What is Archaeology?

Archaeology is the study of the past through material culture• Material Culture:

• Look around the room. In 500 years, what remnants of things in this room will remain?

• Could these things be found in this room, or would they be moved?• Buildings• Yards• Rubbish tips (Dumps)• Gutters

Animal bones excavated by the AzoriaProject, Crete from an ancient Archaic Greek city (800 - 480 BC)

Late Bronze Age to Iron Age animal bones from a site in Scotland called Uamh an Ard Achadh (‘High Pasture Cave’); c. 600 - 400 BC

Animal bone

Plants and seeds

Burned maize (corn) from Ormand Village, a Salado site in New Mexico (left). (AD 1150-1450)

Sorghum and SEM scan of a seed from the Sahara

Ceramics

“Amphora graveyard” in Monte Testaccio, Rome

Ceramic sherds excavated by the Azoria Project, Crete, from an ancient Archaic Greek city (800 - 480 BC)

Hypocaust tile system (Roman) Amphora from a shipwreck in the Antique port of Antibes, modern France

Metals

Hoard of coins from Hallaton, south-east Leicestershire, England (c. 1st century)

Anglo-Saxon gold hoard from England

Glass

Anglo-Saxon glass beads

Example of glass from Britain (AD 1-400)

Stone

Groundstone tools

Assorted flint tools, Wessex region, England

Chetro Ketl, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (Ancestral Pueblo; c. AD 1020 - 1120

How do we find these things?

Excavate a grave…

Burrough Hill Iron Age Hillfort Richard III excavation

Pause…

Being a Roman Archaeologist• What do you know about the Romans?

• What evidence do we have?

Satellite Remote-Sensing (Archaeology from space)

Being a Zooarchaeologist• What do you know about animals in the past?

• What archaeological evidence is there for this?

Studying birds in the past• What is the most common bird in the world?

• Why are poultry species important now?

• How might they have been important to people in the past?

Mosaic on altar of Dominus Flevit Church on the Mount of Olives

Gál (2008)

The Archaeology of Disease