept developed by geologist William Smith where materials accumulate on a site through a sequence of layers that explain the historical timeline

Petts, David. “‘A place more venerable than all in Britain’: The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Lindisfarne.” The Lindisfarne Gospels, pp. 1–18., doi:10.1163/9789004337848_002.