Introduction to Archaeology

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Introduction to Archaeology

• Ch 4 and 5

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Archaeological Data

• So what is archaeological data?
• Archaeological data is any artifact or assemblage
  of artifacts known as material remains
  representing human activity.
• Matrix, or the physical substance that surrounds
  the material, from natural phenomena or human
  behavior.
• Human behavior is the first stage in site
  formation, as a major goal if archaeology is to
  reconstruct past human behavior.

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• Human activity that affects the archeological
  record can be
• Discard, or dumping unwanted items (trash)
• Recycling, or reusing already discarded items
• Preserving material, keeping items that are held
  sacred such as heirlooms or ceremonial items
• Destruction, either on purpose or accidental

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Transformational Processes

• Two forms of site formation processes are
• Cultural processes
• Noncultural processes

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Environmental Agents

• The environmental agents are typically grouped
  into chemical, physical, and biological
  categories.
• Some preserving environments include wet
  conditions, dry conditions, extreme cold
  conditions, and volcanic ash.

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Wet Conditions
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Tollund Bog
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Tollund Man
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Extreme Cold Conditions
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Otzi, the 5,300 year old Iceman from the Italiam
Alps
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Doing Archaeology

• Archaeologists today must relay on many
  specialty skills, including training in
  administrative, theoretical, technical, and
  writing and analytical skills of various types.

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• At this point, we ask the fundamental question
  Is archaeology a science?

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Science

• So what do we mean by science, when discussing
  archaeology?
• Science is the way of acquiring knowledge and
  understanding about parts of the natural world
  that can be measured empirically. The natural
  world is measured empirically by following
  general procedures for acquiring data known as
  the scientific method.

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• Scientist establishes facts about the natural
  world by observing by using both
• Inductive reasoning
• Deductive reasoning

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So what is the process of archaeological research?

• Research Design
• Data collection
• Data processing
• Publication