Think of all the objects you use in a day. What is the first object you touch when you wake up? The last one you see before you go to sleep? All the things you need for getting dressed in the morning, for a day at school, for making a meal at home, for fun during free time—someday any of these objects may be examined by the archaeologists of the future to try to figure out what you were like and how you lived your life. Your life may one day be a detective story that an archaeologist might try to discover, and all the objects you use clues in that mystery.

Archaeology is the study of the past by study of things people have made, which archaeologists call artifacts. Archaeologists seek to discover artifacts in an effort to learn about the past. Archaeologists do research just as you do for school, in libraries and on computers, to try to find out what work others have done that might be important.

The place where an archaeologist seeks material from the past is called an archaeological site. These sites can be anywhere that people have been, lived, worked, or been buried. The objects archaeologists find are artifacts. Sites can even be underwater: when explorers investigated the ruins of the "Titanic" they were excavating an underwater archaeological site. The procedures archaeologists follow, or methodology, follows very precise rules in order to gain the most knowledge while causing the least damage to the site and artifacts.

There are several kinds of archaeology. Some archaeologists study ancient plants or animals or people from thousands of years ago. Others study people and cultures from very recent history. "Historical archaeology" is one kind of archaeology: learning about the past by an examination of the objects people have created or used and left behind. Archaeology used to be practiced as an avocation by people out of a personal interest ad curiosity about the past. Today, archaeologists are professionals who receive extensive training. Today they usually work in universities, in government, with private research firms, and with museums and historic sites.

Though their goals may vary and their methods of identifying and dating materials adjusted according to the site they are working on, many of the rules they follow are common to all kinds of archaeology. Professional archaeologists must follow extremely meticulous practices in removing and storing the artifacts that they find, and document their work in writing and photography. There are three reasons for this. One, for archaeologists, the context of the object is crucial to the interpretation of the object. Archaeologists do not only look at the object by itself, but at the site where it was found, objects found nearby, its position at the site. All these aspects of an archaeological site may provide clues to the archaeologist.

Second, archaeologists must be as careful as possible not to damage the artifacts that they find. Though the objects they find might not seem to be valuable in themselves—pieces of pottery, scraps of cloth, bits of paper—all of them have a great deal of value when the archaeologist tries to put together the story of the lives lived in the past. Archaeology is a "non-renewable resource." Objects left from the past are unique and once lost, cannot be replaced. Once all ancient sites have been excavated, there will be no more.

Finally, archaeologists of today try to enable the archaeologists of the future to reconstruct their work, in case they might have new ideas about the interpretation of the site. Archaeologists are constantly learning better ways to excavate sites and interpret materials. Archaeologists can sometimes learn from the methodology records of their predecessors.

There are many aspects of archaeology. To properly analyze a site may require expertise in dating methods (described below), history, art history, soils, geology, geography, anthropology, zoology, construction methods, or any number of other areas. Archaeologists may need legal knowledge concerning the ownership of objects found at a site, or awareness of ethical issues involved in removing cultural materials from a site and reinstalling these in another location. Archaeologists may specialize in one or more of many areas of the field. No one person can master every aspect of archaeology.


Identifying Sites

Archaeologists study all they can about the history of an area before seeking a site. They learn if any other sites exist in the area. They learn the customs, livelihood, material culture of the area. They come to seek a site with a pretty good idea of what kind of site they are likely to find.

Some archeologists work with sites such as deserted houses or other structures visible above the surface of the ground. These are abandonment sites. More often, archaeologists look for material that is not easily visible, or may be buried underground or covered by foliage or later habitation. Sometimes construction crews find archaeological sites when digging to build a house or subway or water main.

Archaeologists who seek sites in the countryside may look for a number of clues in the landscape. A key questions is: "what looks different?" Is there a place that looks unusual compared to the rest of the landscape? Is the shape of the land different? Is there an unusual rise or depression in the ground? Is the foliage different, or younger, or of a different height? Archaeologists call such indicators "crop marks."

Perhaps something was built there that has since been destroyed? There might be fragments of pottery or other material scattered nearby. Fruit trees in the middle of a forest of non-fruit-bearing trees might indicate that once a settlement was present. Sometimes remains can be seen from the air, as the patterns of buried walls become visible in the shape of plant or drainage patterns on the surface of the ground.

One clue in land formations is the presence of a "regular" shape. Perfect circles or squares or completely symmetrical formations are unusual in nature. Such shapes can suggest the presence of human intervention.

