Fundamentals of Archaeology

Archaeology Intro
● Not Indiana Jones, a man with a daughter who solely digs up mummies and ancient
cultures.
● From the earliest beginnings to the present
❖ Displays both successes and shortcomings
❖ Use the remnants of artifacts to accomplish this.

Otzi “The Iceman”

● Italy and Austria are separated by the Alps.
● Assumed to be a herdsman; stomach still contained food and other organs
● Had tattoos with charcoal, which she considered to be therapeutic (acupuncture)

What is Archaeology?
● Study of the past, old, ancient using tangible proof
● "study of people using tangible signs of human activity"
❖ Most stuff found in garbage
● Material culture: physical/tangible items (two subcategories)
❖ Ex. clothes, pens, tangible items that belong to a group
❖ Problem: a lot is destroyed over time
➔ Is either not successfully preserved or is not deposited in the
excavation site.
● (1) Archaeologists deal in the small things that are forgotten
❖ Minor details about life can be uncovered through excavation to help explain
what happened in the past.
❖ A thorough picture of the past can also be created using spatial distribution.
● (2) Also want to uncover the behavior of those in the past
● Archaeology is in all places and in all times
❖ Can occur in any place that people ever lived
❖ Not restricted to certain areas
● The topics covered in this course do not include the evolution of humans,
palaeontology, or prehistoric cultures.

Archaeology in America
● Is Anthropology: the study of humanity through time and space
❖ Examining all civilizations and cultures from their inception to the present
❖ Investigates the variation in human beings on a biological, cultural, and other
scale.
❖ Blends social and natural sciences
➔ Most scientific of humanities, most humanistic of sciences
● Perspective: holistic, comparative, relativistic
❖ Holistic: the whole person
➔ Economics, religion, etc. and how it is all interrelated
❖ Comparative: to determine similarities and differences and why these exist
❖ Relativistic: not thinking own culture is better than another
➔ Need to understand different practices relative to the people’s cultures
 ➔ Trying to understand within context of a society rather than related to
one’s own culture

Four Fields of Anthropology

● All interrelated
● Four fields:
❖ Archaeology
❖ Biological Anthropology
➔ Anything to do with biological dimension of humans
➔ Slowly being called biological rather than physical anthropology
❖ Cultural Anthropology
➔ Ethnography: living and blending in with people of other cultures
❖ Linguistics
➔ The study of languages
★ Verbal non-verbal
★ Ex. body language, sign language

Why is archaeology anthropology in the USA?

● In England, they are two different things.
● In USA, this is due to historical reasons
❖ It was a part of anthropology’s origins in America

Five Goals of Archaeology (In historical order-allows one to get historical perspective)
1. Discover the past
a. Find, record and collecting things
b. Systematically collecting things
i. You have them, know where they came from and it is recorded
2. Reconstruct past cultures and histories
a. Describe, order, present
b. Can order strategically (chronologically) and spatially
c. Now that you have things, you want to start describing what you have and the
history of those people
3. Explain and understand the past
a. Moving beyond who, what and where to why and how
b. How did these past cultures operate and change (and why?)
c. More about the processes within these cultures
i. Environment, technology, material constraints, power relationships, religion,
structure of society, agency of people
ii. People will go about different ways to explain the past
4. Preserve and manage the past
a. Archaeological resources are non-renewable
b. Stewardship: caretakers
i. Conservation and management of archeological record for future
generations
ii. Sites are often threatened and can be destroyed
1. Must decide what can be destroyed and what must be preserved
5. Public education
a. A responsibility of all archaeologists
 b. Public archeology
i. Making archaeology open and accessible to the public

Types of Archeology
1. Prehistoric
a. Before written history
i. Aka history before writing
2. Historical
a. Broad: after written history
i. Archaeology in conjunction with written documents
b. Narrow: specific times periods and eras
i. The modern era; after colonial expansion (after 1500s)
ii. Must determine between biased historical and archaeological database
iii. Can be done with documents (papers, maps)
3. Classical: archaeology concerned with classical societies
a. Romans, Greeks, Mediterranean societies, sometimes expanded to
Mesopotamia and Egypt
b. Architecture and art history
c. Strong emphasis on writing
4. Biblical:
a. Concerned with modern day Israel, Lebanon, Syria
b. Two factions: minimalists and maximalists and their interpretation of the bible
5. Underwater: takes place under water
a. Look at shipwrecks, coastal cities that flooded
6. Cultural Resource Management
a. Only has been around since the 60s
b. Protecting sites through policy and law before the land can be developed
i. Legal contract to minimise damage to sites
c. In certain instances, archaeology has to be done
d. Ex. Queens Harbor- was a great location in Jacksonville that had information
from 500 AC to modern day time
7. Pseudoarchaeology
a. Non-scientific accounts of the past that are based on real or imaginary
evidence
b. TV channels over-dramatize this
c. Sensationalised reconstructions
d. Some serve political or racist purposes
i. Ex. Hitler and his political agenda