Archaeologists study human societies that lived in the past through the discovery and analysis of the things that they left behind, this includes artifacts from millions of years ago right up to things developed in recent times.
There are no written records for 99% of human history, this is one of the reasons why archaeology is so important.
Archaeology helps us understand how humans evolved and culture developed.
Archaeologists survey, excavate and analyze data to help us understand the past.
Archaeology is a varied discipline that can involve aspects of art history, classics, physics, chemistry, geography and other fields.
If you want to become an archaeologist it’s a good idea study areas such as statistics, geography and geology.
Archaeology has helped us learn how early human societies used fire, stone tools, metals and agriculture.
Archaeologists have found stone tools in Africa that were created by humans millions of years ago.
The written records of many ancient societies are often biased or misleading due to literature being limited to the rich and powerful rather than the general population, archaeologists must take this kind of thing into consideration while researching.
Popular movies such as Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider and The Mummy feature aspects of archaeology. Being movies however, they tend to oversimplify what can be a painstaking process.
One of the problems archaeologists come across is the looting of artifacts from various archaeological sites such as tombs and burial grounds.