Humanities
Archaeology
Reconstructing the past from what people left behind rather than what they wrote down.
10 fields · 79 topics · 10 curated works
Fields within Archaeology
Archaeological Method & Theory
9How the discipline turns dirt into argument.
Excavation Technique · Stratigraphy (Archaeological) · Survey & Prospection · Site Formation Processes · Typology & Seriation
Dating & Scientific Techniques
9The methods that made archaeology quantitative.
Radiocarbon Dating · Dendrochronology · Thermoluminescence · Isotope Analysis · Ancient DNA
Prehistoric Archaeology
8The deepest layers.
Stone Tool Technology · Hunter-Gatherer Sites · Rock Art · Neolithic Settlements · Megalithic Monuments
Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology
8Greece, Rome and their neighbours in the ground.
Greek Sites & Sanctuaries · Roman Urbanism · Pompeii & Herculaneum · Etruscan Archaeology · Ancient Trade & Amphorae
Egyptology & Near Eastern Archaeology
8The regions where the discipline began.
Egyptian Excavation History · Tombs & Mortuary Archaeology · Temple Complexes · Mesopotamian Sites · Levantine Archaeology
Asian & African Archaeology
8Vast and comparatively under-covered.
Chinese Archaeology · The Terracotta Army · Indus Valley Excavations · Southeast Asian Sites · Japanese Archaeology
American Archaeology
7The archaeology of two continents settled late.
Peopling of the Americas · Maya Sites · Aztec Archaeology · Andean Archaeology · Mound Builders
Bioarchaeology & Environment
7Bodies, diet, disease and landscape.
Human Osteology · Palaeopathology · Diet Reconstruction · Zooarchaeology · Archaeobotany
Heritage, Conservation & Controversy
8Who owns the past.
Cultural Heritage Management · Looting & Illicit Antiquities · Repatriation Debates · Site Conservation · Museums & Display
Maritime & Industrial Archaeology
7Underwater and recent.
Shipwreck Archaeology · Submerged Landscapes · Harbour Archaeology · Industrial Sites · Battlefield Archaeology
Reading in Archaeology
10Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
- BookA History of the World in 100 ObjectsNeil MacGregor, 2010
Uses one hundred museum objects to write a global history, demonstrating how much a single artefact can carry.
- BookThe ParthenonMary Beard, 2002
A biography of one building across 2,500 years — temple, church, mosque, arsenal, ruin, and finally a political argument about ownership.
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
- BookThe Mary RoseMargaret Rule, 1982
The excavation and raising of a Tudor warship by the archaeologist who led it — a sealed sample of one day in 1545.
- BookAncient North AmericaBrian M. Fagan, 1991
The standard survey of fifteen thousand years of North American prehistory, from first peopling to contact.
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
- BookRadiocarbon DatingWillard F. Libby, 1952
Sets out the method that gave prehistory an absolute chronology for the first time, and made cross-continental comparison possible.
- BookArchaeology: Theories, Methods and PracticeColin Renfrew & Paul Bahn, 1991
The standard text, organised around the questions the evidence can answer rather than around periods or places.
- BookThe Archaeology of DiseaseCharlotte Roberts & Keith Manchester, 1983
Reads illness, diet and injury directly off excavated skeletons, which is how we know what ordinary life actually cost.
- BookAfrican CivilizationsGraham Connah, 1987
Surveys the archaeological evidence for urbanism and states across precolonial Africa, against a literature that long assumed there was none.
- BookAncient Egypt: Anatomy of a CivilisationBarry Kemp, 1989
Reconstructs Egyptian society from settlement and administrative evidence rather than from tombs and royal inscriptions.
- BookAfter the IceSteven Mithen, 2003
Twenty thousand years of global prehistory told through the transition to farming, which happened separately in several places.