Why Are Archaeology Important?

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of

Over the course of human history, humans and our ancestors have made tremendous strides. From Homo habilis making the first stone tools to the Egyptians building The Pyramids of Giza, human history is nothing short of intriguing. If it wouldn’t have been for each stride made by our ancestors we probably wouldn’t live in the world that we live in today. When the Neolithic Era began in 9600 BCE, human civilizations gradually started to spring up all over the world. Humans set up civilizations from Mesopotamia in the Middle East, to China in East Asia, and all the way to Caral-Supe in South America. Although these ancient civilizations were separated by thousands of miles, they all share common patterns and

Double pieces that have lasted over thousands of ages to offer scholars with references to human existence during the Paleolithic period are the Woman of Willendorf figure and the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel. Each figure is condensed with amazing features, even though they are not thorough to the level of realism. The Woman of Willendorf is one of the best instances of the small ‘Venuses’ that have been uncovered meaning that her persistence was a part of a ethnic set of views about women and fertility. The Lion Man, is a more exclusive artifact that recounts to the complex figures that are recognized from other cultures within which the related mythologies that have been revealed. The Lion Man has no known mythology that is obtainable in known written history to this day. The two pieces propose the unknown about the Paleolithic era, recognizing a sagacity of religion and rituals that were part of the lives of those who lived during that era and enlightening recent scholars on some aspects of the people during that time.

From the early prehistoric society until now, we often heard the word “adaptation”, which means the process of changing something or changing our behavior to deal with new situations. The ways people adjust their natural environment varies according to time, place, and tribe. Foraging is common way of adaptation that people uses for most of human history; however because of the population pressure, some people adopt agriculture to fulfill their need. This essay, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of life in hunting and gathering societies compared to the agricultural societies based on Martin Harris’ article “Murders in Eden” and Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of Human Race.”

Political, economic, and social conditions have often led to turning points that have changed the course of history for nations and people. The Paleolithic Era and Neolithic Revolution was a turning point that changed the orbit of history for mankind. In Documents 1, 2, and 4, they explain life before the Neolithic Revolution and what changed during the period and provide an analysis of results of the revolution. They introduce food supply and settlement, and civilization and trade.

The following report details the archaeological fieldwork conducted by New South Associates, Inc. for proposed widening and improvements along U.S. 158 in Forsyth and Guilford counties, North Carolina. The purpose of the survey was to identify and evaluate archaeological sites for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), within the proposed project area of potential effects (APE). This project was conducted for the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) (TIP R-2577ABC, State Project No. 37405). This is a state-funded project covered under a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) individual permit. As such, the USACE serves as the lead federal agency and the work complies with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA), as amended.

As I researched archaeology field schools to attend, I was drawn to the Mohegan Archaeology Project due to the breadth of methods and techniques that will be used on site, the fact that it is a Native American site, and that it works so closely with the Mohegan tribe to truly meet this people’s needs when excavating its artifacts and preserving its cultural heritage.

The idea that Prehistoric Aboriginal culture is averse to change or is static is a belief shared by the minority. Although it can be said that Indigenous culture and our ancestral peoples share many similar or unchanged basic behaviour patterns, each society or culture can be distinguished from others by the certain configurative patterns or directives for why the Prehistoric peoples did or did not achieve things and how they were or were not achieved. This willingness to change and not be opposed to innovation and holding traditional values all the time, suggests that Prehistoric Aboriginal Culture was constantly changing. This essay discusses the concept that Prehistoric Aboriginal culture adopted a willingness to learn, change and grow through forms of art and culture, for both aesthetic and useful purposes. Secondly, the developing cultural intricacies will be deliberated, how hunter gatherer societies affected Prehistoric Aboriginal culture and how these complexities are the source of change for many Indigenous peoples through time.

