1. How does Archaeology get done?

2. What archaeology isn’t
Archaeologists don’t do dinosaurs!
That’s paleontology.

3. In other words, it’s not what most people think it is.
It’s not just about digging!
It’s complicated, meticulous work that demands training, patience and big budgets.
It’s extremely interdisciplinary.
In other words, it’s not what most people think it is.

4. Some Types of Archaeology
Paleoanthropology
Classical

5. Some Types of Archaeology
Anthropological
Historical

6. Some Types of Archaeology
Underwater
Industrial

7. The Goals of Archaeology
Discovering the past
Excavation & Description
Reconstructing culture history
Who was where, when, with what?
Explaining cultural processes
How and why do cultures change or stay the same?
Interpreting Past Cultures
What did peoples’ lives mean?

8. Sites are defined by what’s in them.
Sites What are they?
Places where past human activity occurred
Some common site types:
Habitation―places where people lived
Procurement―places where people got resources
Processing―places where people converted resources to products
Sacred―places where people practiced activities related to their ideology
Specialized―places with unique purposes
Sites are defined by what’s in them.

9. Habitation Sites

10. Procurement Sites

11. Processing

12. Sacred

13. Specialized

14. What do archaeologists find?
Artifacts—transportable objects made and used by past peoples
Features—formed or built by people, these “objects” can’t be moved
Activity areas—clusters of artifacts and features resulting from particular activities
Ecofacts—environmental elements that exhibit traces of human use or activity
Ideofacts—objects or features that contain information about peoples’ belief systems
Sociofacts—objects or features that contain information about peoples’ social structure
Items can fit in more than one category.
Information, not the item, is the key.

15. How Sites Are Formed
Taphonomy—The study of how paleontological and archaeological remains ended up in a particular place.
Primary refuse—When the items used together and deposited together are left exactly where they fell by ancient people.
Secondary refuse—Deposits where people took their trash to a pile or pit, removing it from the immediate vicinity of their living quarters.

16. How Sites Are Found Scientists ask around or read reports.
Sophisticated remote-sensing devices—ground-penetrating radar, proton magnetometers, or electrical resistivity meters, can help search for sites.
Pedestrian Survey
Scientists search for sites through a process of subsurface sampling, placing test pits at regular intervals.

17. How Information Is Recovered
Literature searches, maps, site forms
Surface Survey/subsurface testing
Sampling
Test excavations
Excavations
Analysis
Context is crucial!
A single artifact, devoid of any context, provides only a fraction of the information provided by an object for which context has been preserved and recorded.
All data recovery is slow and tedious, so as not to lose context.

18. A typical archaeological excavation looks like this: square holes on a grid system, measuring tapes, shovels (sometimes), and lots of sitting around taking notes or photos.

19. The most important tools in archaeology are a small (5 ½ inch) bricklayer’s trowel, a tape measure, and a notebook.
Everything after that is gravy.

20. None of this happens without a research design!
Formulation involves defining the research problem, performing background investigations, and conducting feasibiliity studies.
Implementation involves completing all the necessary arrangements for planning the work One of the most difficult parts including everything from finance to permissions. Who pays for archaeological research?
Data Acquisition: reconnaissance, survey, and excavation (steps are not mutually exclusive!) Reconnaissance is locating sites without excavation Survey records as much as possible about sites without excavation Excavation exposes the buried cultural remains and other characteristics of sites, recording or retrieving data
Data Processing is the manipulation of materials (raw data) including the treatment of artifacts, measurements, development of records such as maps.
Analysis provides information about each type of data, such as artifacts, ecofacts, ideofacts, features. Some can be done in the field, but much more is done in the lab. Estimates of lab:field in terms of time range  from 5-10 times more in the lab.

21. Analyzing Archaeological Data
Artifacts
The Sources of Raw Materials
Determined through trace element analysis in which impurities in tiny or “trace” amounts are scanned for.
Uses procedures such as neutron activation analysis and x-ray fluorescence.
Tool Manufacture and Use
Experimental replication is the process of attempting to authentically re-create ancient artifacts.
Morphology is the form of the object, what it looked like, and by the evidence of wear patterns.
Social Patterns, based on distribution (a sociofact)

22. Understanding Past Behavior
Archaeologists use ethnoarchaeology (the study of living populations as analogy).
Archaeologists also experiment in order to reconstruct.

23. Publication and Public Archaeology
It does little good to dig and analyze unless you publish your findings.
In fact, it’s unethical!
Public accountability
They usually pay the bills, and it’s often their heritage