Ian S. Ray, PhD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention*
Isabel M. Scarborough, PhD, Parkland College
John A. Donahue, MA, Harford Community College
*This chapter was prepared by Ian S. Ray, Ph.D., in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this chapter are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government.
Learning Objectives
Define archaeology and explain how it fits into anthropology
Describe the different kinds of work that archaeologists can do
Discuss some of the misconceptions of what archaeologists do and what archaeologists have found
Discuss the relevance of archaeological methods for the modern world
Introduction: Anthropology and Archaeology
When you think of an archaeologist, whom do you picture? One of this chapter’s authors, Jennifer Zovar, notes that in her classes the most popular answer is “Indiana Jones” (Figure 1). However, you would probably not be surprised to hear that most archaeologists are more likely to carry a clipboard and a trowel than a pistol and a whip (Figure 2).
So, what is archaeology? What do archaeologists do? How does archaeology fit into the broader discipline of anthropology? Anthropology is the study of humankind. Anthropologists are attempting to answer the question of what it is that makes us uniquely human, or what sets us apart from other species. The word “anthropology” actually comes from the Greek words anthropos (human beings) and logia (the study of), so “anthropology” literally means “the study of human beings.” This is an incredibly broad topic! Anthropologists can study anything that people are doing or have done at any time and in any place.
Figure 2 – Jennifer Zovar in Bolivia with the field team. Dr. Zovar is highlighted in yellow.
What is it then that makes anthropology different from any other academic discipline that studies people? One major difference is that anthropology looks at humanity from a holistic perspective. Think for a minute of a hologram like the one shown in the picture here. A hologram is a picture in 3D that you can walk around and study from all sides (Figure 3). Hologram and holistic both share the same Greek root holos, which means “whole.” Holograms show the whole image of an object by projecting the image from all possible angles. Anthropology is holistic because, as with the hologram, we aim to research a question by examining it from all possible angles. We treat issues in-depth, and examine these problems in a three-dimensional way, using multiple methods and theoretical perspectives. So, while economics focuses on the economy, political science focuses on political organization, and human biology focuses on people as biological organisms, anthropology considers all of these topics (and more) and looks at how they interrelate. Moreover, anthropology is inherently cross-cultural and comparative. We do not just consider the economy, politics, biology, etc. of people in our own society, but we look at how these themes are represented in different cultures across the world. Anthropologists also compare similarities and differences in the way people live, both in space (geographically) and time (temporality). Because anthropology is so broad, it is often subdivided into four major subfields: biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Archaeology is part of the broader discipline of anthropology. As you know, the focus of this textbook is archaeology, but it is still important to know something about the other subfields, especially as they overlap with archaeology.
The Four Fields of Anthropology
In the United States, anthropology is divided into four fields, or distinct specializations. Anthropologists look at humans as biocultural creatures where our physical needs (biology) and our shared, learned social behaviors (culture) equally contribute to our complexity and diversity. Often there are ways that all four subfields of anthropology are used – applied – in the real world outside of an academic environment, to help address real-world issues. This is what we refer to as applied anthropology. Later in this chapter, you will read about examples of archaeology as applied anthropology!
The following examples are taken from Jennifer Zovar’s fieldwork in Bolivia and illustrate how the four fields work together in a holistic fashion.
Cultural anthropology is the study of modern peoples across the world today. The image below is from a community festival in a village in highland Bolivia, where Dr. Zovar lived when she was conducting her research (Figure 4). Cultural anthropologists might study family dynamics, religion, politics, economy, social organization, or festival events like this one. Cultural anthropology most overlaps with archaeology through the study of ethnoarchaeology. Ethnoarchaeologists study modern populations to better interpret the material remains of past civilizations. For example, an ethnoarchaeologist might study the trash that is left behind after a large community festival like this one and see if she could identify patterns that look similar to those found at an archaeological site. This could help her to potentially identify the remains of an ancient community festival. Quality research will not only make these connections between past and present but is open to reinterpretation by later researchers. Thus, other archaeologists and anthropologists interested in community festival practices could draw from this work to contribute to our understanding of these social behaviors.
Figure 4 – A community festival in a village in highland Bolivia (Jennifer Zovar, personal photo)
Linguistic anthropology is the study of the interaction between language and culture. Indigenous populations in highland Bolivia, for example, Aymara and Spanish. Aymara is the Indigenous language of the region, while Spanish is a result of European colonization. The population of the region, however, remains mostly Indigenous. Aymara is spoken at home, while Spanish is the language of the government and the public schools. Linguistic anthropology most overlaps with archaeology in the study of epigraphy, or ancient written languages. In Figure 5, the men are communicating via a combination of written materials, physical gestures, and spoken Spanish and/or Aymara.