In the former part, through showing how diversely Polynesians exploited the natural resources of different Pacific islands Diamond argues two questions: how geography can cause differences among human societies that have a common starting point, and how such features of civilization are resulted from intensive food production. Then, the later part comes the heart of the book---The Rise and Spread of Food Production, in which chapter Diamond addresses the questions of ultimate causation of contemporary human inequalities. In short, Diamond proposes that the more domestication of plant and animal, the more food, and then the denser human populations. The resulting food surpluses and the animal-based means of transporting those surpluses contribute to the development of settled, complex, and technologically innovative societies in Eurasia. However, MCneil thinks that to some extent, Diamond’s views are misguided. Though he accedes that during the early stage of human history when technical skills and organizational coordination were still undeveloped, human societies were indeed closely constrained by the local availability of food, he argues that as time goes by, many factors made the course of human history increasingly autonomous, for example, our greater capacities to reshape the environments to suit our purposes, the multiple of inventions, and the adoption of more effective

This anthropologist and archeologist have discovered the existence of this fascinating connection between culture and art among hunter-gather societies dating back to the 19th century. For anthropologist, culture is the foundation that many societies are built on; it is recognized as a community shared values, religions, traditions, sense of communication and behaviours (Creese, 2011 pg. 5). The knowledge and understanding a society culture is beneficial for determining the motivation or actions of a particular group and can be used to discover the communities’ way of living. Cultural aspects of life are critically important for hunter-gathers particularly the Native Americans and are the inspiration for many forms of art. Art is closely related to culture, as it is universal characteristic and behavior of humankind. For the Native American the use of art moved past the aesthetics and became a reflection of their culture brought into reality through painting, drawing and carvings. These exceptional forms of art became a heavily respected element of aboriginal’s ceremonies, traditions, religion, and social behaviors (Creese, 2011 pg. 5). The theory of a close relationship between art and culture is currently by supported by multiple archeologists who are continuously discovering caves covered in

Although people often think of ancient peoples as similar in their primitive ways, scientists and researchers are constantly finding new evidence that shows remarkable distinctions among Paleolithic peoples. This new information adds to our knowledge of their various cultures and provides opportunities for modern people to appreciate the depth and achievements of their ancient ways of life. Two tribes, the San and the Chumash, are useful to study, as they demonstrate how two peoples that were contemporaries could form such differing ways of living and thinking.

Jared Diamond is a professor of Geography at UCLA and a world traveler. He believes that in the past 13,000 years of human history, agriculture has lead humans to conquer, develop and prosper and therefore cause the rise of civilizations. In 1972 he was in New Guinea when he met a local named Yali who asked him a simple question that took years for Diamond to answer. Yali said “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [goods] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own”. [Work cited 7] Diamond was profoundly puzzled and couldn’t answer right away. In fact it took him many years to come up with what he thinks is the right answer. ‘Yali’s question’ plays a central role in Professor Diamond’s enquiry into ‘a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years’, leading him into a wide-ranging discussion of the history of human evolution and diversity through a study of migration, socio-economic and cultural adaptation to environmental conditions, and technological diffusion. (Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, p. 22-23)

These type studies increase ususally don’t contribute to the advancement in the understanding of human behavior but increase our interpretive abilities. Archaeologists today spend the majority of their research efforts on the specific rather than the general, on the empirical rather than the theoretical, on the interpretation rather than the behavior. According to scholars, middle range theory will play a very important role in the future of archaeology as the focus returns to the issues in human

The revolutionizing transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture was a central shift in the way homo sapiens lived that occurred twelve thousand years ago. Consequently, several factors contributed to this astonishing modification of life including increasing population size, favorable environments such as the Nile River in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture allowed for mass production of food in order for the sustainability of the increasing population size, but with agriculture also came specialization and the division of labor ultimately leading to moral inequality.

The origin of modern human behavior is a subject in anthropology that accumulates much debate. Cognition is the dominant factor in such behavior, therefore raises the question, “when did this separation of intelligent or modern thought from the primitive come to daily behavior for our genus?” There are two such answers that hold experts in the field captive in debate: the rapid “imagination revolution” in the European-centrailized Upper Paleolithic, and the steadiness of cognitive growth provided first in Africa during the Middle Paleolithic. Although each argument provides supportive evidence for their perspective claims, the more naturally convincing shows this creative revolution taking place much earlier than the Upper Paleolithic. This explanations human cognition developing with no brisk advantageous revolutionary response, and instead by gradual means. This metamorphosis follows the pattern of biological human evolution. My argument combats the “imagination revolution” claim to the origins of creativity using specific artifacts dated earlier than those of European restrictions. Furthermore, it is the lack of excavation in Africa and the conditions of the terrain itself that pose problematic preservation of artifacts, unlike in Europe, to exonerate this innovative exclusivity. These pieces of evidence in Africa exemplify a higher process of thinking, commonly those showing deliberate means of bead and rock art used for both personal functions of expression. If art