Central Whidbey's
ARCHAEOLGICAL HERITAGE
What is Archaeology?
Archaeology is a type of anthropology. Anthropologists study people to learn how we use "culture" to survive. Archaeologists also are interested in earlier humans and study the places and things they left behind. The "things" left behind are referred to as artifacts, which include anything made or influenced by people. Artifacts may be tools, or they may be the unintended by-products of making or using tools, including the remains of various animals or plants used for food.
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Archaeologists are interested in past human groups and so they study the places and things left behind by past groups. |
Among questions archaeologists ask are: do the objects grouped together in one place represent a cooking area, or a workshop, or a refuse dump? If they know which objects belong together, learning the answers may be easy. On the other hand, if they do not know which artifacts came from which site, our ability to learn from this evidence is hampered.
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In fact, an excavation dismantles a portion of a site so carefully that it can be reconstructed later during laboratory analysis. |
Because it is so important to know how artifacts are distributed within a site, it is easy to understand why archaeological excavations take time. In fact, an excavation dismantles a portion of a Site so carefully (using photographs and maps) that it can be reconstructed later during laboratory analysis.
After excavation, all of the recovered artifacts are cleaned, labeled, catalogued, and studied in terms of the groups in which they were originally found. Finally, the materials are studied to understand what was happening at the site and to understand how that site might be related to other sites nearby. When studies end, researchers produce a report which describes the site, the excavation, the recovered artifacts, and their interpretations of the cultures represented at the site.
