2 answers
Jared
Student
Grafton, Ohio
4
Questions
Asked
906 views
What are drawbacks of Archaeology?
I am in 9th grade and the classes that I'm interested most in is Science and History. Something I'm really interested and looking to find a career in is Archaeology.
#Archaeology #Science #History
Login to comment
2 answers
Keith Borgholthaus
Anthropologist, Historian
2
Answers
Cheney, Washington
Updated
Keith’s Answer
Archaeology is an thing to study, and can be very useful in examining cultures. It does have problems, and needs other forms of study to help it explain things better.
Archaeology is a subset of Anthropology, or the study of culture. The others are linguistics and Cultural Anthropology. Each subset has its uses and problems.
Linguistics can often show cultural movements in cultures that have very little written evidence about them. A method of pointing within cultures around the Pacific ocean lets us know there was trade between the groups, but not explain how anything moved.
Cultural Anthropology has people living with another culture to find out more. They often explain one culture to another culture. However, they often believe one culture is foreign while the other is normal and doesn't need to be explained. This makes it difficult to see how the cultures connect to each other. There was a trade group between Korea and Europe, but studying this is hard because one side only examined the history of their people, and the other only had anthropologists study and explain ideas.
Archaeology often makes the same mistakes. They can be so caught up in the dig, they don't recognize the culture around them. For example, some of the crew exploring the dig might descend from the people and cultures being dug up. A common problem is not recognizing the old culture and new one might be connected. A wooden ball will be found, and cause a lot of discussion among the crew, but they will all ignore the game with a similar looking ball the workers are using.
There's also a belief that only the foreign or ancient should be studied. If you really want to understand archaeology, choose your room, or a classroom then document and explain each part. This way, you can show what the room means to anyone culturally. We often forget the now becomes the past very quickly, and important things are forgotten because no one realized it.
The archaeologist often doesn't recognize what they have and places it in ideas in their mind. For example, plenty of digs have dice, maps, and small trinkets in them. These items are given different priorities of discussion within papers, so it's unknown if the trinkets, maps, and dice were next to each other. In other words, we may have looked directly at an amazing board game, and not made the connection.
Because of this, making sure to document everything with photographs and notes becomes crucial. You might miss something, but those studying the photos might not. There is also a need for more than just archaeologists at any dig, having an anthropologist or linguist or historian will go fill in the gaps missing.
If you want to be an archaeologist, make sure to think about how you want to do it. The school will likely only tell you about how to get jobs at other schools. There is only so many jobs open at schools and many students who want those jobs. There are also jobs outside of schools that do everything you want, but may not be called Archaeologist. Make sure to explore these jobs, as well as the ones you know about. You may be surprised at what your new skills can do.
Archaeology is a subset of Anthropology, or the study of culture. The others are linguistics and Cultural Anthropology. Each subset has its uses and problems.
Linguistics can often show cultural movements in cultures that have very little written evidence about them. A method of pointing within cultures around the Pacific ocean lets us know there was trade between the groups, but not explain how anything moved.
Cultural Anthropology has people living with another culture to find out more. They often explain one culture to another culture. However, they often believe one culture is foreign while the other is normal and doesn't need to be explained. This makes it difficult to see how the cultures connect to each other. There was a trade group between Korea and Europe, but studying this is hard because one side only examined the history of their people, and the other only had anthropologists study and explain ideas.
Archaeology often makes the same mistakes. They can be so caught up in the dig, they don't recognize the culture around them. For example, some of the crew exploring the dig might descend from the people and cultures being dug up. A common problem is not recognizing the old culture and new one might be connected. A wooden ball will be found, and cause a lot of discussion among the crew, but they will all ignore the game with a similar looking ball the workers are using.
There's also a belief that only the foreign or ancient should be studied. If you really want to understand archaeology, choose your room, or a classroom then document and explain each part. This way, you can show what the room means to anyone culturally. We often forget the now becomes the past very quickly, and important things are forgotten because no one realized it.
The archaeologist often doesn't recognize what they have and places it in ideas in their mind. For example, plenty of digs have dice, maps, and small trinkets in them. These items are given different priorities of discussion within papers, so it's unknown if the trinkets, maps, and dice were next to each other. In other words, we may have looked directly at an amazing board game, and not made the connection.
Because of this, making sure to document everything with photographs and notes becomes crucial. You might miss something, but those studying the photos might not. There is also a need for more than just archaeologists at any dig, having an anthropologist or linguist or historian will go fill in the gaps missing.
If you want to be an archaeologist, make sure to think about how you want to do it. The school will likely only tell you about how to get jobs at other schools. There is only so many jobs open at schools and many students who want those jobs. There are also jobs outside of schools that do everything you want, but may not be called Archaeologist. Make sure to explore these jobs, as well as the ones you know about. You may be surprised at what your new skills can do.
Really well stated. Archaeology without context is useless in enlightening us as to the past. Also good career advice and reality check as to the availability of positions (and funding to that point). Lastly, I truly appreciated your comments on the issues of having the local experts exclusively providing the interpretation of archaeological results, if that indeed is what you were going for. I see this prejudice to align to nationalist ideas of history in the current Saqqara digs in Egypt and the ongoing work at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.
Daniel Munyan, CPM, CPMM, CPX
Ram Palagani
Software Engineer
16
Answers
Cary, North Carolina
Updated
Ram’s Answer
The disadvantage is that archaeology is a destructive process. When excavating a site the archeologist is essentially destroying it. Sure, large structural remains such as foundations, and walls are often left intact, but generally, once a site has been excavated, it’s gone forever.