Revealing Archaeology

Vastly more experiential than traditional archaeology textbooks, Revealing® Archaeology guides students on an interactive exploration of the principles of archaeology. The text of Revealing Archaeology is compact and accessible, but not over-simplified. Thousands of captioned images from throughout the world and a broad variety of archaeological time periods provide a running subtext throughout the courseware. Learning is reinforced with interactive exercises that deepen your students’ understanding as they engage with archaeological problem solving tasks. First-hand accounts written by active archaeologists provide students a glimpse at how the methods and techniques they are learning are used to actively address real-world research questions.

Revealing Archaeology fosters student engagement with integrated interactive activities and data analytic tools such as:

  • interactive graphing to introduce radiometric dating
  • a fieldwork simulation whereby students excavate and then analyze the assemblages they uncover;
  • “excavation” on a cliff-face to teach biostratigraphic correlation
  • a regional survey comparing settlement types and landscape use
  • a negotiated land use management plan
  • and more.

By presenting the basics of archaeology in an engaging manner proven to enhance independent learning, Revealing Archaeology frees up your teaching time, either online or in the classroom, for the kind of learning that teachers provide best: student interaction, discussion, and the opportunity to address specific student needs and interests.

Revealing® Archaeology Modules:

  • Humanity’s Imprint
  • Leaving a Trail
  • Tracking Down Time
  • Charting Time
  • Following the Trail
  • Detecting Technology
  • Provisioning Society
  • Preserving the Trail
Price: $50

Humanity’s Imprint

The Presence of the Past
  • Goals: Presence of the Past
  • Our Imprint & the Record
  • Archaeologists
  • Material Culture
  • The Patterned Record
  • Archaeological Preservation
  • The Record is Contemporary
  • A Non-Renewable Resource
  • A Fragile Record
  • Summary: Presence of the Past
  • Try It: Presence of the Past
What is Archaeology?
  • Goals: What is Archaeology?
  • Imagination & Questions
  • Observations & Questions
  • Message, Codes, & Patterns
  • Archaeological Data
  • Research Design
  • Archaeology’s Challenge
  • Archaeological Translation
  • Theory & Interpretation
  • What Archaeology Isn’t
  • Summary: What is Archaeology?
  • Try It: What is Archaeology?
Archaeology’s Goals
  • Goals: Archaeology’s Goals
  • Defining Archaeology
  • Archaeology & History
  • Archaeology’s Agenda
  • Reconstruct Culture History
  • Reconstruct Past Lifeways
  • Archaeological Explanation
  • Scales of Explanation
  • Questions & Answers
  • The Search for Meaning
  • Summary: Archaeology’s Goals
  • Try It: Archaeology’s Goals
Archaeology’s Earliest History
  • Goals: Archaeology’s Earliest History
  • Origins of Archaeology
  • Archaeology’s Roots
  • Archaism
  • Speculative Antiquarianism
  • Ancient Archaeology?
  • Medieval Times & the Past
  • The Renaissance & the Past
  • Summary: Earliest History
  • Try It: Archaeology’s Earliest History
Archaeology Emerges
  • Goals: Archaeology Emerges
  • Antiquity & the Enlightenment
  • Diverse Speculation
  • Artifacts & Human Antiquity
  • America’s First Archaeologist
  • Expansion & Exposure
  • Archaeologists & Antiquaries
  • Establishing Human Antiquity
  • Discovering Early Civilizations
  • Summary: Archaeology Emerges
  • Try It: Archaeology Emerges
Empires & Archaeology
  • Goals: Empires & Archaeology
  • Lubbock’s Cultural Evolution
  • Cultural Stages
  • Misguided Evolution
  • 19th Century Expansion
  • The Moundbuilder Myth
  • Demise of the Moundbuilders
  • Ethnocentrism at Great Zimbabwe
  • Summary: Empires & Archaeology
  • Try It: Empires & Archaeology
Contemporary Archaeology
  • Goals: Contemporary Archaeology
  • Classification & Culture History
  • Ecological Approaches
  • Archaeology as Anthropology
  • New Archeology
  • Middle-Range Theory
  • Historical Archaeology
  • Interpretive Archaeologies
  • A Diverse Future
  • Summary: Contemporary Archaeology
  • Try It: Contemporary Archaeology
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Leaving a Trail

