PREFACE Archaeology is the theory and practice of understanding past civilizations. When we think of this branch of study, we often look to the exploits of the different Egyptian archaeologists who have unearthed the Great Pyramids of Giza or the Sphinx. While these were amazing discoveries, the real goal of archaeology is to understand how people lived. As a few researchers study the great monuments, many more are looking at the lives of those who built them. In this course, you will learn the trade or practice of archaeology and the different areas of study different archaeological researchers focus on. As it turns out, there are several branches of this field of study you could become involved in. You can study issues as commonplace as dietary habits in a population or as cataclysmic as the abrupt changes occurring during a natural disaster or war. At the end of the course, you should feel as though you understand why the work that archaeologists do is so important. In the first chapter of this course, we will look at the origins of this field of study. While we often think that archaeology is a relatively recent science, it actually has its origins in the years before the common era. It is probably true that individuals have studied past human lives in past civilizations for much longer than we know of. You will learn that archaeology as a science has existed in China, Greece, Egypt, and Rome for many years, although some of the time it wasn't a true science but was essentially artifact gathering. You will also study how archaeology has evolved over the past few centuries, as we know more about this period of time. In chapter 2, we look carefully at the different subspecialties and branches of archaeology. You will learn about the science of geology as well as the different areas of study such as maritime archaeology, urban archaeology, and ethnoarchaeology. You'll see how archaeology extends into many other fields of study, including history, anthropology, and the physical sciences.
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