Process of Archeology

1) The Steps to Gathering Field Work

In societies eye we see archaeologists excavating old ruin temples that have been hidden for thousands of years, but what if the project was examining artifacts on land? Then excavating would be pointless, which is why there are two main ways to collect this data archaeological survey and excavation. Each archaeologist has a different approach and can have many factors influencing which type of field work to select. Before starting field work you must have a detailed and developed research plan, field work is the most important area of work for an archaeologist. Once you have devised a plan then they can proceed to collect data. Regardless of which type of field work is chosen each has many sub categories and processes in doing so. After that is completed the data must be processed, then classified.

Let’s say that the archaeologist thought that surveying the area would be the most productive way to gather information than they must reconnaissance, which is basically identifying the site. Of course, there are multiple ways and techniques of surface, aerial, and subsurface detection. When using the oldest and most common way to identify sites, surface detecting, it is in dire need to obtain as much information as possible about the region and the sites without any excavating. Efficient and broad, aerial detecting is used on larger areas to identify and give surface indication of sites on land. The slowest of the three but the only way to see if there is a site that needs to be excavated is subsurface detection. This form of detection uses tools such as probes or electronic instruments, like the auger, corers, shovel, magnetometer, resistivity detector, and ground-penetrating. A quick description ...

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...with different diseases and health status. If there were a book available that had a picture of certain diseases to compare to it would be super beneficial, bioarchaeologist have to be able to tell the cause of death and their nutrition just by analyzing the skeleton. For example, if the person was malnourished then the bone may be brittle and or discolored. Also, some diseases can be seen on the skeleton, like indentions or disintegration. This skull does not show sign of this, so I cannot determine whether or not they were malnourished or not. The only educated guess that I have is that they died from trauma to the head and jaw.

Works Cited

"Ancient History Blog." Ancient History Blog RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013.

Ashmore, Wendy, and Robert J. Sharer. Discovering Our Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 1988. Print.