1 - Introduction

Summary

Archaeology is the study of human culture and behavior through its material evidence. Although archaeology sometimes works with the material evidence of contemporary societies (ethnoarchaeology) or historical societies (historical archaeology and classical archaeology), for most of our past, the archaeological record is the only source of information. What we can learn about that past must come from surviving artifacts and modifications of the earth's surface produced by human activity. Fortunately, people tend to be messy.

Our basic sources of evidence consist of artifacts, waste products produced during the manufacture of artifacts or their use, food waste, ground disturbances including pits and mounds, constructions that enclose spaces such as buildings and walls, and the physical remains of people themselves. Study of this evidence includes identification of the raw materials used, what modifications occurred to make the object useful, and the physical shape and dimensions of the final product. Wear and breakage of the object and its repair are also examined.

In addition to its life history, each object has a context. It was discovered in a particular part of a site, in a particular site in a region, occupied by humans at a particular time. Together these make up the three dimensions that Albert Spaulding referred to as the “dimensions of archaeology” (Spaulding 1960).

Our discovery and analysis of archaeological evidence is directed toward the broad goal of understanding our past. The range of questions archaeologists are attempting to answer about the past is substantial. Broadly they could be grouped into a number of big questions:

1. 1. How did our ancestors come to develop a radically new way of living that involved changes in locomotion (bipedalism), increasing use of tools, the formation of social groups unlike any other living primate, and increases in cranial capacity? Quantitative methods are used to identify sources of raw material for stone tools to determine how far they were transported. They are also used to classify stone tools, to compare the kinds of tools and the kinds of animals found at different sites, and to look for correlations between the distributions of stone tools and animal bones.