Archaeology may be broadly defined as the investigation of human cultures and societies of the past through recovery and interpretation of both remnants of ancient †material culture and, most critically, the physical contexts in which they have been preserved. The range of time subject to archaeological investigation runs from the very recent historical past, when interpretation may be aided by written documents, to the earliest evidence of prehistoric hominid cultural activity about 2.5 million years ago.
Archaeologists have successfully developed a body of highly specialized excavation and laboratory techniques to extract information from the ground, but they must also grapple with some severe data limitations and epistemological problems peculiar to their field. As Trigger has noted, ‘prehistoric archaeology is the only social science that has no direct access to information about human behaviour’ (1989:357). Moreover, in the act of excavating sites to recover information about the past, archaeologists are simultaneously destroying the object of their study. However, despite its limitations and problems, archaeology provides the only means available for exploring the 99 per cent of human ‘history’ that preceded the very recent invention of writing.
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