This is a brief introduction to Archeology. I am going to look at how archeology learns about the human past and cultures, why and how things came to be, and how archeology can be about history, anthropology and as a science.
Archeology is a science that studies humans and human culture through the recovery of artifacts, architecture, documents, landscapes and environmental data.
The aims and nature of archaeology vary from documentation of the developments of human culture and societies to human activity and behaviour, and also how archaeology achieves these things through excavation and preservation.
The study of anthropology at its broadest is the study of humanity, our characteristics as humans and our culture. Culture can be classed as art, customs, law, belief, knowledge and society. Archaeology is the past tense of anthropology. Anthropologists base their conclusions on their experiences on living within communities and societies as archaeologists base their conclusions on past communities' material possessions and remains, tools, buildings, clothing and any other remaining artefacts from past societies.
Anthropology and archaeology both have origins in science to study humanity, be it past or present. They both look at biological, cultural, social, and material culture aspects of human beings and their lives.
Archaeology can also be seen as a science. It has only been the last few hundred years that scientific archaeology has developed. Like scientists, archaeologists gather data and evidence, do experiments, make theories and come to a conclusion. Archaeologists rely on many modern scientific techniques. Techniques such as radiocarbon dating, which is using the amount of carbon in living and remains of creatures to find out how old they are, and climatostratigraphy, the study of surface traces that have been left behind, are both modern dating techniques.
Geophysical survey methods allow archaeologists to see beneath the soil giving ideas and pictures of what is there such as walls before excavation begins. Geophysical survey explains geophysical surveys.
Soils can also be examined for chemicals using scientific techniques that can help archaeologists tell if there was human activity in the area.
There are many tools that can help archaeologists. Photos that were taken from space help archaeologists find the lost city of Ubar in Arabia, and microscopes are used to identify pollen grains of different plants that lived in and around the area.
Archaeologists deal with the past like historians. Historians mostly rely on written records of history. Written records can date back to 3000BC, but what about before then, prehistory. Archaeologists find out about the past from artefacts and other physical evidence such as buildings and do not only rely on written records. Historians can benefit from archaeology as archaeology provides physical evidence for some of historical theories and provides theories about prehistory, information on how people lived, and about societies.
Archaeology is one of the only means to learn about past cultures and behaviours. There were thousands of societies that have come and go but there were no or very little written records of the existence. Even if a civilization is literate to some degree, they would not record important human practices like cooking, food that was eaten or what kind of clothes were wore and how tools were made.
Even when written records were kept they would be biased to some level. The written records would be biased in the favour of whom they were written for, just like some paintings only show a kings and queens as handsome or pretty although they may not be. Literacy was restricted to the higher classes in many societies such as the clergy so the records would only ever say good things about the writers' religion or ruler and would be against their enemies and other religions.
As well as written records, art can tell archaeologists a lot about past societies. Art such as drawings, paintings, engravings can show us things such as what was eaten, what kind of tools they possessed, what kind of structures people lived in, cooking methods and their religious beliefs.
The best-known technique of archeologies is excavation in the sense of the exposing, processing, and recording of remains.
Excavation can bring answers to some of the archaeological questions about the past, but also raises many other questions. Objects found during excavation now need their precise locations to be recorded. This involves their horizontal and vertical positions, and includes the relationships with any other objects found near to it. Archaeologists can then find out what kind of activities they were used in and how they were used. It also helps to indicate if they are from different periods of time.
The basic types of archaeological excavations are known as researching excavations and development led excavations.
Research excavation is when time and resources are available to excavate without a time limit. These are almost exclusively by private societies who have enough volunteers and funds.