Excavating a Site

One quality archaeologists share: patience. If an archaeologist finds a site to excavate, or dig, no matter what the archaeologists sees or how tempting it might be to collect objects that can be immediately spotted, he or she follows a careful and painstaking procedure. A site is a place where the archaeologist expects to find a clustering of artifacts, or portable objects made or modified by people. He or she may select a trench a section across the area. The archaeologist will choose this as a representative of the site as a whole, and investigate the contents of this trench intensively and carefully. Before an archaeologist starts to dig in the ground, he or she creates a site grid He or she divides the ground into carefully measured equal squares or rectangles. The perimeter of the site is marked with stakes at regular intervals, usually a meter (about three feet) apart, connected with string to form a grid across the surface of the site. These squares are called units, and anything found within these squares will be carefully marked as belonging to that unit. The distance between the stakes is very carefully measured with a measuring tape and the height and location of the stakes are plotted on a map. A datum is selected: a point from which all site measurements are taken.

Once the grid is all clearly laid out and locations of all units marked, only then does an archaeologist begin to dig. He or she digs very carefully so that the sides of the trench are straight up and down. If the archaeologist sees the edge of an artifact embedded in the wall of the trench, he or she much wait until the next section of the dig is marked and measured before excavating it. Not all finds will be artifacts: the archaeologist may find features, which like artifacts have been made or modified by people, but due to size or construction cannot be moved without being damaged or destroyed. Archaeologists may also find ecofacts, which are natural objects unmodified by people.

Ave you ever worked in a garden, digging with a small hand shovel called a trowel? You were using the same tool archaeologists use which hunting for the past. Once the digging starts, the archaeologist’s treasure hunt is really underway. In digging, the archaeologist will watch for a sign of change in the soil, which may signal the chronology of the artifacts found. As the archaeologist digs into the earth the grid help keep an exact measurement of the location of any object that is found. The exact location, position, and surroundings of any found objects are recorded, preferably photographed "in situ," which means as it was found in the ground at the site, before they are removed and examined. Sometimes even a hand trowel is too large for delicate or very small objects, and the earth is removed from the ground with very tiny tools.

Archaeologists use stratigraphy as a guide. Stratigraphy follows the law of superimposition: if left undisturbed, what is newer or more recent overlays what is older. Archaeologists examine layers of buried material from the top, or the most recent, downward to the oldest. It is very important for archaeologists to look at the entire context of a "layer" of material, as well as the development over time from old to newer layers. Of course, not all sites are this simple: many sites have been disturbed, things may have been buried in the past to be located below the level we might expect, animals or geological or water movements may have caused shifts of layers. Anything found within the same level is labeled as sharing common location or provenience (or provenance).

As the archaeogist digs down from the surface of the ground, he or she watches for natural levels in the earth: a change in the color or texture of the soil, or some other difference. This natural level might tell the archaeologist that everything found in this layer was embedded in the earth in the same period of time. Sometimes a decision is made prior to digging concerning the depth to which digging will be done regardless of natural levels, perhaps because other similar digs found material only after reaching a certain level. A line level insures that the archaeologist can measure this exactly.

Can you think of something that is was very popular for a while, but then it seemed after a while people lost interest? Cabbage patch dolls or Tickle me Elmo? Right now Pokiemon is popular, and archaeologists of the future might find evidence of Pokiemon’s popularity in studying our culture. The process of changing tastes offers clues for archaeologists. Archaeologists also use seriation in their examination of objects. Seriation is similar to the word "series." Seriation proposes that like objects collectively form a series, which appears, or is invented, then becomes popular, then fades away or ceases as something else is invented or takes its place. Thus at the beginning of the period in which an object occurs, there are only a few. During the period of the height of its popularity, many are to be found. Gradually, or sometimes suddenly, fewer are found. These changes help archaeologists contruct a chronology for their sites.

For the archaeologist, no object found at the site, however insignificant it may seem, is without value. All objects are recorded, and placed in wrappings that identify them. Once the site has been excavated, the archaeologist may turn to the dating and identification of the objects.

Dating

Once objects have been found and their locations and contexts recorded, a new kind of detective work begins.

First, the objects are dated. One initial guide to dating objects is to look at the layer in which they were found. But archaeologists must be watchful for unusual circumstances: perhaps later objects were buried, for some reason; perhaps earlier objects were used at a later time. Archaeologists must be aware of many kinds of exceptional circumstances in recreating the "chronology," or sequence of events in time, of the recovered objects.

Archaeologists use two kinds of dating: absolute dates and relative dates. Absolute dates are based on scientific measurements, such as the methods described below. These dates pinpoint precise moments in time. Relative dates are more flexible: assigning an object to a period of history, or describing it in terms of its age relative to other artifacts. Sometimes this is the only available method of dating.

