Idioma moderno: Inglés 2016-17

Salvador Valera Hernández

1. What is Archaeology
A1. Reading (Adapted from http://www.saa.org, Society for American Archaeology, 13/02/16)
INTRODUCTION
Archaeology is the study of the ancient and recent human past through material remains. It is a subfield of anthropology, the
study of all human culture. From million-year-old fossilized remains of our earliest human ancestors in Africa, to 20th century
buildings in present-day New York City, archaeology analyzes the physical remains of the past in pursuit of a broad and
comprehensive understanding of human culture.
5 HOW DOES ARCHAEOLOGY HELP US UNDERSTAND HISTORY AND CULTURE?
Archaeology offers a unique perspective on human history and culture that has contributed greatly to our understanding of
both the ancient and the recent past. Archaeology helps us understand not only where and when people lived on the earth, but
also why and how they have lived, examining the changes and causes of changes that have occurred in human cultures over
time, seeking patterns and explanations of patterns to explain everything from how and when people first came to inhabit the
10 Americas, to the origins of agriculture and complex societies. Unlike history, which relies primarily upon written records and
documents to interpret great lives and events, archaeology allows us to delve far back into the time before written languages
existed and to glimpse the lives of everyday people through analysis of things they made and left behind. Archaeology is the
only field of study that covers all times periods and all geographic regions inhabited by humans. It has helped us to understand
big topics like ancient Egyptian religion, the origins of agriculture in the Near East, colonial life in Jamestown Virginia, the lives
15 of enslaved Africans in North America, and early Mediterranean trade routes. In addition archaeology today can inform us
about the lives of individuals, families and communities that might otherwise remain invisible.
TYPES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Prehistoric archaeology focuses on past cultures that did not have written language and therefore relies primarily on
excavation or data recovery to reveal cultural evidence. Historical archaeology is the study of cultures that existed (and may
20 still) during the period of recorded history--several thousands of years in parts of the Old World, but only several hundred years
in the Americas. Within historical archaeology there are related fields of study that include classical archaeology, which
generally focuses on ancient Greece and Rome and is often more closely related to the field of art history than to anthropology,
and biblical archaeology, which seeks evidence and explanation for events described in the Bible and therefore is focused
primarily on the Middle East. Underwater archaeology studies physical remains of human activity that lie beneath the surface
25 of oceans, lakes, rivers, and wetlands. It includes maritime archaeology—the study of shipwrecks in order to understand the
construction and operation of watercraft—as well as cities and harbors that are now submerged, and dwellings, agricultural,
and industrial sites along rivers, bays and lakes. Some of the other specialties within archaeology include urban archaeology,
industrial archaeology, and bioarchaeology […].
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
30 An archaeological site is any place where physical remains of past human activities exist. There are many, many types of
archaeological sites. Prehistoric archaeological sites include permanent […] villages or cities, stone quarries from which raw
materials were obtained, rock art petroglyphs and pictographs, cemeteries, temporary campsites, and megalithic stone
monuments. A site can be as small as a pile of chipped stone tools left by a prehistoric hunter who paused to sharpen a spear
point, or as large and complex as the prehistoric settlements of Chaco Canyon in the American southwest, or Stonehenge in
35 England. Historical archaeology sites can be found in areas as densely populated as New York City, or far below the surface of
a river, or sea. The wide variety of historical archaeological sites studied include shipwrecks, battlefields and other military
sites, slave quarters, plantations, cemeteries, mills, and factories.
ARTIFACTS, FEATURES, AND ECOFACTS
Even the smallest archaeological site may contain a wealth of important information. Artifacts are objects made or used by
40 people that are analyzed by archaeologists to obtain information about the peoples who made and used them. Non-portable
artifacts called ‘features’ are also important sources of information on archaeological sites. Features include things like soil
stains that indicate where storage pits, garbage dumps, structures, or fences once existed. Ecofacts found on archaeological
sites are natural remains such as plant and animal remains that can help archaeologists understand diet and subsistence
patterns.
45 CONTEXT
Context in archaeology refers to the relationship that artifacts have to each other and the situation in which they are found.
Every artifact found on an archaeological site has a precisely defined location. The exact spot where an artifact is found is
recorded before it is removed from that location. In the 1920s when a stone spear point was found lodged between the ribs of
a species of bison that went extinct at the end of the last Ice Age, it settled an argument that had gone on for decades,
50 establishing once and for all that that people had inhabited North America since the late Pleistocene. It is the context or
association between the bison skeleton and the artifact that proved this. When people remove an artifact without recording its
precise location the context is lost forever and the artifact has little or no scientific value. Context is what allows archaeologists
to understand the relationship between artifacts on the same site, a well as how different archaeological sites are related to
each other.
 Idioma moderno: Inglés 2016-17
Salvador Valera Hernández

