Exploring the power of the past on International Archaeology Day
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Exploring the power of the past on International Archaeology Day
Amazing. Exciting. Important. Challenging. Enjoyable. Fascinating. Empowering. These are the words that archaeologists use to describe their work.
To celebrate International Archaeology Day, we take a look at some archaeology projects around the world to learn just how amazing a career in the field can be. From examining the artefacts left by the earliest societies in Jordan, to working with Maya communities to excavate Ancestral Maya towns in Belize and Mexico, to using the latest scientific techniques to uncover the socioeconomic history of settlements in Maryland, USA, archaeology is all about understanding the people of the past.
Tools and techniques in the field and lab
Excavations, or ‘digs’, are a key aspect of archaeology, during which archaeologists dig up ancient structures and artefacts to learn more about the people who made them. “Analysing the structures and artefacts (and their contexts) uncovered during excavations is crucial to archaeological research,” explains Dr Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown, who leads the excavations of Alabama, an Ancestral Maya town in Belize, to uncover why it experienced sudden development over 1000 years ago.
Archaeology is about more than just digging in the dirt. Archaeologists use a range of cutting-edge technologies, both in the field and back in the lab, to examine their sites and finds. At West Ashcom, a former homestead in southern Maryland, archaeologist Dr Liza Gijanto and analytical chemist Dr Randy Larsen are providing students with hands-on experience of digging test pits, flying drones to take aerial surveys, and conducting lab-based spectroscopic analysis to determine the molecular make up of artefacts. This highlights the interdisciplinary nature of archaeology. “We bring together students from backgrounds in history, anthropology, archaeology, chemistry and museum studies to work collaboratively on the project,” says Randy.
Why the past matters
“I love what I do because prehistoric archaeology matters in today’s world!” says Dr Lisa Maher, who is excavating Kharaneh IV, a prehistoric site in eastern Jordan. “There are important lessons to be learned from how we interacted in the past. Humans have a complicated and branching evolutionary and social history. If I have learned anything from recent global events and ongoing social movements, it is that the past has much to tell us and teach us.”
It is important that archaeologists work with local communities when they are conducting their fieldwork. “This project could not exist without the expertise of local community members,” says Dr Sarah Kurnick, who is working with Maya in Mexico to excavate the Ancestral Maya town of Punta Laguna. “They advise us on everything from the nature of political authority among contemporary Maya peoples, to which snakes are poisonous.”
Too often throughout history, archaeologists have used data collected about past peoples to benefit themselves and archaeology, and not descendent communities. To combat this history of injustice, archaeologists should practise community archaeology, where archaeological research is done with, by and for local people, because it is imperative that descendent communities are in charge of deciding how their history is told. “We need to consider who communicates the past – who decides what is included in history books and who is memorialised in monuments,” Sarah says. “Just imagine how our understanding of history might change if it was told by the marginalised rather than the powerful.”
An exciting career
“Archaeologists get to go places and do things that many people will never experience, from camping in the jungle to exploring and excavating ancient towns,” says Matthew Longstaffe, a PhD candidate working in Believe. Do you want an adventurous and exciting career? If so, you should consider becoming an archaeologist!
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