The word archaeology comes from two Greek words meaning “the study of ancient things.” Through archaeology it is possible to learn about human beings who lived before any history was written down. Archaeologists—people who study archaeology—look at the things made, used, and left behind by these people. Their goal is to understand what the people were like and how they lived. Branches of archaeologyNo one archaeologist can study all of human history. Therefore there are many branches of archaeology focusing on specific time periods or parts of the world. For example, prehistoric archaeology, or prehistory, deals with the time before people learned to write. Writing began about 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt, somewhat later in India and China, and later still in Europe. Other popular branches of archaeology include Egyptology, the study of ancient Egypt, and classical archaeology, the study of ancient Greece and Rome. A branch called underwater archaeology developed during the 20th century. It involves the same techniques used in archaeology on land, but they are adapted to the special conditions of working underwater. An archaeologist working on underwater sites is trained as a diver. An archaeologist's workThe work of an archaeologist can be divided into fieldwork, excavation, and interpretation. Fieldwork and excavation involve the collection of materials and data. The goal of interpretation is determining the time period and the civilization from which the materials came and reconstructing the people's way of life. FieldworkFieldwork consists of the discovery and recording of sites worthy of study. The mapping of new and old sites is an essential part of archaeology. In some cases sites are found by accident. Farmers have often unearthed archaeological finds while plowing their fields, for example. However, many other sites are found by determined searching. Some sites—such as temples, roads, and ancient cities—may be easily visible on the surface of the ground. They may be discovered by simply walking or driving through the countryside. Other archaeological sites have no traces on the surface. To find these sites, archaeologists may use photographs of the ground taken from balloons, airplanes, or satellites. They study these aerial photographs for clues that may indicate the existence of a site. For example, slight bumps and hollows show up as patterns where there may have been buildings, defenses, or boundary walls. Archaeologists also use devices called probes and periscopes to find buried sites. They may probe the ground with sound to check for variations in the way the sound is reflected. The variations in the reflections may indicate the presence of structures or hollows below. A periscope is a viewing instrument that can be used to study structures that cannot be easily entered. For example, a periscope inserted through a small opening in a tomb can photograph the interior of the whole tomb. Electricity and magnetism are useful in locating buried structures as well. Devices called electron or proton magnetometers may be used to force currents through the soil and record any unusual features that lie beneath. Similar magnetometers are dragged through the water to locate sunken ships or structures. ExcavationAfter locating a site to study, an archaeologist starts the painstaking work of excavation. Excavation is the process by which a site is uncovered through slow, careful digging. The tools and methods of excavation vary according to the site. The opening of the tomb chamber in an Egyptian pyramid, for example, differs from the excavation of a grave in western Europe. An excavation team may consist of many scientists, recorders, photographers, and artists in addition to the diggers themselves, who are often students. Excavation requires much training and skill. It involves more than merely shifting away the soil layers with a shovel. The archaeologist must take care not to damage objects in the process of uncovering them. Much of the work is done with a trowel, which is used to carefully scrape, slice, or clean away soil. Spoons, picks, penknifes, and brushes are also used. The things uncovered that were created by people—including settlements, buildings, tools, weapons, and art—are called artifacts. Once they are removed the artifacts are labeled, numbered, and preserved carefully. In some cases artifacts are coated with preservative chemicals. The archaeologist also makes note of the surroundings in which the artifact was found. InterpretationExcavation is what comes to mind when most people think of archaeology. Yet some of the archaeologist's most important work takes place after the digging is over. This job is the interpretation of the material found at a site. It includes describing and classifying objects by form and use, determining the materials from which they were made, and figuring out the time period and the civilization from which they came. This process often involves the assistance of experts in fields other than archaeology. Botanists, zoologists, soil scientists, and geologists may be brought in to identify and describe plants, animals, soils, and rocks found along with artifacts. DatingDating of artifacts is a very important part of the archaeologist's analysis. It involves the identification of the time period in which an artifact was made. Archaeologists have two general kinds of dating methods: relative dating and absolute dating. In relative dating, archaeologists determine the age of an object in comparison to the age of other things found nearby. One way of doing this is by looking at the arrangement of rock layers, or strata, at a site. The oldest remains occur in the deepest layer of the excavation, the next oldest in the next deepest layer, and so on. Using this knowledge, archaeologists can figure out the ages of different layers relative to each other. Absolute dating assigns a more precise date to a find. The methods of absolute dating can provide highly accurate dates. One such method is tree-ring dating, or dendrochronology. It is based on the growth rings that trees produce each year. The width of the ring—that is, the amount of growth—for each year is determined by a number of factors, but it tends to vary mainly according to the weather. Most trees in an area have a particular sequence of wide and narrow growth rings, following the pattern