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Archaeology or archeology [a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities.
For some regions, there is need for an intermediate Chalcolithic period between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. For cultures where indigenous metal tools were in less widespread use, other classifications, such as the lithic stage , archaic stage and formative stage refer to the development of other types of technology and social organization.
The main difference between Trial trenching and watching briefs is that trial trenches are actively dug for the purpose of revealing archaeological potential [12] whereas watching briefs are cursory examination of trenches where the primary function of the trench is something other than archaeology, for example a trench cut for a gas pipe in a ...
Archaeology is the study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts (also known as eco-facts) and cultural landscapes (the archaeological record).
In Asia and Australasia, prehistoric archaeology began in China in the 1920s with the work of amateur Swedish archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson who uncovered Homo erectus fossils in the Zhoukoudian cave in southwest Beijing and excavated Yangshao in Henan, [15] in India excavation began with the works of Captain H. Congreve in 1847, [16] in ...
Classical archaeology is the study of the past using both material evidence (i.e. artifacts and their contexts) and documentary evidence (including maps, literature of the time, other primary sources, etc.). Classical archaeology specifically pertains to the Mediterranean area and the archaeology of Greece and its surrounding areas.
Post-processual archaeology, however, questioned this stance, and instead emphasized that archaeology was subjective rather than objective, and that what truth could be ascertained from the archaeological record was often relative to the viewpoint of the archaeologist responsible for unearthing and presenting the data. [5]
The connection between these types is an empirical observation. Their interpretation in terms of ethnic or political groups is based on archaeologists' understanding. However, this is often subject to long-unresolved debates. The concept of the archaeological culture is fundamental to culture-historical archaeology.