What is archaeology?
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Archaeology is the study of the human past by means of the material remains that people have left behind. It differs from history in that it can address the eras before written records began, back as far as the emergence of humankind, and that in the literate eras it can study people, places and aspects of life that were not written about.
Archaeology uses a wide variety if different forms of evidence. Archaeologists study artefacts, such as pottery vessels, chipped stone tools, metalwork and preserved textiles, each of which can inform us about different aspects of past societies. They also investigate the remains of houses, monuments and funerary structures, field systems, road systems and shipwrecks. Evidence for past diets, economic activities and the use of the landscape are provided by animal bones, plant remains, pollen preserved in bogs and buried soils, land molluscs sensitive to changes in climate and vegetation, and other environmental indicators.
Archaeology is traditionally associated with the practice of excavation, and this remains the principal means by which assemblages of artefacts are recovered, and traces of structures recorded. But excavation is complemented by a range of non-destructive means of acquiring information, ranging from topographic survey using electronic distance measurement or GPS, geophysical survey including soil penetrating radar, and aerial photography.
Archaeology makes use of a rapidly expanding range of laboratory techniques, which enable us to date a variety of organic and inorganic materials (radiocarbon, thermoluminiscence, uranium series, etc.), to characterise raw materials and thereby study the trade and redistribution of artefacts (thin sectioning, neutron activation analysis, etc.), to conserve and halt the deterioration of ancient artefacts, to identify residues on pots and stone tools, and to study the diets and patterns of movement of humans and animals from the isotopes contained in their bones.
But importantly, archaeology uses these many kinds of evidence to investigate a series of critical questions concerning the development of human societies. When did human beings first emerge, and what was the life of the earliest humans like? How did people migrate and colonize Europe, Asia and the Americas? When, and how, did people first cultivate plants and herd animals? Why did the first villages and urban centres develop, and were larger populations sustained? What was the character of power and authority in early societies? Why were monumental structures like Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids constructed? How did empires like that of Rome emerge, how were they governed, and what kinds of identity did they promote? In looking at these questions, archaeologists frequently make use of ideas and approaches drawn from the social sciences and humanities in general.
While many archaeologists concentrate on the study of a particular period (the Palaeolithic, the Iron Age, the Medieval era, etc.), particular aspects of archaeology are multi-period in character. This particularly applies to landscape archaeology, in which the development of particular regions through time, and the ebb and flow of human habitation is charted.
While archaeology concerns itself with the past, it is also sensitive to the role of the past in the present. The past is presented in museums and the media, is a resource for the creation and maintenance of contemporary identities (ranging from national identities grounded in descent from ancient peoples to contemporary paganism), and is manipulated by political and cultural agendas. The study of how the past is used and abused in the present is an integral element of archaeology.
It is the diversity of archaeology as a subject, ranging from field and laboratory techniques to discussions of social change, that makes it a stimulating and wide-ranging degree subject.