of the weather. If an ancient structure has wooden parts, archaeologists can compare the number and widths of the growth rings in those parts with patterns from other samples found nearby to find out when that structure was built. Perhaps the best-known and most valuable absolute-dating technique is radiocarbon dating. It is based on the knowledge that all living things contain a small amount of radioactive carbon, or carbon-14. The amount decreases at a particular rate after a living thing dies. In radiocarbon dating, archaeologists measure the amount of carbon-14 in once-living material (such as wood and bones) taken from a site. By comparing this amount to the level of carbon-14 in living things, they can calculate how long ago the specimen died. It is not a perfect method, but it can be useful for objects as much as 50,000 years old. It is less reliable for older objects. Contextual analysisAfter determining the age of artifacts, archaeologists try to understand the ancient culture from which the artifacts came. This process is called contextual analysis. Studying fossils of human wastes as well as plant and animal remains found at a site can tell archaeologists what people ate. Tools such as arrow tips, knives, and grinding stones indicate how people obtained and prepared their foods. Other clues may show how the society was organized. For example, different types of burial arrangements may indicate that social classes existed. The most difficult level of contextual analysis is understanding the guiding beliefs of a culture. Statues or paintings of gods or buildings that may have been temples can be used to understand ancient beliefs. HistoryArchaeology as a field of study has its earliest origins in 15th- and 16th-century Europe. That was the time of the Renaissance, when scholars looked back upon the glories of ancient Greece and Rome. Popes, cardinals, and noblemen in Italy in the 16th century began to collect ancient artifacts and to sponsor excavations to find more. These collectors were imitated by others in northern Europe who also were interested in ancient culture. This activity, however, was not archaeology in the scientific sense. It was more like what would be called art collecting today. The MediterraneanArchaeology first developed as a science in 18th-century Italy with the excavations of the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The cities were destroyed in AD 79 by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. They remained completely buried and preserved under volcanic ash and stone for the next 1,700 years. Regular excavations began at Herculaneum in 1738 and at Pompeii in 1748. They gave people an idea of what a Roman town actually looked like. The archaeologists found streets, baths, houses, and temples with fine paintings and statues. They also found the perfectly preserved bodies of people who had died in the eruption. Archaeology was established on a more scientific basis with excavations of ancient Greek cities and civilizations. In the 1870s the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann uncovered and studied the cities of Troy and Mycenae. He is often considered to be the modern discoverer of prehistoric Greece. In 1900 the British archaeologist Arthur Evans started excavating at Knossos, a prehistoric city on the Greek island of Crete. There he discovered the Minoan civilization, which came before classical Greece. (See also Aegean civilizations.) EgyptThe archaeology of ancient Egypt began with the French general Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Napoleon brought with him scholars who began recording the archaeological remains of the country. In 1799 a French engineer found the Rosetta Stone, an ancient stone with Greek and ancient Egyptian writing carved into it. As a result of this find, the French scholar Jean-François Champollion was able to translate the Egyptian writing system called hieroglyphics for the first time in 1822. This enabled scholars to read the numerous writings left by the Egyptians. It was the first great step forward in Egyptian archaeology. The most exciting find in Egypt was the tomb of Tutankhamen, an ancient pharaoh, or king. The discovery was made by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. Inside the tomb was a mummy of the king in a wonderfully carved gold coffin, together with beautiful and very valuable jewelry. This find revealed to the world what great wealth the ancient pharaohs had and with what splendor they were buried. It also showed why only a few kings' graves have been found undisturbed. Because of the riches inside them, people robbed nearly all of them in ancient times. MesopotamiaThe ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia (now Iraq) have been another popular subject of archaeology. In the mid-19th century archaeologists working in Mesopotamia found the palaces of the kings of ancient Assyria. They were decorated with huge figures of animals and people. In 1846 the British scholar Henry Creswicke Rawlinson became the first person to translate the cuneiform writing of ancient Mesopotamia. Toward the end of the 19th century archaeologists found evidence of a previously unknown people, the Sumerians, who had settled in Mesopotamia as early as 4500 BC. In 1926 the British archaeologist Leonard Woolley found at Ur the graves of the kings of Sumer. The expansion of archaeologyThe 20th century saw the extension of archaeology from the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Europe to other parts of the world. In the early 1920s excavations at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, in what is now Pakistan, revealed the remains of the ancient Indus Valley civilization (2500–1700 BC). Beginning in the 1930s Louis Leakey and his wife, Mary, found stone tools and skeletal remains of early humans dating back almost 2 million years in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. In the Americas archaeologists found that some important crops, such as corn (maize), were first brought into human use in Central America. Another exciting discovery was evidence of the Olmec civilization of Mexico (1200–400 BC). This was the oldest civilization of the Americas. The enormous growth in archaeological work has established archaeology as an important field of study. Most major universities in the world now have departments of archaeology. |