Trees found at a site can help with dating. Counting rings can provide clues. This is called dendochronology. Other methods require laboratories and expensive equipment. For extremely old artifacts, many thousands of years old, archaeologists use potassium argon dating, whch measures the decay of radioactive potassium 40. Obsidian hydration dating measures the amount of water absorbed by obsidian over time. Obsidian is a volcanic glass. This method is simple, quick, and inexpensive compared to the other methods. Carbon dating measures the disappearance of a special kind of carbon, known as carbon-14, which exists in all living things but decays after death. Carbon-14 is a radioactive, or chemically unstable, element. Radiocarbon dating uses this knowledge from chemistry to determine exactly how old something is by measuring how much carbon-14 is left in it. Archaeologists can use radiocarbon dating on all kinds of fossils, bones, or other organic (carbon-based) matter they find at their site. Because radiocarbon dating is an absolute dating method, an exact date is found. Unfortunately, radiocarbon dating uses lots of expensive technology that makes this technique very
costly, and can only date objects younger than about 5,200 years old.*

Identification

When you enter a store, how do you find what you need? You look for the category of things that have the characteristics you want, which you expect will be sorted and grouped together. The characteristics of archaeological artifacts are called attributes. These attributes help archaeologists identify and date their finds. Objects can also be dated and identified by the comparative method. If you have an object for which date and identity are documented, this can help establish date and identity for newly discovered artifacts. Sometimes objects do not match exactly, but may have certain characteristics in common. The more objects you have to compare artifacts with, the more opportunities you have to find similarities. Material, shape, size, color, decoration may all be clues in discovering what has been found. The more familiarily the archaeologist has with other objects produced by a culture, the easier it will be to identify a newly found object by seeing what attributes it has in common with other examples.

Object identification helps tell us the stories of lives, work, play, death in another place and another time. Archaeologists use their imagination to develop an idea of the people who created and used the things that they find. Next time you go to a museum, try imagining who might have made some of the things you see, and what their lives might have been like.

Preservation

Archaeologists use extreme care in the process of finding and removing objects from a site. This is both to prevent damage to any of the artifacts, and to preserve all possible information about the context of the artifacts, such as what the site is like and how objects were arranged at the site. As difficult as this is for the archaeologist, his next task is sometimes even harder.

Once objects have been removed from the site, what is to happen to them? Who owns them? This is not always an easy question. Do they belong to the archaeologist who found them? To the person who owns the land? To the government of the country? Archaeologists must be aware of these issues before they begin work at a site.

Many objects excavated by professional archaeologists are placed in a musuem. Not everyone may approve of this. Contemporary peoples and nations may object to taking objects from the ground and putting them in a museum. Sometimes it is a legal or diplomatic issue, of ownership of the territory where objects are found. Sometimes there are objections to isolating objects from their cultural contexts and installing in the new context of the museum. . Sometimes this is because they see the people who created these things as their ancestors and feel this is disrespectful or even sacreligious.

Cultural heritage issues are particularly important in the case of graves or tombs where people have been buried. Graves can be rich sources of cultural information, and unlike sites in which objects are accidentally buried or discarded because they were broken or unusable, grave sites may contain objects of value and objects protected to last forever. But grave excavation is a sensitive issue. In Japan, for example, the excavation of imperial tombs was challenged as a violation of cultural and religious practice. Even non-invasive archaeological practices, such as ground penetration radar, may be offensive for a variety of reasons.

Others feel we should try to learn as much as we can about the past, and archaeology is one of the best, sometimes one of the few, ways to learn about how people in the past lived, worked, treated one another.

What can you do in your museum to bring the past alive? What measures can you take to be sensitive to the feelings of other cultures?

Are you interested in finding out about archaeological work?

If you would like to learn more about a career in archaeology, you might like to request the brochure "Mapping Out a Career in Historical Archaeology" from the Society for Historical Archaeology, P.O. Box 30446, Tucson, AZ 85751, U.S.A; Tel: 520-886-8006, Fax: 520-886-0182; Email: sha@azstarnet.com .

For training and fieldwork, you might want to request the "Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin" of the Archaeological Institute of America., Order Department, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 4050 Westmark Drive, Dubuque, Iowa, 52002, Tel: (800) 228-0814; Email: aia@bu.edu WWW: www.archaeological.org

The National Forest Service has a volunteer program called Passport
in Time (PIT) is a program of the National Forest Service which gives volunteers the chance to work with professional archaeologists on national forests across the country. For a free catalog call 800-281-9176.

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