Figure 5 – Bolivian men communicating (Jennifer Zovar, personal photo)
Biological anthropology is the study of humans as biological organisms. Biological anthropologists study human evolution as well as modern human variation. The subfield overlaps most with archaeology in the study of skeletal and fossil material. Bioarchaeologists combine the study of biological anthropology and archaeology with their analysis of organic remains found in archaeological contexts. Bioarchaeologists working in Bolivia, for example, may study issues like cranial modification, where individuals’ skulls were shaped as an infants to mark ethnicity.
Last, but certainly not least, we come to the final of the four fields and focus of this text: archaeology. Put simply, archaeology is the study of the human past through the analyses of material remains—the “stuff” people leave behind. Archaeologists only study human history, which is what makes them different from paleontologists (who study prehistoric animals, including dinosaurs), contrary to the popular belief that excavations search only for fossils. Archaeology differs from history in that history focuses on written records while, as noted before, archaeology relies more on the material objects left behind. This allows archaeologists to address a much longer time frame than historians; our human species has been around for at least 200,000 years, and the oldest writing (cuneiform, shown in the tablet below) only dates back to about 5,500 years ago.
Figure 7 – A private letter in cuneiform script (1,632 BCE, Babylonian culture, Syria). (Unnamed Babylonian, U.S. public domain via Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
In addition, a focus on material objects means that archaeologists are not constrained by the point of view of the writer of a text. Remember, in most societies, it’s the people in charge who are writing the histories and not everyone’s story is told. To revisit our hologram analogy, this means that only one perspective is represented. Archaeologists try to fill in the missing perspectives and tell a story by looking at the objects and material people left behind. With the passage of time, most of what we find buried in the ground is what was discarded or thrown away. Specifically, archaeologists investigate three kinds of materials:
Artifacts are portable items that were made and used by humans. This may include ceramic pots, stone and bone tools, metal objects, etc. In 100 years, the computer used to type this text will be considered an “artifact.”
Ecofacts are natural objects that have been used or moved by humans. This might include the bones of animals that were eaten or the remains of trees that were planted in a garden. The banana peel you might throw in the trash could be an ecofact, as could the bulb of the tulips in people’s yards. Both are natural but would not have gotten where they are without human activity.
Features are larger, non-portable human creations. A house or other structure could be a feature, but so could a firepit. We can learn about past human activity by looking at the creation and placement of that firepit, but we can’t take this feature back to the lab for further analysis without destroying it.
What Kind of Work Does an Archaeologist Do?
Archaeologists spend their time immersed in survey (looking for sites), excavation (digging at sites), and analysis (investigating the artifacts, ecofacts, and features they recover).
Figure 8 – The Bolivian landscape (Jennifer Zovar, personal photo)
Archaeologists who work in colleges and universities generally seek grants to fund research projects that are intended to answer specific research questions about the past. The examples we used to illustrate the four fields of anthropology earlier in this chapter are from a research project that Jennifer Zovar carried out with grant funds at the archaeological site of Pukara de Khonkho, in highland Bolivia (Figure 8). Her work contributes to our understanding of how communities formed in this region following the collapse of the Tiwanaku, a large Andean polity that predates the Inca in South America.
Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
It is more common, however, for archaeologists to work in cultural resource management (CRM). Most professional archaeologists in the U.S. are employed in CRM. Archaeologists working in CRM are hired to survey construction sites before work begins as this work is mandated by state and federal law. This ensures that no important cultural materials will be destroyed without being recorded. Archaeologists working in CRM can work surveying military bases in New York, road expansions in Wisconsin, wind farm construction projects in Illinois, and proposed condo developments in Tennessee, among other projects. This work is less glamorous than in more exotic locations, but nonetheless helps us understand the history that is (literally) under our feet. See the chapter on “Cultural Resource Management and Archaeology: Conserving Heritage” in this text for a detailed discussion of the process involved in practicing archaeology in an applied context.
