2.1: What is archaeology?


Archaeological research
 as a process
There are many possible ways to define the subject and object of study. This is the definition of archaeology used here:
Archaeology is the study of aspects the human past through the documentation and analysis of physical remains and traces, their associations and contexts, by the methodology of archaeology and dissemination of the results and conclusions.
1) "The study of aspects of the human past", The past might be very remote, from the Lower Palaeolithic, where it may intercalate with palaeontology (but archaeologists don't do dinosaurs), to almost the present day (periods when other but not all aspects of the past are amply documented by other sources),

2)  "aspects of the human past", many areas of the human past are arguably beyond the reach of even the most creative of archaeological thought,

3) "through the documentation", the archaeological evidence does not exist in a vacuum, currant cake is not a currant cake without the cake, if parts of the evidence are removed from the context, that context is destroyed and therefore has to be 'preserved' by documentation. The archaeological process is one of 'reading' and 'translation' of the material traces and turning them into documentation and it is that documentation that is the basis of (and check on) interpretation,

4) "and analysis", the raw data have to be analysed and interpreted to be usable as evidence on which to base an interpretation of the past, a pile of bricks on a building site is not a building. This analysis will involve many aspects of determining how the evidence of 'living culture' (human activities) and the natural processes acting on its remains became what was found and documented in the investigations, this is akin to the process of taphonomy in palaeontology (see references below) or investigating (and documenting) a crime scene,

5) "physical remains and traces" - these are the archaeological record (***), they may be artefacts, sculptures, walls, human remains, the discarded bones from meals, the snails that fed on a corpse, etc., but above all, different compositions and layers of soil,

6) "the methodology of archaeology", this may be tautological, but there are methodologies by which archaeology is done, and not using them is not archaeology. Archaeology is not 'digging up old things' (***). Neither is archaeology 'collecting old things' (***) - even if there is a methodology by which a given collection is assembled.

7) "dissemination of the results and conclusions". The archaeologist cannot sit on the results of any work that led to the disturbance of the archaeological record (***). Unpublished research might as well have been left undone, and the resources it consumed saved, and the evidence on which it was based undisturbed.


References:
Taphonomy (life and death assemblages):

Ivan Efremov 1940, 'Taphonomy: new branch of paleontology', Pan-American Geologist (1940), vol. 74, p. 81-93.
Johnson, R. G. 1960, 'Models and Methods for Analysis of the Mode of Formation of Fossil Assemblages', Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 71, issue 7, p. 1075 
Ronald E. Martin R.E. 1999, 'Taphonomy A Process Approach' Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521591713


Tamara Kroftova comments:
"An understanding of what archaeology is and what its aims and methods are could be said to be fundamental to any true collaborative and responsible partnership between artefact hunters and archaeologists. It is therefore strange that despite two decades of liaison, there is so little material available in the public domain that sets this out logically and clearly. Without this, how is the artefact hunter to know at what point they are causing a loss of the information value of the finds they make and the sites and assemblages they explore in their search for collectables? Why is there no bibliography of archaeology methods and techniques handbooks for the artefact hunter (for example on the Portable Antiquities Scheme website)?"





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