Although many people are familiar with the term ‘archaeology’, very few know what the practice of archaeology entails. It is common for visitors to an archaeological excavation to ask archaeologists ‘how did you know where to dig?’ That question comes after they have seen some of the excavated material. How, they wonder, did archaeologists possibly know that they would find such materials at that precise location? This chapter looks at what archaeology is all about.

What is archaeology?

Archaeology is the study of humans from both the distant and recent past, using material remains — that is, the objects they made, modified, used and then discarded or abandoned. Wherever people have lived even for a short period, they leave behind evidence of their presence in the form of artefacts, ecofacts and features. Artefacts are any portable objects that human beings intentionally made or modified in order to accomplish various tasks and discarded after use. Such objects include tools made from stones, metal, bone or wood; jewellery; and ceramics, including pots, smoking pipes, figurines, beads and other objects. Ecofacts, which are objects found at archaeological sites that humans did not intentionally modify, include bones of both wild and domestic animals with or without butchery marks, firewood on a fireplace, charred or uncharred seeds of both wild and domestic plants, and other objects. Features are any remains of human activity that are not easily movable. Archaeologists observe and study them on site and leave these features there, which include building foundations, floors, irrigation canals, postholes and other features. Qualified archaeologists recover or observe these material remains when they excavate archaeological sites. After recovery, archaeologists take the portable objects to a laboratory where they analyse them in order to answer specific questions regarding the way of life of the people who made them.

Although archaeology is often seen as studying prehistory, that is, the study of cultures that existed before the invention of writing, there is also historical archaeology and the archaeology of modern society. Historical archaeology is the study of complex cultures or civilisations which were literate and have some written records. Considering that biases always creep in whenever people write or produce documents, archaeologists are able to compare if the archaeological record agrees with some of the written relics.