1. Mammoth Cave National Park.
What is Archaeology?
This PowerPoint was created by Amy McCray, a trained Anthropologist. You can download and use this PowerPoint for personal or classroom use. Please enjoy it, I hope it is informative and helpful in learning the basics of archaeology and what archaeologists do.
Photo from my work at
Mammoth Cave National Park.

2. What do you think of when you hear the word: archaeology?
For many of us, we might think of the images movies, books, and video games have given us about archaeology is and what archaeologists do.
There are many misconceptions about archaeology.

3. Archaeologists DO NOT:
Study dinosaurs.
Just look for pretty or valuable objects.
Just pick up artifacts.
Spend all their time just digging.
Buy, sell, or put a price on artifacts.
Many people have the wrong idea about what archeologists do. But before we learn what they do, lets learn what they don’t do. Archeologists do not study dinosaurs, that is paleontology.
We do not just look for pretty or valuable objects. Every day, boring items can tell a lot about a person or group.
We don’t just pick up the artifacts we find. Archaeologists must take notes, take photographs, and make maps so that we can recreate how objects are associated or in relation to one another. The placement of items can tell us what an item may have been used for, not just what the item is.
We do not spend all our time digging, that’s actually a minor part of the process—we spend most of our time analyzing artifacts. Analyzing is looking at something to figure our what it is or what it was used for.
We do not buy, sell or put a price on artifacts. If you ask an archaeologist they will tell you what something is if they can, but they will not tell you what it’s worth.

4. Photos from my work at Mammoth Cave National Park.
So what is archaeology?
The systematic, scientific recovery and analysis of artifacts in order to answer questions about past human culture and behavior.
Archeology is the systematic, scientific recovery and analysis of artifacts in order to answer questions about past human culture and behavior. But what do these words mean?
Photos from my work at Mammoth Cave National Park.

5. Artifact: Any item resulting from human activity.
An artifact is any item resulting from human activity. Fossils are not artifacts, they were not made by humans.
Artifacts are anything human hands have used. Whether they just picked something up to use or if they made it. Even buildings are considered artifacts. Artifacts are also things left behind. Think about what we leave behind—things we no longer want or need. That’s our garbage! So often archaeologists are studying garbage.

6. Question-based: Archaeologists study artifacts in order to answer questions about how humans lived.
Did they have religion?
Did they have disease or sickness?
What tools did they use?
What did they eat?
When did they live?
Did they hunt or farm?
Did they have laws?
Archeology is a question-based science. Archeologists always develop a question they want answered before they do anything else. These are some of the questions they may ask and try to find the answer to.
Where did they live?
Who took care of the children?
Did they have writing?
Did they have art?
How large was the group?

7. Culture: Any learned behavior that is shared with others.
So why do we study human bones and artifacts? Archaeologists are trying to learn about past culture and behavior. Culture is any behavior or tradition shared with others. Every group of people has culture. The United States has culture—our holiday traditions to how we learn to talk—these are part of our culture. There are even subcultures or a culture within a culture. Children are a subculture. They do things different than adults and have their own way of communicating and doing things.

8. So what is Archaeology? People Garbage
More simply it is the study of artifacts left behind to learn about people from the past. OR
People
and their
Garbage
So if archaeology is the study of artifacts left behind to learn about people from the past, think about what we leave behind—things we no longer want or need. That’s our garbage! So, often archaeologists are studying garbage. There are even archaeologists today who study landfills out in California to find out about what people throw out today.

9. Types of Archaeology Prehistoric Archaeology Historical Archaeology
Before writing.
Historical Archaeology
Document/writing assisted
Classical Archaeology
Greek and Roman
Biblical Archaeology
Underwater Archaeology
Shipwrecks or anything else under water.
Industrial Archaeology
Industrial Revolution and other modern structures
Egyptologists, Mayanists, Assyriologists
Study of specific civilizations or time periods.
Cultural Resource Management
Management and assesment of significant cultural resources.
Many archeologists go on in their training to specialize in specific times, places, or environments. The ones listed above are the few of many special interests.
Prehistoric archaeologists study cultures with no writing.
Historic archaeologists use written documents and photographs to help them with their work.
Classical Archaeology is the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Biblical archaeologist try to prove or disprove places and events described in the bible.
Underwater Archaeologists wear scuba gear and use the same methods as other archaeologists to study archaeological remains. They mostly look at shipwrecks. Because things in water are always cold and wet they don’t rot very fast. Archaeologists can find an entire ship in one piece because of the constant environment.
Industrial Archaeology is the study of the Industrial Revolution and other modern structures.
The study of Egypt, the Mayans, and ancient Assyria (Babylon)
Cultural Resource Management is the management and assessment of cultural resources. That means whenever something new is built an archaeologist must come in and make sure that there are no artifacts being lost or destroyed. We also keep track of places we know have artifacts and make sure they aren’t being damaged or stolen from. Cultural Resource Management is also used to teach others about archaeology.
PowerPoint created by Amy J McCray, 2005, updated 2007.