The Archaeological Record
  • Goals: The Archaeological Record
  • Leaving a Patterned Trail
  • Artifacts
  • Ecofacts
  • Features
  • Structures
  • Sites
  • Summary: The Archaeological Record
  • Try It: The Archaeological Record
Context & Variability
  • Goals: Context & Variability
  • The Importance of Context
  • Provenience
  • Matrix
  • Association
  • Archaeological Variability
  • Preservation Variability
  • Variability of Scale
  • Summary: Context & Variability
  • Try It: Context & Variability
Cultural Deposition
  • Goals: Cultural Deposition
  • Cultural Deposition Processes
  • Loss
  • Discard
  • Abandonment
  • Burial
  • Storage & Caching
  • The Record Accumulates
  • C-Transforms & N-Transforms
  • Summary: Cultural Deposition
  • Try It: Cultural Deposition
Cultural Modification
  • Goals: Cultural Modification
  • The Past Transformed
  • Uniformitarian Reasoning
  • Formation & Transformation
  • A Complex Cultural Record
  • Recycling
  • Maintenance & Reuse
  • Trampling
  • Summary: Cultural Modification
  • Try It: Cultural Modification
Natural Transformation
  • Goals: Natural Transformation
  • Dynamic Landscapes & Environments
  • Natural Transformations
  • Weathering
  • Deposition, Erosion, & Deflation
  • Soil Genesis, Paleosols & Buried Soils
  • The Time Factor
  • Cryoturbation & Pedoturbation
  • Taphonomy
  • The Future of the Past
  • Summary: Natural Transformation
  • Try It: Natural Transformation
Preservation Environments
  • Goals: Preservation Environments
  • Artifact Materials
  • Cycles of Change
  • Spectacular Rarities
  • Organic Preservation
  • Wet Environments
  • Dry Environments
  • Cold Environments
  • Natural Disasters
  • Summary: Preservation Environments
  • Try It: Preservation Environments
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Tracking Down Time

Geologic Time
  • Goals: Geologic Time
  • What is Geologic Time?
  • Religion & Geology
  • Modern Historic Geology
  • Geologic Nomenclature
  • Humanity’s Imprint in Geologic Time
  • The Geologic Time Scale
  • Hominids & Archaeology
  • Summary: Geologic Time
  • Try It: Geologic Time
Thinking & Talking About Time
  • Goals: Thinking About Time
  • Thinking About Time
  • Talking About Time
  • What is Time?
  • The Human Time Scale
  • Ordering Time
  • Cyclical Time
  • Serial Time
  • Perceiving Time
  • Temporal Scales
  • Summary: Thinking About Time
  • Try It: Thinking About Time

Temporal Sequences

  • Goals: Temporal Sequences
  • Anthropology’s Time Dimension
  • Time & Sequence
  • The Fog
  • The Flat Past
  • Unflattening the Past
  • The Three-Age System
  • Temporal Models
  • Making Time Tangible
  • Relative Chronology
  • Summary: Temporal Sequences
  • Try It: Temporal Sequences
Stratigraphy & Sequence
  • Goals: Stratigraphy & Sequence
  • Sedimentary Signatures
  • Deposition of Sediments
  • Sedimentary Sequences
  • Strata & Profiles
  • Stratigraphy
  • Superposition
  • Original Horizontality
  • Lateral Continuity
  • Summary: Stratigraphy
  • Try It: Stratigraphy & Sequence
Stratigraphic Correlation
  • Goals: Stratigraphic Correlation
  • Regional Stratigraphic Correlation
  • Correlating Stratigraphic Sequences
  • Correlation Limitations
  • Summary: Stratigraphic Correlation
  • Try It: Stratigraphic Correlation
Biostratigraphy & Index Fossils
  • Goals: Biostratigraphy
  • The Biostratigraphic Alternative
  • Fossils & Natural Historians
  • William Smith
  • Correlating Discontinuous Strata
  • Cuvier & Brongniart
  • Index Fossils
  • Evolution & Biostratigraphy
  • The Coelacanth
  • Biostratigraphic Correlation
  • Summary: Biostratigraphy
  • Try It: Biostratigraphy
Seriation & Sequence
  • Goals: Seriation & Sequence
  • Sequencing Change
  • Seriation
  • Seriation & Style
  • The Battleship Curve
  • Kinds of Seriation
  • Sir Flinders Petrie
  • Nels Nelson
  • Relative Frequency & Change
  • Seriation & Gravestones
  • Summary: Seriation & Sequence
  • Try It: Seriation & Sequence
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Charting Time

