 |
| archaeology, American museum of Natural History, https://www.amnh.org/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/amnh2/explore/ology/archaeology/2138882-17-eng-US/archaeology.png, 13 November 2017. |
At the beginning of this unit I didn’t know what to
expect because I had never learned anything about prehistory. I learned a lot
about prehistory and we did it in a fun and interactive way. In this unit we
learned about how you dig in a site, how a site is considered a site, the
animals Wichita has discovered, the places and things Wichita has discovered,
where Kansas was 80 million years ago, and etc. This unit was exciting and
entertaining till the very end.
Creating
Your Unique Civilization
The hardest parts about
creating my unique civilization was figuring out what the letters of the
alphabet were going to be and what our civilization was like in terms of
location, appearance, housing, religion, government, currency, sports, and
military. In addition, a Civilization has to have the 5 characteristics which
are advanced cities, specialized workers, complex institutions, record keeping,
and advanced technology. The easiest parts of creating the civilization was
creating the Rosetta stones, drawing different parts of the mural, and making
the language artifacts. The most fun part of creating the civilization was
making the language artifacts and the alphabet because it was easy. Some
valuable parts of this experience were learning how to make an alphabet,
finding out what it was like to create a civilization relating to the all the
people before us. Things I learned about cultures and civilizations were that
every civilization has a different and unique culture that no one else has and
every civilization has something unique about them that make them different
from every other civilization.
The most difficult
artifact to make to represent a cultural universal was the religious artifact
because I made it out of tin foil and it was hard to write my language for the
Rosetta stone when the tin foil was crinkled up. The easiest artifact to
represent a cultural universal was making the boat for boat soccer because I
made it out of Legos. The most fun artifact to represent a cultural universal
was the boat for boat soccer because it took me a shorter amount of time to
make the boat than it did to make the fish which was the religious artifact. I
think my artifacts where a good choice to represent my universal because they
corresponded with what my universal talked about and they corresponded with the
background and theme of my civilization. The fish represented important ideas
in my society because religion is always important to just about every culture
including ours. The boat was important to our society because it represented
that we spent most of our time on water.
The hardest part of creating a language and using it on
two artifacts was trying to figure out what the letters were going to be and
writing the letters of the artifacts. The best part of this experience was that
we have to make our own alphabet just as the early civilizations did. Napoleon
and his army, which had three different writings on it, found the real Rosetta
stone and they were Ancient Greek, Hieroglyphics, and demotic. We were able to
finally translate hieroglyphics because we know Ancient Greek and it is
important because there were weird pictures of random things all around, but
now with the Rosetta stone we can translate hieroglyphics to figure out what
the letters are. Our term of Rosetta stone is a way to translate an unknown
language with English or a different language that we know. It is important
because without it we cannot figure out an unknown civilizations language and
figure out that civilizations history, laws, practices, religious beliefs, and
other things.
Evaluating
Another Team’s Civilization
The museum cards forced us to write down the physical
description of the artifact, what we think it was used for, evidence to support
our theory, and the cultural universal we think it represents and why. This was
important because it helps us understand what it was like when a new
civilization came upon an old civilization. In our group discussion, we mostly
talked about the alphabet and we tried to decipher it so we could read the
letters on the artifacts to get a better understanding of what the artifact
was. As a group, we had to think about what the letters of this civilizations
artifact was and we had to think about what the artifacts could be using the
letters we had and the letters on the artifact. We had an interesting idea of
what this box with pennies looked like because we deciphered the letters on the
artifact, which talked about a metal house. The artifacts we dug up were part
of a civilization because they would not have been made if someone in the
civilization not makes it. A group is considered a civilization is they have a
government with laws, a religion, specific jobs, and housing.
Field
trip to WSU anthropology Department
My favorite part of the trip was the bio lab because I
think that all the things they do in the bio lab are cool an example would be
the forensic anthropology. I did not know that there was such a thing as
forensic anthropology, also I did not know about the Asmat tribe before I got
to WSU except for one or two things Mrs. Nixon told us about. The most
interesting thing I saw was definitely the mammoth tusk because it was neat to
touch something that prehistoric and see something from an extinct animal. Some
of the most essential skills of being an archaeologist or anthropologist are
that you have to like what you do, you have to be careful, you have to look
closely, and you have to be able to get down and dirty. I know Mrs. Nixon wants
us to think for ourselves so I do not believe in most of the things we learned,
but it is great information to know for future classes.
