Archaeology

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m (Archeology moved to Archaeology: Spelling - think it's the same in the US?)

Revision as of 06:40, 13 March 2008

Archeology is the science of digging through other people's abandoned crap in hopes of finding some food or useful object (no, that's probably homelessness) in order to figure out how, and if possible, when they lived.

In constrast with sensible construction workers, archeologists use the smallest possible tools to move the largest possible amount of dirt. The crap that archeology studies is usually buried under craploads of dirt.

Archeologists excavate sites of previous human habitation, and sometimes piss of the locals by digging up their forebears graves and shipping the cool stuff that was buried with them to a museum in England. This latter habit has lessened of late, and slightly more honor and respect are now paid to the neato bones and stuff that they find.

Question: If Lucy was perhaps really an ancient ancestor of most humans alive today, shouldn't we all be really pissed at Richard Leaky et familias?

Anyway, we digress.

Careful

Archaeologists carefully scrape through layers of accumulated dirt and other debris, sifting through the material carefully to find their precious artifacts. They carefully measure exact locations and depths, and carefully note varying layers as they dig down, in order to produce voluminous carefully written reports on what they have found. Then they carefully compare notes to form careful hypotheses about all manner of aspects of the lives and times of the people they are carefully investigating.

Yes, archaeologists are careful.

Popularisation

In the UK a popular TV programme (Time Team: Ch 4) has greatly increase the exposure of Archaeology. The team, of about 5 regular members and sundry assistants/labourers, is interpreted by Tony Robinson (Baldrick in the Blackadder comedies). They have three days to examine a site (Why three? - who knows) and computer graphics is used extensively throughout.

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