10. Archaeologists are like a CSI in a criminal investigation.
They only have the evidence at the scene to understand what happened.
So let’s try being history detectives again.
On your paper take notes about your ideas of who the person in our investigation might be.

11. Historical Detectives.
A bag has been found.
It contained various items.
We can use these items to discover what the owner is like.
This is inferring USING EVIDENCE FROM ARTIFACTS.
An introductory lesson to using evidence to make deductions for year 6. The idea is to use the artifacts discovered in the bag to piece together what kind of person lost the bag. Build up a picture of the owner using the evidence but know that this is only a hypothesis and that there may be another answer.

12. This Is The First Object.
What is it?
Where is it?
Who might this be?
Writing on the back says “Write back soon, love Angelina.”
There was part of a letter with it. Here is what is says…
A photo from a penpal in Mexico.

13. Dear Patty,
Thanks for your letter. My teacher has arranged pen pals for all of the class. I hope one day we can meet each other but it is long way from Mexico City to Chicago. Perhaps we could meet in the middle…..
A letter from the penpal. Gives info that the owner of the bag may be Patty and she lives in Chicago. She is also still at school.

14. Can we start to make assumptions?
So, What Do We Know So Far?
What clues have we had?
Can we start to make assumptions?
Who might the owner be?
Good to start summarizing what we have discovered early on. Introduces class to task early, good practice in using evidence. Can also point out that too little evidence will give false picture.

15. Here Is The Next Object. This is a pin /badge. What is it?
Why would you have one?
What does this tell you about the owner?
The child is a Christian? Has beliefs. Maybe goes to church?

16. What Does This Object Tell Us?
Do you know what it is?
What does this tell us about the person’s character?
Remember we are only making ASSUMPTIONS!
These may not be FACTS!
The person belongs to a group or club. They study and read music and can presumably play an instrument. They may be dedicated and hardworking as music lessons of this sort are often done in your own time.

17. The Final Item in the Bag is..
What is this?
IS it what you think it is?
What does it tell us about the owner of the bag?
Does the rest of the information help us to decide what it might be for?
A hypodermic syringe. Is the owner a junkie or a diabetic? Could they be allergic to something? The clues tell us the person is religious and musical. A good friend ( as they write pen pal letters) as well. The balance would seem to suggest that the syringe is for medical purposes.

18. Time to decide..put all the clues together….
Be a historical detective.
Time to get the class to piece together the jigsaw. Remember to now relate the activity and skills practiced to being a historian.
Describe who the bag belongs to.

19. Did everyone agree about who owned this bag?
What were some of the alternate explanations that we can think of that could give us another view of the person who owned the bag?
Does this tell us everything about this person?

20. We all are biased.
Each of us knows about different things, comes from different places, and have different experiences.
These differences create biases that can shade our perspectives of an item, event, person, etc.
Archaeologists, scientists, historians also have to be careful of bias clouding their interpretation of the past.
And sometimes, even when we are trying very hard, we misinterpret what objects are and what they were used for.
Read sections of Motel of the Mysteries to show how wrong some assumptions could be and explain that each of these pages is based on a real archaeological discovery or a continuing mystery.

21. Howard Carson discovers an ancient Yank tomb.

22. The tomb was filled with wonderful things!

23. Artist reconstruction of the tomb’s contents.

24. The inner chamber of the tomb contained a white sarcophagus.

25. Here is one example of changing our ideas about the past.
Archaeology
Just as in history or even in sports, our perspective of archaeology can be biased because of who we are and what we know.
But this doesn’t mean we can not trust the findings of archaeology.
We accept the version of history that archaeology presents to us until we find evidence that causes us to reexamine what we think we know about the past.
Here is one example of changing our ideas about the past.

26. References
Applegate, Darlene. “Anth 130” In-class notes. Western Kentucky University, Spring 2004.
Google Images. 1 December <