Museums
Museums are another venue for archaeologists to work with tribal governments. Archaeologists and other anthropologists at one time collected artifacts to fill museums with specimens to display. Those days are not too far in the past. Anthropologists and other scientists are working with museum curators today to undo the damage of decades of collections—modern material culture, ancient artifacts, and even human remains—often taken without consent from the peoples that they belonged to. Today, archaeologists and museums in many countries work with Indigenous groups both domestically and internationally to return cultural and human remains that were taken from them. Several of your authors in this text discuss the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), or NAGPRA, and how it legally requires museums to work with Indigenous peoples in the United States to repatriate remains to them. In addition, archaeologists work in museums to maintain archaeological and anthropological collections. This includes curating them to keep them in a safe condition, studying them to gain knowledge about the peoples that created them, and creating exhibits to display them for the general public. Museums are also important places for education in many ways, from displays of fragile artifacts and reconstructions of ancient settings to highly interactive exhibits. Archaeologists often create living-history presentations to educate the public and reconstruct ancient structures and tools that the public can handle. In addition, archaeologists can also work with museums to give the public a taste of what archaeologists actually do! This includes excavation, identification, and curation. See the chapter on “Public Outreach and Archaeology” in this text for several examples of how archaeologists at museums make the past accessible to the public.
Reconstructions and [Pre]historic Preservation:
Reconstruction in archaeology is the re-creation or building of an ancient artifact or feature to improve our understanding of past societies. Reconstructions can be partial, meaning that they add to an existing structure, or can be made whole cloth. Whether partial or whole, they are based on the partial remains, written records, oral histories, or images of the object that is built. A good example of a reconstruction is the Woodhenge circle at Cahokia Mounds in Southern Illinois. Over a thousand years in the past, the Native people who inhabited the area built a metropolis whose more than 20,000 inhabitants practiced agriculture and traded with people as far south as the Gulf of Mexico (Pauketat and Stone Bernard, 2004). Archaeologists in the early 20th century were struck by the massive earthen mounds on the site, but no less dramatic was the discovery of three large circles where remains show a series of evenly spaced wooden poles had been set to mark the seasons.
Figure 9 – Woodhenge at Cahokia. The original circle of 48 evenly spaced cedar posts would have covered a diameter of 410 feet. Each post would have stood about 20 feet high. Cahokia Woodhenge and Monks Mound by James Q. Jacobs via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Reconstructions are often part of museum or community exhibits and are preferred by audiences as they provide tangible representations of a culture. Visitors to the Cahokia Mounds and the nearby museum today can meet at the reconstruction site at the Winter and Summer Solstice each year and see how the rising sun lines with some of the poles. In archaeology, reconstructions are used to provide context in museums or at archaeological sites but can also be used by researchers to help them visualize an activity or a space that is gone.
One of the benefits of archaeology is the way we are able to use the scientific method to test hypotheses about the past. This allows us to explore questions that would be impossible through historical research alone. Without archaeology, there would be no other way to learn about humanity in the time before written records.
Archaeology’s focus on materiality can also help us to better understand the lives of those who lived more recently, but who didn’t make it into the history books.
What Archaeologists Don’t Do—Pseudoarchaeology
Let’s return to our question at the beginning of the chapter: What comes to your mind when you think of an archaeologist? Popular culture has portrayed “archaeology” as something done by treasure hunters or tomb raiders—again, Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. By now, you know they don’t truly represent what we do. Likewise, we often get inaccurate images of peoples of the ancient past. Even archaeologists have been guilty of this on occasion. The book Motel of the Mysteries by David Macauley (1979) makes fun of how the first archaeologists had these kinds of misconceptions, using the excavation of an ancient 20th-century motel many years in our future. But for many years, people have come up with implausible assumptions about ancient sites and artifacts and who created them. Some of the people you might see on TV today suggest that the famous Pyramids at Giza in Egypt or Chichén Itzá in Mexico weren’t even built by inhabitants of our planet!
By and large, these people are not archaeologists and don’t apply the scientific method, spreading pseudoscience (specifically pseudoarchaeology). Pseudoarchaeologists usually attribute ancient remains to space aliens, giants, or magical creatures. Space aliens are often used to explain the construction of large stone monuments in England and on Easter Island, the Nazca lines in Peru, and the aforementioned pyramids in Egypt and Mexico (Bond 2018). All of your authors, including David Anderson (the author of our chapter “Understanding Ancient Mysteries: Archaeology, Pseudoarchaeology, and the Importance of Archaeological Heritage“), want to point out that space aliens did not build any of these things. We want to emphasize that ancient peoples were just as capable, creative, and intelligent as modern people—just living in different times and cultures.
Many theories in pseudoarchaeology are based on racist, white supremacist assumptions. In many cases, colonizers from powerful countries in Western Europe tried to explain large sites in the Americas, Africa, and the Pacific as proof that white, European explorers—or outsiders from other parts of the world, for example the Lost Tribes of Israel—had to have previously occupied the areas before their current inhabitants came. In fact, these sites were all created by the ancestors of the Indigenous peoples from these areas.