Scales of Time
  • Goals: Scales of Time
  • Pinning Down the Sequences
  • Linear Time
  • Temporal Flexibility
  • Archaeological Time Scales
  • Tempo
  • Absolute Time
  • Association & Context
  • Summary: Scales of Time
  • Try It: Scales of Time
Radioactivity & Time
  • Goals: Radioactivity & Time
  • Chronometry & Archaeology
  • Radioactive Clocks
  • Radiometric Dating
  • Radiometric Dating Tools
  • Half-Life
  • Summary: Radioactivity & Time
  • Try It: Radioactivity & Time
Radiocarbon Dating
  • Goals: Radiocarbon Dating
  • Discovering Radiocarbon
  • Radiocarbon’s Instability
  • Radiocarbon’s Origin
  • Distributing Radiocarbon
  • The Radiocarbon Clock
  • Calculating 14C Ages
  • Radiocarbon Samples
  • Beta Counting
  • AMS Counting
  • Summary: Radiocarbon Dating
  • Try It: Radiocarbon Dating
Tree-Rings & Calibration
  • Goals: Tree-Rings & Calibration
  • Dendrochronology & Climate
  • Tree-Rings
  • Dendrochronology & Archaeology
  • Tree-Ring Variability
  • Dendrochronology & Radiocarbon
  • Early Problems with Radiocarbon
  • Calibrating Radiocarbon Dates
  • Summary: Tree-Rings & Calibration
  • Try It: Tree-Rings & Calibration
Radiopotassium Dating
  • Goals: Radiopotassium Dating
  • Radiopotassium Decay
  • Using Radiopotassium
  • Radiopotassium Samples
  • Dating with Radiopotassium
  • Argon-40/Argon-39 Dating
  • Summary: Radiopotassium Dating
  • Try It: Radiopotassium Dating
Fission Track Dating
  • Goals: Fission Track Dating
  • Fission Tracks
  • Uranium-238
  • Uranium in Glass
  • Counting Fission Tracks
  • Fission Track Dating Olduvai Gorge
  • Summary: Fission Track Dating
  • Try It: Fission Track Dating
Obsidian Hydration Dating
  • Goals: Obsidian Hydration
  • Creating Obsidian Surfaces
  • Obsidian Hydration
  • Hydration Rinds
  • Obsidian Hydration Ages
  • An Archaeological Example
  • Summary: Obsidian Hydration
  • Try It: Obsidian Hydration
Luminescence Dating
  • Goals: Luminescence Dating
  • Luminescence: Trapped Electrons
  • Electron Traps
  • The Luminescence Clock
  • Luminescence Techniques
  • Luminescence Time Range
  • TL Dating
  • ESR Dating
  • OSL Dating
  • Summary: Luminescence Dating
  • Try It: Luminescence Dating
Magnetic Dating
  • Goals: Magnetic Dating
  • Magnetic Dating Methods
  • Measuring Magnetism
  • Paleomagnetism
  • Archaeomagnetism
  • Summary: Magnetic Dating
  • Try It: Magnetic Dating
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Following the Trail

Designing Fieldwork
  • Goals: Designing Fieldwork
  • Field, Research Design, Fieldwork
  • Responsibilities
  • Fieldwork Scale
  • Sampling
  • Budgets & Funding
  • Summary: Designing Fieldwork
  • Try It: Designing Fieldwork
Locating Our Imprint
  • Goals: Locating Our Imprint
  • Finding the Record
  • Exposing Our Imprint
  • Documentary Sources
  • Accidental Discovery
  • Interviews
  • Searching Systematically
  • Summary: Locating Our Imprint
  • Try It: Locating Our Imprint
Regional Survey
  • Goals: Regional Survey
  • Why Do We Survey?
  • Planning, Sampling, Preparing
  • Visibility & Remote Sensing
  • Systematic Regional Survey
  • Site Distributions
  • Rank/Size Distributions
  • Summary: Regional Survey
  • Try It: Regional Survey
Excavation Principles
  • Goals: Excavation Principles
  • Planning to Dig
  • Site Maps
  • Site Assessment
  • Matrix, Provenience, Association
  • Excavation Units
  • Plotting Precision & Accuracy
  • Database Management
  • Summary: Excavation Principles
  • Try It: Excavation Principles
Digging a Site
  • Goals: Digging a Site
  • At An Excavation
  • Making Baulks & Taking Samples
  • Fieldwork Surprises
  • The Field Lab
  • Screening
  • Flotation
  • Customized Recovery
  • Illustrating the Evidence
  • Organization & Conservation
  • Summary: Digging a Site
  • Try It: Digging a Site
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Detecting Technology