A1. Answer the following questions based on the information given in the text:
1. What is the ultimate objective of archaeology?

2. What is the difference between archaeology, anthropology and history?

3. What is the difference between the ancient and the recent past?

4. Name one respect in which archeology is a unique science?

5. What type of information does archeology supply on human beings?

6. Are there subfields to archaeology?

7. Does the availability of records make a difference in any respect for archaeology?

8. Why does classical archaeology not research the Americas?

9. What is urban archaeology?

10. What is industrial archaeology?

11. What is bioarchaeology?

12. Do prehistoric archaeological sites have to be permanent to qualify as such, or not?

13. What is a petroglyph?

14. What is a pictograph?

15. What is the usual size of a site?

16. What is the difference between an artifact and a feature?

17. What is the difference between an artifact and an ecofact?

18. Give an example of famous artifacts you know.

19. What was the Pleistocene?

20. Why is the archaeological context important?

 Idioma moderno: Inglés 2016-17
Salvador Valera Hernández

B. Listening
6 Recent Archaeological Discoveries That Could REWRITE History (6:40)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YgFFkHgg8s)
1. What kind of information is used by archaeology?

2. Are they enough?

3. What is the first discovery about?

4. What was the standing knowledge before this discovery?

5. What is the new hypothesis?

6. What evidence does it rely on?

7. When and where was the second discovery made?

8. What is the discovery?

9. In which language is it written?

10. Why is this discovery important?

11. What is the third discovery?

12. Why are they important?

13. Is there any supportive evidence for this?

14. What is the link between the new artifacts and the mastodon tusk?

15. How were the hidden cities of the third discovery discovered?

16. What else was found?

17. Why is this discovery important?

18. Who were supposed to have discovered the New World first, and who may have done before them?

19. What evidence suggests this?

20. Where was it found?

21. What materials are found in the sword?

22. What is the last discovery about?

23. How old is it supposed to be?

24. Why is it important?

25. What other discovery does this supersede?

 Idioma moderno: Inglés 2016-17
Salvador Valera Hernández

C. Writing
Why did you decide to study archaeology?
 Idioma moderno: Inglés 2016-17
Salvador Valera Hernández

A2. Reading (Adapted from http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/53554-is-archeology-a-science/, 15/02/16)

[A]
I have two objections to archeology's claim to be a science. First, it bases its inferences on data samples which would be
considered utterly inadequate to prove the same sorts of assertions in history or in a court of law. A few Egyptian coins of the
2nd century B.C. are found in Massalia, and suddenly archeologists conclude that there must have been significant trade going
on between Massalia and Egypt, when in fact the find may have been just a chance event, with some Massalian in the 1st
5 century A.D. having been a collector of old Egyptian coins.
Second, its inferences operate on the assumption that peoples in the distant past thought just like us, which we well
know is not the case. Often the evidence of beliefs and atittudes even just a few centuries ago is shockingly irrational, illogical,
and mysterious in terms of the human motivations which drive our behavior today, and yet when archeologists look at the
material evidence of the past, they draw implications from it about how people in the past lived on the basis of the illicit
10 assumption that those people oriented towards their material surroundings exactly as we would.
When Egyptologists pompously announce that the tiny, painted, wooden figures in some pharoah's tomb were
designed to accompany him to the afterlife so that they could serve him there, I always want to ask, "How do you know that
they weren't intended as toys? How do you know that the whole ritual surrounded pharonic burials wasn't accompanied by […]
laughter and performed as a type of parody?”
15 If archeologists 10,000 years from now find nothing of our present culture except a Jerry Lewis movie, they are going
to announce solemnly that this cinematic record from the past represents the expected maturation rituals for a young prince in
our era.

