What do Archaeologists do?
The National Trust, founded in 1895, exists to promote the permanent preservation for the nation of land with outstanding natural features and animal and plant life, and buildings of beauty or historic interest. There are estimated to be more than 40,000 sites of archaeological interest in the ownership of the National Trust, about 6 per cent of the national total. The NT employs a number of Archaeological Field Officers who record, survey and occasionally excavate sites in its care. The equivalent body in Scotland is the National Trust for Scotland. Numerous other national bodies also employ archaeologist including the National Parks, The Environment Agency, The Highways Agency, The Forestry Commission, etc as do a growing number of civil engineering, architectural and planning practices. These organisations employ archaeologists to look after archaeological sites in their area. Such posts include recording, surveying and sometimes excavating sites. Several other organisations, such a
A feature at the Bliss Hill Site Archaeologists usually work in teams with other archaeologists or with archaeology students. Many archaeologists are employed by a university or a museum. An archaeologist is like a detective, in the sense that they both investigate clues to look for answers to problems. An archaeologist looks for clues to learn how past cultures lived, so that we can understand more about how present peoples live and adapt to the environment. Archaeologists work at a dig site to gather data, and then spend the majority of their time in a lab analyzing this data. They eventually write reports on their findings for other people to read about and learn from. The type of work an archaeologist does requires a lot of patience and perseverance, and isn’t quite as exciting as the “Indiana Jones” movies make it seem! Depending upon where they are located, some dig sites may be extremely hot and not have any running water (or bathrooms) nearby! The Bliss Hill Site got very hot!
Archaeologists are scientists who look in the ground for information that can tell us about life in the past. This information can be artifacts – objects made by people – or soil layers and features. A feature in an excavation can be a wall, a paving or an area of soil that has a different color than the soil around it. A differently colored area might show, for instance, that a plant or a fence post had been in the soil there at one time. Archaeologists mark out squares called excavation units (excavate is another word for dig) that are usually 10 feet long by 10 feet wide, and as deep as they need to dig until they stop finding new information. Each unit is given its own number, which will be written on all of the notes about the unit and the bags filled with artifacts that are found in the soil of that unit.
The field of archeology is a scientific field that studies primarily prehistoric cultures to give us information about how people lived and interacted in the distant past. This field belongs to the larger science of anthropology. Archaeologists spend quite a bit of time excavating and analyzing materials found underground at dig sites. Digs are found throughout the world, and the work done there can be both time-consuming and laborious. However, when archaeologists make finds about early cultures, it can be very exciting. New “finds” add to our knowledge about the way people lived before us. Archaeologists are not the romantic Indiana Jones type, for the most part. They are also not paleontologists who dig up dinosaurs. The only buried animals archaeologists would find pertinent to their study are domesticated animals, or animals that made up part of an ancient culture’s food source. Work done on a dig site can be at times painstakingly slow. Soils have to be analyzed a small amount at
