Archaeology Methods and Practice

Learning about our past and the past of other cultures has always helped us as people learn, grow, and evolve into who and what we are today. Without the knowledge of the past we wouldn’t be able to prepare ourselves for the present and future. Archaeology is a science that has been utilized for hundreds of years and continues to give us fantastic insight to the peoples and animals of yesterday. With the help of Archaeology we can visualize how Earth looked thousands of years ago and a breakdown of daily life.

Archaeology itself is the study of human cultures through material remains of the past. In other words the act of investigation through digging, excavating, and preserving artifacts found helps scientist track and learn about human cultural growth. Although Archaeology has itself become the study of human cultures and societies, it started out as the study of human remains. It has become an essential tool for understanding people, animals, and the planet itself of the past.

Like many other academic disciplines, Archaeologists must follow a special code of ethics. What this means is that there are several laws and rules they must abide by while investigating a dig site. One of the biggest areas of concern is the handling of human remains when found. It is important in many cultures that human remains be handled with great respect and integrity as ancestry is considered sacred to many. This rule does not apply just to ancient remains found. There have also been issues with Archaeologists exhuming WWI and WWII soldiers from their graves here in the United States.

Another form of Archaeology is Urban Archaeology. This is the study of cities or towns, where people resided for a long period of time offering an abundance of information about the cultures and societies there. Because such densely populated areas created dense waste, it was hard for archaeologists to use standard methods of investigation. The solution was called single context recording. This allowed them to draw each feature individually and then relating its position to the site grid. This piece by piece method allowed them to excavate each square down to the first significant layer of remains and features and record them normally.

Archaeological practices and methods help us to discover and learn from different societies and cultures. It’s important to keep in mind all the different regulations involved in excavating to make sure that great care is taken to preserve the integrity of any human remains that may be found. Without the knowledge and information gathered it is possible that we as people would not be able to avoid disasters that ancient people suffered as well.

~##~

If you have an article or Archaeology related event you wish to add to this site, please contact us via email [ ] and we will consider it.