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 A105 Human Origins and Prehistory
Assignment 2

Assignment 2a: Archaeology in Your Own "Backyard"

Archaeology has been described by some as the interpretation of dead people's garbage.  While this is a little too “cute” for my taste, there is some truth in it.  In this assignment you'll apply some archaeological thinking to behaviors of people in our own society.  Many behaviors leave a distinctive sign or “signature” in the materials left behind.  These materials left behind are what archaeologists deal with in interpreting past human behaviors.  Here you'll have a chance to look at some artifacts people left behind very recently, and to interpret these artifacts to reconstruct human behavior at your own “site.”

Procedure

 1.  Find a "site."  Choose some area of land and look at it as an archaeological site.  The area may be a campsite, a parking lot, part of a field, a beach, a park, a playground, a dump, an "empty" lot or any similar site.  Don't trespass or attempt anything illegal or dangerous; get permission before examining private property.  Also, should you encounter prehistoric materials (i.e., arrowheads), please do not disturb them!

 2.  Search the area for artifacts and other sources of information.  Look carefully over the chosen area for signs of human activities, especially for artifacts: objects that have been made or modified by humans.  Another type of thing you might look for is called an ecofact:  an object that tells you something about the ecology or environment of the area.  DON'T REMOVE THE MATERIALS YET.  Make a mental note of the location of objects at first.  The objects you choose may be any size.  They may even seem insignificant, but they may still be important for your archaeological interpretation. 

 3.  Make a sketch map of the site.  Show the location of the objects you've found as well as the overall layout of other man-made and natural features of the site (e.g., trees, fence, playground equipment, buildings, etc.).  Label the artifacts and other features on your map. 

 4.  Collect artifacts and other materials.  Describe your artifacts and explain their function.  Among categories that objects may fall into are food and diet, food production, secular ritual, religious ritual, symbolic behavior, clothing, shelter, communication, transportation, games or entertainment, decoration, social display, or art.
  a.  deal with the spatial organization of the items on your map.  How are the items “related” in space, and does the arrangement of these things mean anything about what was going on at the site?  That is, do items seem unrelated, or do they fit together into a group with some functional significance?  If unrelated, the site may be used for different things at different times.
  b.  consider how the artifacts got to the site.
  c.  consider whether they tell a selective story about some segment of society (people of a certain age, profession, economic bracket, sex, ethnicity).

Write-up

You will turn in a one page map, at least two pages of text, and an artifact.  You should spend about half of your essay describing the site (identify materials, describe their location – these are things you noted during part 4a).  The second half will be interpretation of your site and its artifacts (parts 4b and 4c, as well as the questions from 4a).  Be concise and thorough.  Use 12 point font with 1 inch margins.  In addition to your paper, bring in one of your most interesting finds, with a tag attached on which you have written your name and what you deduced the artifact meant. Of course, don't choose unsanitary or dangerous materials (no cigarette butts please!), and don't collect something that should not be removed from the site (e.g., giant Greek letters).

This assignment is due Monday, March 18, 2002 at the beginning of class.