Finding Clues To The Past

How do archaeologists uncover the story of early peoples?

What is archaeology?• Archaeology is the

study of past human life

Archeologist Matt Mattson holds a rock that may have been used as a hammering tool between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago.

Working Together Archaeologists are scientists who learn about early people - study traces of early settlements, prehistoric people - figure out the age, meaning of artifacts—human-made

objects (from the past)

Anthropologists study culture—way of life of a group of people

- study beliefs, common language, shared ways of doing things

Studying Fossils Evidence of early people can be

found in fossils - fossils—remains of early life

preserved in ground - human fossils include pieces of

teeth, skulls, other bones

Archaeologists try to figure out ages of fossil remains, and artifacts

EQ: How do we learn about Archaeology? Archaeologists have three major

ways of learning about a civilization, they are:

1. Research

2. Fieldwork

3. Laboratory Analysis

1. Research

Archaeologists use two methods to find out what an artifact is and how it was used:

• Historical Approach• Cross-cultural Comparison

How do we know what an artifact is?

Method #1: Historical Approach

Watching how people in modern times use a similar object (living in the same area)

Method #2: Cross-Cultural ComparisonWatching how people from another culture use a similar object (Today)

2. Fieldwork• After the first research is done,

archaeologists go outdoors and look for archaeological sites—places where artifacts are found 

• Archaeologists usually know where to look for these sites.

3. Laboratory Analysis• Laboratory Analysis can be used to

find out what an artifact is made of and how old it is.

• A common method of finding the age of an artifact is radiocarbon dating, which can find the age of something that was once alive.

History Detectives:

• List 2-3 things that they want to find out about the artifact

• List 2-3 tools or methods that are used to learn about the artifact

• What things are learned about the artifact? List 2-3 facts that are learned.