After you have a good idea about what is out there on the Internet and, more to the point, what isn’t on the Internet, it is time to take your keyword search to your local university library.
If you’re a college student, you should have access to the university library. If you’re a high school student or independent scholar, you may still be able to have limited use of the library; go talk to the library administration and ask them what’s available for you. Many if not most university libraries these days have electronic catalogs, that allow you to search for books in their catalog as if you were at home on your computer.
Academic Bibliography Searches
In addition, many offer free access to the academic bibliographic search engines such as LexisNexis and ERIC. These bibliographies allow you to use keyworded searches to find journal articles on your subjects. These search engines have made academic research possible to a great many more people than ever before; before they existed (and yes I’m that old), you had to know the literature to find the literature.
In my opinion, the best online libraries for archaeology topics are AnthroSource, the ISI Web of Knowledge and JSTOR, although there are many others. Many of these electronic bibliographies will allow you to obtain copies of articles themselves for fees. Not all university libraries allow free access to these resources for the general public, although most have such access to their own students.
