Introductory Concepts and Archaeological Foundations

Archeology is the study of the ancient and recent past through the study of material remains. it has many fields including Historical, prehistorical, protohistorical and ethnoarchaeology. What field of study one chooses to go into depends on their goal in archeology as well as your mindset

Discovery

What are the responsibilities of an archeologist in the field?  First off and most importantly is preservation. There is no point in digging up the past if it's so broken that you can't make heads or tails of it. Secondly is discovery once the work of preservation is complete it is an archaeologist's job to discover what they are looking at and discern what they can from it. The last responsibility is to communicate what they have discovered and share it with the outside world.

Analysis and Interpretation

I remember the lithics analysis fondly due to how each piece told a story and how they were each like a small part of a jigsaw puzzle just waiting to be put back together. My group decided the two bits of lithics we would look at would be part of what we thought to be a cooking pot of some sort and an unfinished arrowhead. Both were fun to theorize about but we also ran into several instances where we had to ask someone with more experience to help us fully grasp their secrets.