[B]
20 Archaeology is a science. It deals with real artifacts and falsfiable theories. While there may be inertia against new ideas
and some might overstretch with their conclusions, all sciences have this problem so to use this against Archaeology
would also mean that Astronomy, Geology and Physics are not sciences either. In general, however, opinions and
theories change as more facts are unearthed.
[A], it's touching that you think people aren't the same as they were, but they are. Mores and ethical beliefs
25 change, but the basic human nature does not. The art of politics has not really changed in the last 5,000 years. For
example when Tutankhamun died, his wife Ankhesenamun sent a message to the King of the Hittites (Suppiluliumas)
asking for one of his sons as husband. As Ankhesenamun had no children, the dynastic line was threatened and she
would not take a commoner as a husband. She said "To me he will be husband, but in Egypt he will be King!"
It took a little while but Suppiluliumas agreed to send a young son, thereby saving the Pharonic line and
30 cementing relations between the two nations. Is this any different to the way things were done between the Royal Houses
of Europe, a practice that continues today? The young prince was waylaid and killed on his journey to Egypt, by the way.
Ai, who was Vizier to Arkenaten (Ankhesenamuns father), Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, married her shortly
afterwards to become Pharaoh himself. From his writings it appears that he was not favourable to the idea of a "foreigner"
sitting on the throne and it is believed that he had the prince killed to prevent this happening. Since the prince was
35 travelling with a large retinue as befitted his state, it is highly unlikely that a small group of robbers could have defeated
the force of guards he had with him. It takes a military force to defeat a military force in single combat. There were only
two people who could have ordered the Egyptian military to attack the prince and his guards and one of those two was
waiting to marry him. Yes it is only a theory that Ai was responsible, but it does fit the known facts (and will be changed if
new information comes to light). Nowadays we "throw him under the bus" or "stab him in the back" figuratively and not
40 literally, but the result is the same. Politics is based on human psychology, if the basic rules and tactics of politics haven't
changed in millennia, then neither has basic human psychology.
As to your first point. If you believe that there aren't many "data points" then you need an education in
Archaeology. Would you call the 100,000 texts that were found at Sumer "inadequate" in some way? They gave us the
original Flood Legend in the "Epic of Gilgamesh". They gave us tax receipts and records of transactions which […] tell us
45 much of the life of people at the time. […] We know from the texts and artifacts found at Dir-El-Medina (where the
workmen from the Valley of the Kings lived) that they had and used prosthetics to replace lost limbs. We know that the
workmen went on strike over pay, we know when and we know how the strike was ended. All this is in the records. We
know that one night a butcher ran down the street and tried to break into the house of a baker. (The butcher thought that
the baker was having an affair with the butcher’s wife.) We know the names, the date and even the time that this occurred.
50 We know it because we have the police record of the butchers arrest and his statement.
Yes, Archaeology is a science. It uses the scientific method, it proposes theories that can be and often are
falsified. While it might not be as strictly "according to Popper" as Physics is, it's still a science.
 Idioma moderno: Inglés 2016-17
Salvador Valera Hernández

A2. Answer the following questions based on the information given in the text:
1. Why does A think the samples used in archaeology are inadequate?

2. Why does A think the inferences used in archaeology are inadequate?

3. Does archaeology really rely on interpretation?

4. Does it to an unscientific degree?

5. What are B’s arguments in favour of archeology as a science?

6. What does B think about data interpretation?

7. What does B think about human nature?

8. What two examples does he give to support his argument?

9. What type of evidence can be extracted from data points used by archaeology, according to B?

10. What happened between a butcher and a baker?