Peat/ Peatlands are wet or water-logged bodies. The preservation for bodies found like this is the best to see all the details of their last moments; what they ate, their manicured nails, how they died or were killed, etc. Cold preservation is another great preservation method. Freezing stops everything and can preserve the body and all of its aspects well. You are able to see what they carried, any tattoos, hair, etc. Osteomyelitis, breast cancer, injuries, etc can all be found with this type of preservation from as early as BC. (When finding any body in any of these preservations it is important to mimic the state you found them in to the best of your ability)When finding age for adults looking for degenerating, looking at pelvis and the skull will help find the age range best. It is harder to use the teeth as dental and oral care were not as reliable to help find age range. In children it's simpler, generally we grow and mature at predictable time rates. For kids looking at the teeth is best as you can see the baby teeth above the adult teeth. Bones as a child grow slower and differently when you're young. Markers on bones show if there was a stress that caused a child to stop or slow down growth, this can be matched with their teeth to better predict their age. Paleodemography; Finding the age of people dying, race, sex, cause of death, etc. This is the statistical analogy to help determine what the cause of death, lifestyle, etc are. When finding human remains you can find out their diet, breastfeeding, sex determination, kinship (genotyping), and migration (strontium and oxygen) Zooarchaeology; studying the preference or change from animal carcass, finding out what animals were over consumed or over hunted and what humans had to adapt to hunting or eating. Also studying the evolution of animals and how they evolved from then to now. Taphonomy; Can also help us figure out what knives or tools they used to clean animals. Certain cuts in the bones can be found natural or unnatural (human or non-human) depending on how deep or straight/curved the cut on the bone is. Teeth marks could be scavengers or a predator, finding the difference between human and nonhuman bite marks, could be shared food, two different bone marks could be left overs given to another species who have some sort of relationship. NISP-Number of Identified Specimens; Help get an idea of how many potential units are involved. It is important to count every small piece found and if there are too many small microscopic pieces it will be then counted by weight. MNI-Minimum Number of Individuals; Used for human remains when there are commingled remains, this is when three or more individual remains found together. Calculated by skeletal elements and never counted by skulls only as most people weren't buried by only the skull and instead by another bone part of the body. Comparative Collections; Taking bones from other areas and bringing them back to the lab and comparing them to other bones/remains found on previous sites that have already been identified. Meat utility Indices; Figuring out the range of animals that are present, you can figure out how much food was available for the population and if this amount of animals were able to sustain the humans in this area. Paleoenvironment; what is the carrying capacity for survival - forest environment, overall ecology, species requirement and if it is reflected in the local environment.If the animals cannot survive in this area then the people cannot either or if the animals and environment is healthy but the people have a difficult time then something in this environment might not be constant enough for humans to adapt etc. This can help figure out the quality of life for both humans and the environment. Main discoveries in archaeology sites are pottery/ ceramics. (KYA or MYA is millions of years ago)Classifying pottery by firing temperature; example - Terracotta and earthenware are lower temperature. Stoneware and porcelain must be made at much higher temperatures. Materials that can be provenanced; marble, obsidian, glass, clay/pottery, flint, jet, amber, copper, soapstone, leaded glass, leaded alloys, and quartzite/sandstone. EVOLUTION IImmutable species: This was seen as unchanged and perfectly made by God. John Ray believed that we need to observe things and base our views on “observed similarities and differences” and not because someone said so but with a reason and he believed in being convinced. First to give a biological difference between species. Carolus Linnaeus wrote a book called Systema Naturae (1735) he also decided to say that we came and originated from apes, he believed that we are not as special and different as everyone was taught to believe. He coined the term homosapiens. Acknowledged we are connected to all in this world.Georges-Louis Leclerc,Comte de Buffon He wrote 36 volumes about 4 key features of evolution, 1 - Long time scale 2 - Extinction 3 - Similarities and differences in individuals and species and 4 - More young produced than survive. He believed earth was created by a comet. He had a theory that when species migrate they adapt to suit their environment. Charles Darwin was the official face of the theory of human evolution. He went on the HMS beagle for 5 years to see all the things he had been hearing about in discussion. Patterns in Diversity; the environment dictates what species will look like, colour, weight, fur, etc. In local areas species vary locally, the Galapagos Finch has multiple different species dependent on their regional niches. They evolve to eat different foods, at different times of day with different nutrients. Species Vary over time; The horse lineage is the most prominent that we can see through evolution.Alfred Russel Wallace was a Naturalist, spent most of his time in Asia, he found and named over 1000 species. In 1955 he came up with the Sarawak block. When he was sick with the flu he came up with the idea of natural selection and decided to write about this and send it to Charles Darwin. Darwin's 3 key Postulates:Variation exists in any natural population, this is genetically true and proven and he saw this through his own eyes and saw this also as continuum. Inheritance is a variation that was inherited through traits from generation to generation.Environment is the ability to survive and reproduce is entirely based on your fitness to your environment, which is survival of the fittest based on their environment. Only evolutionary purpose with an organism is to pass on your genes. Natural selection is not goal oriented, and we are not evolving traits we need.