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Archaeology

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Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek ἀρχαιολογία, archaiologia – ἀρχαῖος, archaīos, "primal, ancient, old"; and -λογία, -logia) is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, features, biofacts, and landscapes. Because archaeology's aim is to understand humankind, it is a humanistic endeavor. Due to its analysis of human cultures, it is a subset of anthropology, which contains: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. There is debate as to what archaeology's goals are. Some goals include the documentation and explanation of the origins and development of human cultures, understanding culture history, chronicling cultural evolution, and studying human behavior and ecology, for both prehistoric and historic societies[citation needed].

Archaeologists are also concerned with the study of methods used in the discipline, and the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings underlying the questions archaeologists ask of the past. The tasks of surveying areas in order to find new sites, excavating sites in order to recover cultural remains, classification, analysis, and preservation are all important phases of the archaeological process. Given the broad scope of the discipline, there is cross-disciplinary research in archaeology. It draws upon anthropology, history, art history, classics, ethnology, geography, geology, linguistics, physics, information sciences, chemistry, statistics, paleoecology, paleontology, paleozoology, paleoethnobotany, and paleobotany.

For more information about Archaeology, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with archaeologists

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Evidence unearthed of possible mass cannibalism in Neolithic Europe

Evidence unearthed of possible mass cannibalism in Neolithic Europe

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 07, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (12) | comments 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- Archaeologists studying a 7,000-year-old site in what is now south-west Germany have found evidence suggesting that more than 500 people may have been the victims of cannibalism.


A 200,000-year-old cut of meat

A 200,000-year-old cut of meat

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Oct 14, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 1

Contestants on TV shows like Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen know that their meat-cutting skills will be scrutinized by a panel of unforgiving judges. Now, new archaeological evidence is getting the same scrutiny ...


'Blue Stonehenge' discovered

'Blue Stonehenge' discovered

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (19) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Archaeologists have released an artist’s impression of what a second stone circle found a mile from Stonehenge might have looked like.


New clues in Easter Island hat mystery

New clues in Easter Island hat mystery

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Sep 07, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (14) | comments 5

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of archaeologists has come one step closer to unravelling the mystery of how the famous statues dotting the landscape of a tiny Pacific island acquired their distinctive red hats.


Ancient well, and body, found in Cyprus (AP)

Ancient well, and body, found in Cyprus

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jun 24, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(AP) -- Archaeologists have discovered a water well in Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of a young woman at the bottom of it, an official said Wednesday.


Ivory sculpture in Germany could be world's oldest

Ivory sculpture in Germany could be world's oldest

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 13, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- The 2008 excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany recovered a female figurine carved from mammoth ivory from the basal Aurignacian deposit. This figurine, ...


Researchers find the earliest evidence of domesticated maize

Researchers find the earliest evidence of domesticated maize

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 23, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Maize was domesticated from its wild ancestor more than 8700 years according to biological evidence uncovered by researchers in the Mexico's Central Balsas River Valley. This is the earliest dated evidence ...


Archaeologists find earliest known domestic horses

Archaeologists find earliest known domestic horses

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 05, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of archaeologists has uncovered the earliest known evidence of horses being domesticated by humans. The discovery suggests that horses were both ridden and milked. The ...


First Jesus-era house discovered in Nazareth (AP)

First Jesus-era house discovered in Nazareth

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 2.7 / 5 (6) | comments 5

(AP) -- Just in time for Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus' childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered ...


Monument lifted from Cleopatra's underwater city (AP)

Monument lifted from Cleopatra's underwater city

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(AP) -- Archaeologists on Thursday hoisted a 9-ton temple pylon from the waters of the Mediterranean that was part of the palace complex of the fabled Cleopatra before it became submerged for centuries in ...


Bronze Age People Left Flowers at Grave

Bronze Age People Left Flowers at Grave

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 15, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Archaeologists from the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen have found proof that pre-historic people laid flowers at the graves of their dead.


Ancient Greek Temple

Houses of the rising sun: Research sheds new light on Ancient Greeks

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 25, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 4

New research at the University of Leicester has identified scores of Sicilian temples built to face the rising Sun, shedding light on the practices of the Ancient Greeks.


World's oldest submerged town dates back 5,000 years (w/ Video)

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Oct 16, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Archaeologists surveying the world's oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 ...


Prehistoric site found near UK's Stonehenge

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Oct 03, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 3

(AP) -- Archaeologists have discovered a smaller prehistoric site near Britain's famous circle of standing stones at Stonehenge.


Komodo dragon

Rediscovering the dragon's paradise lost

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Sep 30, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 2

The world's largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), is vulnerable to extinction and yet little is known about its natural history. New research by a team of palaeontologists and ar ...