ANTH A103
Lab 1
Concepts of Time
Salvador Dali's
Persistence of Memory
Time is one of the most important problems for archaeologists. They often deal with units of time that are very hard to understand and they realize that ideas about time affect their understanding of the past in many ways.
Warnings:
1. Human understanding of time is variable and complex.
2. Time and the way archaeology understands it affects interpretation of the objects from the past.
3. The more distant in time, the less we understand.
Understanding Time
This is largely a "talk" lab in which we will try to get you to understand important ideas about how we view time. We will then try to show how these views affect our understanding of the past. So, "play along" as best you can. Then you'll have an assignment at home.
Exercise 1:
How does time seem to move when:
- you are planning a vacation?
- you are actually on the vacation?
- you are sitting in the dentist's waiting room?
Does how you perceive the passage of time change depending on circumstances?
Objective: Variability in understanding time
Exercise 2:
In as much detail as you can, tell us what were you doing yesterday at this time? A month ago? A year ago? Five years ago?
As these descriptions are being given, what word(s)
seem(s) to be used more and more often?
The concept of "probably."
If you can't say with any detail what you did in your own life, the life
you lived, how can archaeologists be expected to say anything with any
detail about past lives?
Objective: The greater the distance from
us in time, the less we can say with any certainty about it.
Exercise 3:
What does "probably" mean?
How can we "know" what it was we did in our own lives at some time in
the past?
How do we use "what we are doing now" as a guide to understanding the
past?
Objective: The concept of uniformitarianism: the present is
the key to the past.
Exercise 4:
Digging Zimmerman's wastebasket
Carefully go down through the contents of Professor Zimmerman's office
wastebasket. Take notes on what you see.
Objectives:
- What is relative time? Absolute time?
- The law of superposition
- Minimum dates
- How does context help archaeologists to understand time?
TASK: When you go home today, "excavate" your own waste basket. Describe in a bit of detail what you find. Can you tell anything about the passage of time from the wastebasket's contents? Can you detect any patterns of your own (of family/group) behavior based on what you see? Be sure to use the concepts and terms in the exercises above.
This lab is worth 20 points.