Exam 5: Social Archaeology

Excavations at the site of Khok Phanom Di in Thailand proved that the insights about an ancient society gained from excavating a single grave are exactly the same as the insights gained from excavating a whole cemetery.

Occupation deposits at cave sites tend to be deep and suffer less erosion than open sites;they are therefore valuable for studying early hunter-gatherer societies.

Generally larger than mobile hunter-gatherer groups,these societies are typically sedentary,rarely number more than a few thousand people,and lack permanent differences of social status between people.These are generally referred to as