Areas of Specialisation

Archaeologists are literally stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the interpretation of archaeological data. The reason it is so...

Professional archaeologists are employed by universities governments and in private companies. They are also required to fulfil the essential roles...

People have been observing and living by the planets and stars for millenia. The heavenly alignments have been important in the past as a way of...

Every museum of ancient antiquities arranges their collection to conform to a classification system. Classifying relics helps us to understand the...

Cognitive archaeology is recognised as a sub-discipline of archaeology which is itself a sub-discipline of anthropology. The word ‘cognitive’ is...

In archaeology when experts speak about the use of computers in their work, they are not meaning taking a laptop to the excavation site and typing in...

On a terrestrial site, analysis of the artefacts may take up to eighteen months, while the excavation of them may only have taken as little as a few...

When museums and collectors purchase archaeological items for their collections they enter an expensive and potentially deceptive commercial fine...

In archaeology the word decipherment is used in reference to the translating of ancient writing into modern texts. One of the unusual realities of...

What are Defixiones? The word defixiones, as used by archaeologists, is from the ancient Roman term tabulae defixiones which translated means...

Egypt's best-known archaeological sites are the Pyramids and Tutankhamun's Tomb and for 5000 years the Egyptians have cultivated a rich civilization...

The method of ethnoarchaeological interpretation was developed by archaeologists to counteract the growing abuses found in the ethnographic analogy...

Gender archaeology is a sub-discipline investigative method of studying ancient societies through close examination of the roles played by men and...

Ground-penetrating radar (abbreviated as GPR) is a technique used in geophysics to collect and record information about the earth’s subsurface....

An aerial perspective produces immediate visual information that is not discernable from the ground. Even the most well trained eye of a specialist...

Human osteology is a detailed, scientific study of the composite structure of human bones, exploring the basic skeletal frame, analysis of teeth,...

The phrase is so new to archaeological science that there remains no fixed definition acceptable to all of the sub-disciplines. For 50 years those...

Isotope analysis is the examination and identification of isotopic signatures or the distribution of stable isotopes within chemical compounds. In...

The concept of landscape archaeology is frequently used by archaeologists to describe an activity that is engaged by humans with their surrounding...

Mesoamerica is archaeologically defined as the geographical area of central and southern Mexico and other parts of Central America such as Guatemala,...

Palynology is an independent science that studies palynomorphs such as pollen acritarchs, spores, dinoflagellate cysts, scolecodonts and...

The most important archaeological dating method is radiocarbon dating. It is a technique that can yield absolute dates with accuracy up to...

Rock Art is a general term for all forms of humanly fashioned marks on lithic surfaces. The term is a general category that includes at least two...

A great number of archaeologists lack professional experience in excavating and interpreting artefacts or ancient activities involved in...

To many people the word Aztec conjures up images of plentiful gleaming gold and Mesoamerican Indians in rich costumes performing ritualistic dances....

The study of the chronological history of life on earth as observed in the fossil record is the science called palaeontology. Simply put, the...

From the wax notepad of the schoolboy to the grand inscriptions on monuments, almost everything we know about antiquity is derived from writings such...

The development of writing materials is as fascinating as it is exhaustive. Millions of pieces of ancient communication have helped to record the...

Civilizations have always exploited the vastness of the ocean for transport and trade. Shipping transportation has been the strength and power of...

Urban Archaeology is the particular sub-discipline of conventional archaeology, which specialises in the study of the material remains of cities...

The bones and teeth of animals are frequently collected in substantial quantities on archaeology excavation sites. In studying these animal bones it...

Experimental archaeology is one of the very practical methods of archaeological interpretation. It is a living analytical process used to re-create...