 |
| WSU archaeology, newswise, https://www.newswise.com/images/institutions/logos/xWSU_logo.jpg.pagespeed.ic.MAEAaQWOXG.jpg, 13 November 2017. |
Archaeological
Dig: Terracotta Soldier
I think we did this activity because Mrs. Nixon wants us
to understand what it is like to do an archaeological dig. The most interesting
thing I saw was the Terracotta Soldier when we chipped of the chalk. The most
interesting thing I did was trying to take off the chalk by hitting it as hard
as I could. The most interesting thing I learned about archaeology is that they
have to do a lot of digging to find the smallest artifacts. The most
interesting thing I learned about china was that the women would break their
feet to put their feet in small shoes as a symbol. When my group sighted the object,
it felt rough and it looked black and scaly. In the middle, it started to look
like a crocodiles back and it was about 6 centimeters. In the end, it was a
terracotta Soldier and it was double sided.
Wichita
City Archaeologist
I did not know that we had a city archaeologist because I
did not know much about prehistory. In my opinion, I think we need a city
archaeologist because we do not know what is out underwater or in the ground
that is very valuable. The archaeologist must have gone to college and taken a
class over archaeology. The city archaeologist gets calls from different people
saying that they have something on their land or they want to build something
on land, then the archaeologists examine the site, dig it, get the artifacts,
and look over them. You get to be a city archaeologist by being chosen for the
job and having a degree in archaeology. The most interesting thing I learned
was when she talked about Dr. Blakeslee and how he was trying to find artifacts
from El Dorado, which means the golden city. I would like to learn a little bit
more about how you get to be an archaeologist and what a regular day is like
for them.
Mr. Elmore’s Presentation
Everything
Mr. Elmore talked about in his presentation I did not know about. I learned
that Kansas was under water 80 million years ago and that many things eroded
over time and am falling apart now. Also after a while, dinosaur bones were
found, shark teeth were found, and mammal skeletons were found. The most
interesting thing I learned from Mr. Elmore was the eroded rocks because I
thought that it was cool that we have terrain like that in Kansas. I would like
to learn more about Kansas under water, the eroded rocks, and the dinosaur
bones because I thought all these things were fascinating.
Lessons
from Archaeology
The first presentation that I liked was called Otzi was
not the only Iceman and I learned that they found someone in Canada that was
hundreds or thousands of years old. This Iceman was carrying an oddly shaped
knife, wide brimmed hat, weapons, and a pouch with salmon. The second
presentation I liked was the Gulf of Cambay and I liked it because I did not
know there was another underwater civilization. The Gulf of Cambay was
discovered in 2002 by oceanographers and Cambay is 5 miles long and 2 miles
wide. In addition, the carbon dating shows it was 5,500 years old and just
about all they found were structures and monuments inside the city. The last
presentation that I liked was Easter Island because I did not know there was a
little Island next to Chile. The Dutch discovered Easter Island in 1722 while
there was a war going on for food between the settlers already there. The
people there made 13 foot and 13-ton statues as protection for their family,
there are 900 total statues now. Today there are 6,000 people that live on the
Island, which is out in the Pacific Ocean.
Individual
Research Project
My Topic was the Stonehenge and I found it interesting
because I thought it was weird that a landmark would have all these different
bones of different genders and ages along with stones stacked on each other and
placed in a circle. In addition, it was interesting that the stones were not
from where they were place, but rather in a different spot around 300 miles
away. The Stonehenge is important to the study of archaeology because we think
it was made in the prehistoric times, also no one knows how a group of people
could carry very many rocks weighing all the way from 4 tons to 40 tons and
carry them 300 miles. Three things I learned about the Stonehenge are that we
think it was made by people in the prehistoric times, the rocks weighed from 4
to 40 tons, and we think the Stonehenge was used as a sacrificial place for
everyone. I created a small model made of cardboard rectangles that were spray
painted gray and glued to a trifold. The “stones” were placed in a circle just
like the real Stonehenge with some little “stones” in the middle of the circle.
I put some note cards with facts about the Stonehenge on the sides on top of
black paper.
In
the end I learned so much from archaeological digs, the Asmat culture, the
different presentations, the interactive activities, and more. The hands on
activities were a great way to have fun and learn about archaeology. I have
learned a lot from this unit and I hope to apply it to future times when I need
the knowledge for this topic.
 |
| Asmat culture, Indonesian culture and traditions, https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzf4pbe9fbW2HDoZiu2gnn_4TS6PaHuf_2M3ikvGQL6rq5Qqy-jrQtGVZx7n4pg4hjjrKTBjQMKDSe65y1I9srN5RtK2GCQ6Th-QBINpdALzknmIBQioZdf3xQquXDfjOR0-BTi0mCcc/s400/papua_asmat_shields+haha.jpg, 13 November 2017 |
