Archaeology

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Archaeology

There is a saying that goes: One must first have an understanding of the past in order to proceed into the future. An archaeologist's job, therefore, is very important because they have the crucial role of interpreting the past through archaeological finds. How does an archaeologist go about doing this? How does he interpret his findings? How are the artifacts that he finds related to the behaviors of past humans?

Concepts such as patterning and middle range theory are the main tools used for this interpretation of the past. Patterning is the regular relationship between material objects and space, and middle range theory is how the visible archaeological data can be related to past human behaviors or actions.

Patterning is used to interpret past human behavior because the products of human action usually suggest repetitiveness or a pattern of activity that can be discerned by the archaeologist. For example in the Olsen-Chubbuck site in Colorado, a bison graveyard was discovered of 190 bison. The pattern or relationship between the bones and how they were found gives the archaeologist clues as to how the bison were butchered. Some bones were found with spear points in the bodies, some whole skeletons were found closer to the bottom, and some bones were scattered all over. It can be inferred from the patterning of the bison bones that they were butchered differently.

Middle range theory also plays a part in the Olsen-Chubbuck site. From the visible remains of the bison, we can estimate from the skeletal remains of the bison that the total meat was 60,000 pounds and the total amount of people capable of butchering the bison would be 150, thereby relating the artifacts to past human behavior.

Archaeologists also study patterning in time and space; time, being vertical and space being horizontal. The time of the butchering in the Olsen-Chubbuck site was calculated from the age and sex composition of the bones and dated to be early in the summer, from the end of May, to early in June. Since the patterning of the bones were all found in one space, archaeologists could then ascertain that the butchering occurred all at once.

The example of Herculaneum, Pompeii's sister site, is an ideal one for an archaeologist because they have a 'frozen moment in time' with which to observe human action in a given space. Herculaneum experienced a pyroclastic surge from Mount Vesuvius thus freezing everyday life in a split second. The patterning of ...

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