Of the many geophysical techniques that exist, archaeologists generally make use of four: magnetic gradiometry, earth resistance, ground penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic susceptibility. Each technique measures some aspect of the ground below the surface.

Historians recorded events when archaeologists arose centuries later and discovered different antiques, for example, a painting, a manuscript, a shield, a sword, and any other thing. They examine these antiques and analyze them. At earlier times, art was mainly at the hands of the ruling ministers.

Historians concentrate specifically on the evidence of written texts, while archaeologists directly examine all aspects of a society’s material culture—its architecture, art, and artifacts, including texts—the material objects made, used, and discarded by human beings.

Artifacts include tools, clothing, and decorations. Non-portable remains, such as pyramids or post-holes, are called features. Archaeologists use artifacts and features to learn how people lived in specific times and places.

In order to learn about them, archaeologists ask questions like: Who were these people? When did they live? What were they and their families like?

Techniques used to find a site may include remote sensing (for example, by aerial photography), soil surveys, and walk-through or surface surveys. The digging of shovel tests, augured core samples and, less commonly, trenches may also be used to locate archaeological sites.

The goal of archaeology is to understand how and why human behavior has changed over time. Archaeologists search for patterns in the evolution of significant cultural events such as the development of farming, the emergence of cities, or the collapse of major civilizations for clues of why these events occurred.

The aim of both archaeology and history is the research of the human past. The difference between these two disciplines derives from the source materials: historians use written sources while archaeologists concentrate on physical remains.

There are several different kinds of archaeology: prehistoric, historic, classical, and underwater, to name a few. These often overlap. For example, when archaeologists studied the wreck of the Civil War ironclad, the Monitor, they were doing both historic and underwater archaeology.

The discovery of stone ecofacts has allowed archeologists to better understand what types of environments early humans once lived in. Petrified wood shows the type of trees that belonged in the area, which we can relate to the types of animals that were available to hunt in these days.

On This Page

1. Selecting the Site.
2. Conducting Research.
3. Excavating the Site.
4. Cleaning and Cataloguing Artifacts.
5. Reporting the Results.

Archaeologists learn about the human past by studying the materials people left behind. Accurate, detailed recording of observations allows archaeologists to construct extensive data sets that can be examined, reexamined, and shared with others.

The two most common areas of study in archaeological research today, particularly in the United States, are prehistoric and historic archaeology.

• Prehistoric archaeology.
• Historic archaeology.
• Classical archaeology.
• Cultural resource management.
• Archaeological survey/field reconnaissance.
• Test excavation.
• Salvage excavation.

Houses built of wood burnt down easily and sometimes rotted in the damp climate of Britain. Often these buildings were left to decay, or were pulled down and houses built on top or nearby. Sometimes things get buried because of sudden changes in the landscape such as flooding, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes.

Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, and opposition to the excavation of human remains.

We organize these challenges into five topics: (1) emergence, communities, and complexity; (2) resilience, persistence, transformation, and collapse; (3) movement, mobility, and migration; (4) cognition, behavior, and identity; and (5) human-environment interactions.

The challenges addressed questions of emergence, complexity, demography, mobility, identity, resilience, and human–environment interactions. There is a notable lack of concern with the earliest, the largest, and the otherwise unique. They show an increasing concern with relevance to the contemporary world.