The large site of Great Zimbabwe is just one example. Built by the ancestors of the Bantu-speaking Shona people in southeastern Zimbabwe, the site was a major city in the area between the 11th and 15th centuries CE. Archaeologists have found evidence that Great Zimbabwe traded extensively throughout the Indian Ocean with peoples as far away as China, Arabia, and Persia (Jarus 2017; UNESCO). But British colonizers and other European explorers in the 19th century dismissed any notion of Great Zimbabwe’s African origins. Instead, they theorized (incorrectly) that white Europeans must have originally built the site (Koutonin 2016). Zimbabwean archaeologists are still trying to undo this damage today (The Economist 2021).
Likewise, the techniques of archaeology can also be useful in researching the modern world. Even though we are living through it, we do not always have the most objective understanding of our own experiences. There are still many parts of society whose stories are not being told. One great advantage of studying the objects people use is that while people may sometimes be untruthful (intentionally or not) about their activities when asked about them, the artifacts themselves do not lie. Earlier we mentioned that most of the materials archaeologists find are those that were discarded. In the following section we will explore a case of how the study of garbage in our own communities—using archaeological methods—can help us better understand 21st-century cultural patterns. This case illustrates how archaeology is an important tool for understanding contemporary refuse disposal and its connections to broader issues such as climate change and the environment. (See this video for an example: Garbage Doesn’t Lie).
The archaeologist Bill Rathje (1945–2012) initiated the garbology program at the University of Arizona. Although trained as a Mayan archaeologist, he became interested in garbage when he asked students to conduct research on modern material culture. He realized that it was a great opportunity to get students to practice archaeological methodologies. After starting this project, he began to realize it also had much to teach broader society—and some of it was pretty surprising. For example, during a beef shortage in 1973, more meat was wasted than during other times, probably because people overbought and then did not use what they had purchased before it went bad. Similarly, he found that people with more varied cuisines tended to waste more food than people who ate the same sorts of food on a regular basis. These discoveries have helped influence changes in food services and in waste management (Rathje & Murphy 1993).
Figure 11 – Students participating in the Whatcom Garbology project (Jennifer Zovar, personal picture)
Students at Whatcom Community College (WCC) in Washington State have conducted Garbology Projects on their campus to see what the garbage they produce can teach about their community. What this means is that the custodians are asked to collect all of the garbage heading to the landfill from a given day. (This is not counting waste that is put in recycling or compost bins.) The waste is deposited on a lawn on campus and archaeology students (as shown in the picture here) sort it into piles—paper, glass, plastic, aluminum, etc. It’s fun (but messy!) work.
The goal is to see how much waste is being deposited into the landfill that could otherwise be recycled or composted. In addition, students usually keep notes of items that can tell a little more about the life of community college students, faculty, and staff. For example, a lot of coffee is consumed on campus, and Taco Bell is a pretty popular snack!
As you can see from the graph below, in terms of recycling, the campus community does pretty well. Of the waste that was going to the landfill in the 2019 trash audit, only 8% (by weight) was recyclable glass, plastic, aluminum, or paper. Trash bags, film plastic, and landfill waste—all of which should have been going to the landfill—made up another 34%. Unfortunately, the remainder was made up of food compost (37%), paper towels (15%), and liquid (6%), all of which should have been composted rather than thrown in the trash. Collecting this information helps WCC to see whether or not it is the green, sustainable campus that students and staff want it to be—and can show where improvement is needed.
Figure 12 – The results of the Whatcom Garbology Project (Ian S. Ray, personal photo)
Another project that the archaeology class usually does each fall is to take a look at WCC’s waste in a different way. Instead of looking at what is thrown away, the study looks at what is littered. The archaeology class is divided into six groups and surveys different quadrants of the campus (shown below). If you are interested in trying this on your own campus, the activity is published at Curriculum for the Bioregion – Campus Garbage Project.
In the Campus Garbage Project, litter across campus is mapped and categorized. The most common litter type is cigarette butts—which are found in many places other than those that are designated for smoking. Otherwise, the majority of the litter is small pieces of food waste, although there are always some surprises. One year, a student found his own math homework from a previous quarter. It was found that litter was more common in areas where there were fewer garbage cans, with the exception of cigarettes, which still were found on the ground in high concentrations even right next to a garbage bin. Together, these studies are helping to address waste management practices.
However, the information we can learn from modern garbage goes far beyond waste management issues. We can think about ways in which the methods of archaeology can help us to address many issues of social importance in the United States today—a type of applied anthropology. For example, Anthony Graesch worked with his students to study smoking behavior through the analysis of cigarette butts (Patel, 2015). Likewise, Jason de Leon has investigated the dangers of border crossing by looking at waste left by migrants crossing the southern border of the United States (National Geographic, 2013).
