Over the past 150 years or, archaeologists and our related colleagues have tried to define archaeology, by describing it alternately as a stand-alone science or as an interdisciplinary study or merely as a set of methods.
Historical Archaeology at the Champoeg Townsite in Oregon, 1974. Photo by John Atherton
Archaeology includes the study of the entire stretch of our human past, beginning when our long-ago ancestors began making tools some 2.5 million years ago, and ending with yesterday's garbage. Archaeology studies every form of human behavior, from sex to economics to religion, from what we eat to how we build homes to who we decide to marry to how we organize our lives and societies to who and how we decide to worship. And yet, how odd! We are a tiny little anthill of researchers, a mere several tens of thousands of women and men diligently digging holes in the ground and lecturing to tiny groups of people. And people ask us, do you excavate dinosaurs?
No, I say, no! We study all of human kind. Is archaeology the most undersold of sciences or what?
- Defining Archaeology, a collection of quotations
- Subfields of Archaeology, a collection of definitions of the subdisciplines of archaeology
Comments
I would say archeology can stand alone, but without a solid knowledge of history and anthropology, findings in archeology wouldn’t have any real significance to the archeologist. Never underestimate the archeologist because from my armchair position, she or he knows what is going on with any given dig they are working on!
archeology unearths the differences and commonality between all of us despite the era and age, that’s the treasure….
Just this afternoon, when I left my test trench, some passer-by in the parking lot asked me if I was digging for dinosaurs…
I spent 38 years in the field so I have had plenty of time to think on the subject. I have always thought that Archaeology was underappreciated by the fields out side of history and anthropology. We unearth tons of data that are valuable to the biological sciences (I minored in biology) but they are not being accessed by biologists. Archaeological techniques can be used to study animal and plant life whether or not those forms of life were actively interacting with humans. Archaeology is both a science and a technique and as such is of value to those studying all phenomina (sp?) relating to life on Earth. Archaeology does a lot but it could do so much more if people with imagination can apply its techniques to fields of study besides history and anthropology.