Archaeology

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Archaeology "studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, ecofacts, human remains, and landscapes."

Development status: this resource is experimental in nature.

It "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 and cultural landscapes (the archaeological record)."

Educational level: this is a secondary education resource.

"Because archaeology employs a wide range of different procedures, it can be considered to be both a science and a humanity,".

Educational level: this is a tertiary (university) resource.

"Archaeology studies human history from the development of the first stone tools in eastern Africa 3.4 million years ago up until recent decades. (Archaeology does not include the discipline of paleontology.) It is of most importance for learning about prehistoric societies, when there are no written records for historians to study, making up over 99% of total human history, from the Palaeolithic until the advent of literacy in any given society."

Educational level: this is a research resource.

Resource type: this resource is an article.

Resource type: this resource contains a lecture or lecture notes.

Subject classification: this is an archaeology resource.

Notation

Notation: let the symbol Def. indicate that a definition is following.

Notation: let the symbols between [ and ] be replacement for that portion of a quoted text.

Universals

To help with definitions, their meanings and intents, there is the learning resource theory of definition.

Def. evidence that demonstrates that a concept is possible is called proof of concept.

The proof-of-concept structure consists of

1. background,
2. procedures,
3. findings, and
4. interpretation.

The findings demonstrate a statistically systematic change from the status quo or the control group.

Landscapes

This diversified and partly man-shaped landscape in northern Mozambique has some visual appeal (being beautiful or picturesque). Credit: Paulo Oliveira.

Def. an assemblage of surfaces that are a portion of land, region, or territory, observable in its entirety is called a landscape.

"Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as (ice-capped) mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of land use, buildings and structures, and transitory elements such as lighting and weather conditions."

"Landscape archaeology is the study of the ways in which people in the past constructed and used the environment around them. Landscape archaeology is inherently multidisciplinary in its approach to the study of culture, and is used by both pre-historical, classic, and historic archaeologists. The key feature that distinguishes landscape archaeology from other archaeological approaches to sites is that there is an explicit emphasis on the study of the relationships between material culture, human alteration of land/cultural modifications to landscape, and the natural environment."

Surveyance

"Archaeological field survey is the method by which archaeologists (often landscape archaeologists) search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organization of past human cultures across a large area (e.g. typically in excess of one hectare, and often in excess of many km²)."

Surveys are conducted "to search for particular archaeological sites or kinds of sites, to detect patterns in the distribution of material culture over regions, to make generalizations or test hypotheses about past cultures, and to assess the risks that development projects will have adverse impacts on archaeological heritage."

"The surveys may be: (a) intrusive or non-intrusive, depending on the needs of the survey team (and the risk of destroying archaeological evidence if intrusive methods are used) and; (b) extensive or intensive, depending on the types of research questions being asked of the landscape in question. Surveys can be a practical way to decide whether or not to carry out an excavation (as a way of recording the basic details of a possible site), but may also be ends in themselves, as they produce important information about past human activities in a regional context."

Excavation

Excavations at the site of Gran Dolina, in Atapuerca (Spain), during 2008, are shown. Credit: Mario Modesto Mata.

"[E]xcavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is a site being studied."

Prehistory

Def. "[t]he history of human culture prior to written records, per Wiktionary prehistory, is called prehistory.

Artifacts

Def. "[a]n object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, ... structure or finding in an experiment or investigation ... made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, ... [as] a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error ... rather than an inherent element", after Wiktionary artifact, is called an artifact, or artefact.

Historical archaeology

The history archeology deals with is the study of past events in human life by scientific methods. It deals with use of written records. Archaeologists try to reconstruct a past society using records that are located. An example is an ancient state in Zimbabwe which is a mutapa state about which archaeologists used written records from the Portuguese to locate the site.

See also

• Classical planets
• Dominant group/Archaeology

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This is a research project at http://en.wikiversity.org