Module 1 Document Investigation

Artifacts that Speak

​Sam Wineburg is a professor of history at Stanford University. He describes the unique nature of artifacts and how they contribute to historical understanding:

“How do you read something that has no words? This is precisely the dilemma of archaeologists who study ‘prehistoric’ cultures that leave us with objects but no written records. Even without such records, we can ask questions of objects that allow us access to the societies that produced them thousands of years ago. . . . By interrogating ancient objects and asking questions similar to those we would ask of any historical find—Who produced it? What does it tell us of the society at large?—we can read objects that have no words. Just because objects don’t talk doesn’t mean they have no story. It is our job to make them speak.”

—Sam Wineburg

Open Ended

What does Wineburg say is important about studying ancient objects?

Finding Lucy

Donald Johanson and his team had been conducting a search in Hadar, Ethiopia, when they discovered a forearm and other bones that seemed to be related:

“We reluctantly headed back toward camp. Along the way, I glanced over my right shoulder. Light glinted off a bone. I knelt down for a closer look. . . . Everywhere we looked on the slope around us we saw more bones lying on the surface. . . . The find launched a celebration in camp.”

—Donald Johanson

quoted in Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins

Open Ended

How was the discovery of “Lucy” similar to Mary Leakey’s discovery in Tanzania?

​Agriculture Causes Population Growth

Peter N. Stearns, Professor of History at George Mason University, explained the importance of agriculture to human population growth during the Neolithic Age:

“The Neolithic Revolution was one of the great changes in human history. Agricultural existence had a number of drawbacks compared to hunting-gathering, including greater inequalities, more vulnerability to disease and harder work. But it had huge advantages in terms of food supply, allowing rapid population increase. Different dates describe the advent and spread of agriculture in different places. Agriculture generated some similar changes wherever it developed, including patriarchal gender systems and (usually) village clustering.”

—Peter M. Stearns

Open Ended

What were the costs and benefits of agriculture over hunting and gathering?

​Lasting Materials

Archaeologist Ian Hodder has led the excavation at Çatal Hüyük, a Neolithic village, since 1993. In the following excerpt, Hodder describes why the Çatal Hüyük site is such an archaeological gold mine.

“How much can be learned from what is perhaps the most intriguing feature of all about Catalhoyük: that the site was built and rebuilt over the centuries in ways that provide an unusually rich record of the minutiae of daily life? The main reason for the abundance of the archaeological record [at Catal Huyuk] was that the Catalhoyükans used a particular kind of construction material. Instead of making hard, lime floors that held up for decades (as was the case at many sites in Anatolia and the Middle East), the inhabitants of Catalhoyük made their floors mostly out of a lime-rich mud plaster, which remained soft and in need of continual resurfacing. Once a year—in some cases once a month—floors and wall plasters had to be resurfaced. Those thin layers of plaster, somewhat like the growth rings in a tree, trap traces of activity. . . . The floors even preserve such subtle tokens of daily life as the impressions of floor mats.”

—Ian Hodder

quoted in “This Old House” in the June 2006 edition of Natural History magazine

Open Ended

What aspect of Çatal Hüyük has provided archaeologists with a wealth of information?