Humanities and Social Sciences

Archaeology Program

What is Archaeology?

Modern archaeology is concerned with questions related to past economies, social organisation, and relationships with the environment. Archaeologists use cultural remains such as stone tools or pottery fragments and food debris, as well as environmental evidence to reconstruct history.

Archaeology can be broken into two main practices:

• Prehistoric
  Within Australia most archaeologists work on prehistoric material (remains derived from 40,000 or more years)
• Historical
  A growing archaeology of the more recent, European period, where traditional historical evidence (written sources) is supplemented and expanded by the archaeological study of early colonial artefacts.

More familiar to many people is the archaeology of Europe and the Near East. Here, as in other areas such as America and Africa of both historic and prehistoric periods.

Archaeologists spend in the field both looking for and recording archaeological sites. Archaeological fieldwork is carried out in all parts of Australia. Our archaeologists also work in Africa, Melanesia, the Pacific, the Mediterranean and Europe. More time, however, is spent working on the results of the fieldwork in the laboratory, library or on the computer,analysing the finds, their context and preparing material for publication.

What is Archaeology? (pdf 92kb) (rtf 1.4mb)