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Historical archaeology is a form of archaeology dealing with places, things, and issues from the past or present when written records and oral traditions can inform and contextualize cultural material. These records can both complement and conflict with the archaeological evidence found at a particular site.
Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies around the world. [1]
The history of archaeology in the US is rooted in the part-time enthusiasm of, usually wealthy, Antiquarians who formed the field's initial foundation. By the start of the Great Depression , the field was mostly practiced by a small group of elite academics with varying levels of research standards. [ 2 ]
Archaeology is the study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts (also known as eco-facts) and cultural landscapes (the archaeological record).
The Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974, commonly known as the Moss-Bennett Act, helped to fuel the creation of CRM. [3] The National Park Service defines cultural resources as being "Physical evidence or place of past human activity: site, object, landscape, structure; or a site, structure, landscape, object or natural feature ...
Cultural artifact is a more generic term and should be considered with two words of similar, but narrower, nuance: it can include objects recovered from archaeological sites, i.e. archaeological artifacts, but can also include objects of modern or early-modern society, or social artifacts.
Culture-historical archaeology is an archaeological theory that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture. It originated in the late nineteenth century as cultural evolutionism began to fall out of favor with many antiquarians and archaeologists.
Historical sociology is an interdisciplinary field of research that combines sociological and historical methods to understand the past, how societies have developed over time, and the impact this has on the present. [1]