Archaeology Basics
This field studies the human past through material remains.
What is archaeology?
This survey method involves walking across the landscape to look for archaeological evidence.
What is pedestrian survey?
This is a testable explanation for an observation or pattern.
What is a hypothesis?
Archaeologists commonly use this small hand tool to scrape soil carefully during excavation.
What is a trowel?
This principle states that lower layers are older than those above them in an undisturbed sequence.
What is the principle of superposition?
These portable objects, such as pottery and stone tools, were made or modified by humans.
What are artifacts?
This satellite-based system helps archaeologists record locations in the field.
What is GPS?
This approach asks researchers to understand cultural practices within their cultural setting rather than judging them by their own standards.
What is cultural relativism?
Excavated soil passes through this equipment to recover small artifacts and ecofacts.
What is a screen, or sieve?
This type of dating places objects or events in order without assigning a numerical age.
What is relative dating?
Animal bones from meals and seeds from food preparation belong to this category of archaeological evidence.
What are ecofacts?
This computerized mapping system combines layers of geographic information to analyze spatial patterns.
What is GIS?
An artifact’s location, surrounding sediment, and relationship to nearby materials together make up this.
What is archaeological context?
This fixed reference point helps archaeologists measure excavation depths consistently.
What is a datum?
This method estimates the age of once-living material by measuring carbon-14.
What is radiocarbon dating?
A hearth or storage pit belongs to this category of human-made remains that cannot be moved intact without altering it.
What is a feature?
This technique sends radio waves into the ground to detect buried features.
What is ground-penetrating radar, or GPR?
This destructive activity removes archaeological materials without proper authorization or documentation, often for sale or personal collection.
What is looting?
Excavating in measured increments, such as every 10 centimeters, uses this type of level.
What is an arbitrary level?
This method matches tree-ring patterns to established sequences to date ancient wood.
What is dendrochronology?
This theoretical approach examines how power, labor, and control over resources shape societies.
What is political economy?
This technology uses laser pulses to measure distances and create detailed three-dimensional maps of landscapes.
What is LiDAR?
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is commonly known by this acronym.
What is NAGPRA?
Excavation requires detailed documentation because it permanently removes deposits, making it impossible to repeat the excavation under these exact circumstances.
What are the site’s original conditions?
Different geographic isotope signatures in tooth enamel and bone may suggest that a person experienced this during their lifetime.
What is migration?