Introduction to Archaeology

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Introduction to Archaeology

• Diane King, Media Specialist
• Bartlett Middle School

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What is Archaeology?

• Archaeology is the scientific study of past
  cultures and the way people lived based on the
  things they left behind.  We study mans garbage
  to find out how they lived.

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Archaeology is a Science

• Archaeology isnt just going out and digging in
  the ground wherever one chooses. 
• Anyone can go outside and put a shovel in the
  ground and dig. 
• An archaeologist is a scientist, and as a
  scientist he/she must obey some basic rules or
  procedures.
• A variety of tools and research methods aid
  archaeologists in their job. 

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What is Culture?

• Culture is the shared ways of life learned by a
  group of people, including their language,
  religion, technology, and values.

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What are Artifacts?

• Archaeologists study past cultures by examining
  artifacts, objects made, used, or changed by
  humans.  
• Artifacts are usually found buried in the
  ground. 

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• Have you ever found a penny on the ground? 
• That is an artifact that was lost by someone. 
• Years from now, that penny could be found by an
  archaeologist, and it would be studied as part of
  American culture in the early twenty-first
  century. 

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What is Excavation?

• Over time, soil builds up and covers things left
  on the ground.  That is why archaeologists dig in
  the dirt, or excavate, to find the artifacts. 

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For example, you probably know that vinyl records
occurred before cassette tapes which occurred
before compact disks. Fast forward a bit and
pretend you are a future archaeologist studying
the turn of the 21st century. You find an
artifact, say a vinyl record, in a lower stratum,
with a cassette tape recovered from an upper
stratum and a CD that was recovered from a
stratum above the cassette tape.
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Excavations at Site 1Au397 near Prattville in
Autauga County, Alabama.
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Sites

• Any place where human activity occurred and where
  artifacts are found is called an archaeological
  site.
• There are two types of archaeological sites,
• Prehistoric- Before written history.
• Historic- After written history.

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Prehistoric Sites

• Prehistoric sites occurred before the culture
  began writing records of daily life. 
• Prehistory is more of a puzzle because most of
  what we know about prehistoric people is from the
  artifacts they left behind.
• Archaeologists must try to understand how the
  artifacts were used without being able to "look
  up" the answers in a book.
• Due to this, archaeologists sometimes make
  incorrect inferences or guesses. 
• In Georgia, and most of the United States,
  prehistoric sites were created by the ancestors
  of Native American Indians.

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Prehistoric Artifact Game

• Have you ever thought about what the Native
  Americans might have used for tools? Play this
  game to find out if you can identify what these
  artifacts are and how they might have been used.
• Play the Prehistoric Artifact Game 

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Preserving the Past

• Many people are interested in the past. They
  collect artifacts like pottery, arrowheads, or
  old bottles.
• Some people dig up archaeological sites to get
  artifacts.
• They may not know about scientific archaeology
  and why excavation units and stratigraphy are so
  important for understanding the past.

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Be Careful!

• Remember, an archaeological site is like a book.
  The layers of dirt and artifacts that are left in
  the ground can be read like the pages of a book.
• When someone digs holes in an archaeological
  site, it is like ripping pages out of the life
  stories of past peoples.

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Credits

• Alabama Archaeology http//bama.ua.edu/alaarch/Wh
  atisarchaeology/index.htm
• Unitedstreaming Video