What to Expect From This Book
This text is arranged into two major sections: chapters that discuss the “why” of what we do in the field, and chapters that talk about the “how” of what we do in the field. We are also collecting a series of case studies from different parts of the world. These will serve as examples to illustrate the theories and methods you will read about throughout the text. Keep in mind that your instructor might not use all of the chapters in this book in order—and might not even use all of them! But whatever your instructor chooses to do, we and our authors have provided what we hope is a thorough introduction to the science of archaeology.
What’s the Point?: Why Do We Study Archaeology?
The first section of this textbook explores the theories and ideologies behind what we do in the field. We have talked about theories that guide archaeologists earlier in this chapter, and we will address them in later chapters. In addition, we look at some of the modern realities of archaeology and how it guides us in everyday practice. A few chapters look at the impacts of our work on society and the public at large. Much of what archaeologists do involves public outreach with local leaders and communities. Our research also contributes not just to our greater understanding of humanity, but to those same local communities’ understandings of their own histories! While much of this archaeological research happens through academia, a lot of it is also completed by governments and private companies—cultural resource management, which you have read about earlier in this chapter. Archaeologists also have to deal with the misinformation of pseudoarchaeology, as you’ve read about above, and correct it accordingly.
Getting in the Dirt: How Do We Study Archaeology?
The second section of this textbook gets into the methodologies that archaeologists use before conducting their fieldwork, while they are in the field, and what they do afterward, once they have collected their data. The methodology of archaeology is much more than just digging things up; even after we’ve systematically collected and recorded our findings in the field, we have to figure out what to do with our data after we leave! Archaeologists have many techniques for figuring out the ages of artifacts, how they were created and used (for example, experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology), and the circumstances of dealing with botanical and zoological remains that are part of the archaeological record. We also examine technologies that help us record and map what we have found in the field.
A Tour Through Time: Case Study to World Archaeology
As we complete the first edition of this text, there is only one case study in this section. However, we are hoping to collect additional case studies for future editions. If you are an archaeologist with a story you would like to share, please get in touch with the editors. This is an open-access textbook, which means that it is a perpetual work in progress. The intent is for it to be continually updated, changing along with the discipline of archaeology. If you are reading the print version of the book, you may want to check the online version for important major updates. Enjoy your exploration of Traces!
Discussion Questions
What are the subfields of anthropology, and how does archaeology relate to them?
What are some false narratives about the ancient world, and why are they problematic?
Give some examples of how archaeology can be applied to the “real” world.
Give some examples of careers a person could have in archaeology.
Describe how your instructor is using this book.
About the Authors
Jennifer Zovar is a Professor of Anthropology at Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, Washington. Her academic research has focused in the Bolivian Andes, where she investigated an archaeological site that was occupied just before the Inca came into the region (and after the collapse of the earlier Tiwanaku polity). In addition to her experience in Bolivia, she has also worked on archaeological projects in Guatemala and across the United States. When she is not researching or teaching anthropology, she loves camping and exploring with her kids and a series of loyal dogs – Chica, Hank, and Sierra.
John A. Donahue is a Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD. He has a Master’s of Arts in Anthropology from the University of California, Riverside, where he studied the archaeology of music and dance in Classic and Post-Classic Mesoamerica. His current research interests lean towards cultural anthropology and ethnomusicology, where he is examining cultural norms and community among LGBTQIA+ men’s choruses. He also has a Master’s of Arts in Teaching from Towson University. In his spare time, he is involved with the Baltimore Frontrunners and the Baltimore Men’s Chorus, and spends time with his cat.
Isabel Scarborough is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Arts, Media, and Social Sciences at Parkland College. Her main professional interest is teaching and community outreach with anthropology. Her research work focuses on archaeological cultural heritage, nation building, and spiritual imagined communities in the Andes, which she has worked on as a Mellon/American Academy of Learned Societies Fellow. As part of her goal to help make educational materials accessible to all she is a Contributing Editor to the Library of Congress’ Handbook of Latin American Studies, and co-edited Traces. She enjoys volunteering and collaborating with other community college colleagues in the state of Illinois.
Ian S. Ray received his PhD in Research Methods and Applied Statistics from the University of Denver and his MA in Anthropology from Ball State University. His work has covered a range of anthropological topics, from reproductive healthcare access to cultural resource management and primate ecology. Most recently, he worked as a Health Education Specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, supporting the Public Health Emergency Preparedness program.
