Uncovering The Past

LEARN.

What is an archaeologist? Why do they do this work? An archaeologist is someone who studies human history by excavating and analyzing the items that people have made or used. Their work helps answer questions like, “How did people from long ago live?” and the objects archaeologists find from the past are saved from being destroyed. By saving very old artifacts, we can understand how we are connected to the past. Archaeologists do not sell artifacts or keep them for themselves, they study them and write reports about what they found.

Materials Needed:

Pen or pencil
Paper
(optional) Crayons or markers

Instructions:

STEP 1: Review the seven steps in the chart below to understand the archaeologist’s process:

Research	The archaeologist reads documents to learn about the history of the place, learn about the people who lived there, about the buildings that were there,and how things have changed over time.
Survey	The site is looked over carefully. Tests are done on the surface of the ground so archaeologists know where they should dig to find the best information.
Excavation	The site is divided up into squares. Archaeologists do not dig with big shovels. They carefully remove small layers of dirt with small trowels, paintbrushes, and even dental picks, like the one your dentist uses on your teeth! They have to be very careful not to destroy anything they find. The dirt they remove is put on a screen so they can look for very small pieces of artifacts. If something is found, it is placed in a labeled bag, that includes information like: where it was found, the archaeologist’s name, and the kind of dirt it was found in. Sometimes archaeologists use a book to figure out the type of dirt that surrounds an artifact.
Artifact Processing	Artifacts are taken to a laboratory to be cleaned and organized into groups of similar objects.
Analysis	The archaeologist examines the objects to learn how and when they were made and used.
Reporting	A report is written that includes all of the information collected.
Preservation	Artifacts are safely stored at an archaeology office, university, or museum so they can be used for future study.

STEP 2: Your teammates are at the dig site and are sending you photos of their work. Unfortunately, the photos came to your e-mail out of order. You can piece together where they are in the archaeological process by figuring out which photo in each pair below is the correct next step. Look at both photos in each pair and select which is the next archaeological step by sliding the bar to cover the image you think is incorrect. This will leave only the image you think is the correct and reveal if you are right. Good luck!

Image Comparison 1