8/12/2023 0 Comments Sandstone medieval house minecraftParticular artifact types can be used to identify individual membership in subgroups defined on the basis of sex, age, religion, and so on. This patterned sequence of artifact change can be used to provide relative chronologies through a process known as "seriation dating," in which the percentage presence of different artifact forms is compared from individual sites or subsections within sites.Īrchaeologists also tend to assume that certain variations in artifact forms will be associated with the different subgroups within each culture. These patterns of popularity that go from periods of limited distribution to widespread distribution and finally to a second phase of limited distribution can be graphed as a "lenticular" (lens shaped) or battleship-shaped curve. When the old type goes out of style, new ones are developed to replace it. Eventually, the popularity of the type will fade and only a few representatives-heirlooms, perhaps-will linger in use. The popularity of a particular form of artifact will normally follow a pattern that begins with the appearance of a limited number of examples of a new type, and progresses until the new type has achieved broad and widespread distribution. It is also assumed that these forms will change through time. There is a general archaeological assumption that different systems of belief will generate different artifact forms. Archaeology's inevitable focus on artifacts and other physical remains thus places it one step away from the actual subject of its concern, and forces it to bridge somehow the gap between the material manifestations and their cultural source. But cultures are defined in terms of languages and shared systems of belief-elements not available for direct archaeological observation. The generally accepted goal of archaeology is a better understanding of human cultures. The same reliance on "the material" that provides archaeology with its strength, however, also accounts for archaeology's greatest weakness. Grave markers are essentially "documents in stone," and for the archaeologist these relics of Early America have proven fertile ground for an analysis of how artifacts may have changed over time.Īrchaeology's reliance on artifacts and the material manifestations of culture give it a unique and long-term perspective not available to other disciplines that rely solely on living informants or written historical sources. Along with the predictable information found on them-a name, a date, and possibly an epitaph-archaeologists have been able to reach beyond the stones themselves. WinterĪrchaeological Perspectives on Three Cemeteries of Old New YorkĮven without excavation, cemeteries and especially the gravestones they contain provide an unusual laboratory for the archaeologist. Volume 36 Number 5, September/October 1983īy Sherene Baugher and Frederick A.
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