Excavation (archaeology) - Historical Development

Historical Development

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The development of excavation techniques has moved over the years from a treasure hunting process to one which seeks to fully understand the sequence of human activity on a given site and that site's relationship with other sites and with the landscape in which it is set.

Its history began with a crude search for treasure and for artefacts which fell into the category of 'curio'. These curios were the subject of interest of antiquarians. It was later appreciated that digging on a site destroyed the evidence of earlier people's lives which it had contained. Once the curio had been removed from its context, most of the information it held was lost. It was from this realization that antiquarianism began to be replaced by archaeology, a process still being perfected.

Read more about this topic:  Excavation (archaeology)

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