Archaeology

[sinning machine]

I've had nearly two decades in Australian indigenous archaeology and anthropology so maybe I can help. My personal glib definition of archaeology is "the anthropology of dead people"

You would have heard of the Australian archaeologist Jonathan Gray then ?

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

You would have heard of the Australian archaeologist Jonathan Gray then ?

Actually no but I'm glad I do now. That's some weird stuff although he doesn't actually appear to be an archaeologist, his website is an awesome example of Web 1.0 eye-bleeding colour contrasts.

 

[USincognito]

Having the stereotypical idea of native americans as tent-dwelling nomads, I'm tempted by the idea that there is a bit of wishful thinking going on by US archaeologists who might be a bit envious of all the large (preserved...) cities in South America and the Middle East. Nah, it's cool they found all these things. I love this stuff (although to be honest I prefer written records and/or clear physical artefacts to the guestimating that comes with reconstructing history from pottery shards)

The Mississipian cultures were mound builders.
Mississippian culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[USincognito]

Ok, so maybe archaeology (the majority of which is concerned with pottery shards instead of the fancy stuff like pyramids and tombs and buried cities), isn't the field for me.

There's a lot more to archaeology than pot shards and pyramids.

Take for example trash middens and an island in the Pacific. If at the bottom you find large fish, sea turtles, marine mammals like seals and dolphins and large seabirds, the things you find in higher levels will tell you a lot about how that society functioned and you can tie that in with other observations like stone or wooden structures.

If the birds disappear the higher you go, but otherwise nothing changes, that means there's been environmental degredation on the island. It could just be the islanders killed off all the birds, but if you see other examples of deforestation on the island about the time the birds disappear from the middens, that would be correlating evidence.

If the large sea animals and birds disappear the higher you go and all you find are small fish bones that could correlate with an observed disappearance of more complex tools like harpoons, nets and bone tools, along with a decrease in the population.

There's also a multi-disciplinary aspect to some finds. Otzi the Ice Man was studied by anatomists, paleobotonists, metalurgists and palynogists. Even glaciologists played a part in determining when he wound up in the Alps.

 

[HitchSlap]

Every hypotheses is fiction.

YEC, by de facto.