Shifting Frameworks
  • Goals: Shifting Frameworks
  • Time, Space, & Form
  • Taxonomy & Systematics
  • Artifacts, Data, & Variability
  • Artifacts & Attributes
  • Assemblages
  • Interassemblage Variability
  • Summary: Shifting Frameworks
  • Try It: Shifting Frameworks
Archaeological Typology
  • Goals: Typology
  • Typology & Types
  • Constructing Types
  • Patterning & Variability
  • Types, Types, & Types
  • Formal Types
  • Temporal Types
  • Functional Types
  • Summary: Typology
  • Try It: Typology
Thinking About Technology
  • Goals: Thinking About Technology
  • Studying Stuff
  • Materials
  • Tools
  • Techniques
  • Technology, Systems, & Change
  • Invention vs. Innovation
  • Knowledge & Creativity
  • Diffusion
  • Technical Choices
  • Summary: Thinking About Technology
  • Try It: Thinking About Technology
The Prehistory of Technology
  • Goals: Prehistory of Technology
  • Monkeys & Tools
  • Chimpanzees, Tools, & Learning
  • The Search for Early Tools
  • Choppers & Planning
  • Handaxes & Cognition
  • Fire: Heat & Light
  • The Mousterian
  • The Upper Paleolithic & Beyond
  • Summary: Prehistory of Technology
  • Try It: Prehistory of Technology
Studying Technology
  • Goals: Studying Technology
  • The Life of an Artifact
  • Technological Organization
  • Studying Form
  • Analyzing Data
  • Histograms
  • Scatterplots
  • Pie Charts & Contingency
  • Functional Analysis
  • Experimentation
  • Summary: Studying Technology
  • Try It: Studying Technology
Stone
  • Goals: Stone
  • Archaeology & Stone Tools
  • Flintknapping
  • Debitage
  • Ground Stone Tools
  • Studying Lithic Technology
  • Stone Tool Morphology
  • Stone Tool Function
  • Refitting
  • Lithics & Experimentation
  • Summary: Stone
  • Try It: Stone
Skeletal Materials
  • Goals: Skeletal Materials
  • Not Just Stone
  • Early Osseous Tools
  • Bone & Antler
  • Shell
  • Studying Osseous Artifacts
  • Worked Bone & Antler Typology
  • Studying Manufacture
  • Function
  • Summary: Skeletal Materials
  • Try It: Skeletal Materials
Pottery
  • Goals: Pottery
  • Pottery & Its Origins
  • Studying Pottery
  • Clay & Temper
  • Making Pottery
  • Sourcing Clay
  • Pottery Typology
  • Pot Form & Function
  • Pottery & Culture
  • Summary: Pottery
  • Try It: Pottery
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Provisioning Society

Human Subsistence
  • Goals: Human Subsistence
  • Provisioning People
  • Nutrition & Human Evolution
  • Archaeological Accessibility
  • Different Grocers
  • Mobile & Sedentary Foragers
  • Intensification & Domestication
  • Explaining Subsistence Change
  • Subsistence Variability
  • Summary: Human Subsistence
  • Try It: Human Subsistence
Subsistence Resources
  • Goals: Subsistence Resources
  • Food Resources
  • Plant Resources
  • Animal Resources
  • Wild Foods
  • Domestic Foods
  • Cooking
  • Seasonality
  • Preservation & Storage
  • Summary: Subsistence Resources
  • Try It: Subsistence Resources
Studying Plant Remains
  • Goals: Studying Plant Remains
  • Archaeobotany
  • Macrobotanical Remains
  • Microbotanical Remains
  • Pollen
  • Phytoliths
  • Comparative Collections
  • Summary: Studying Plant Remains
  • Try It: Studying Plant Remains
Studying Animal Remains
  • Goals: Studying Animal Remains
  • Zooarchaeology
  • Durability & Part Abundance
  • Taphonomic History
  • Sampling & Counting Bones
  • Age & Sex
  • Scavenging, Hunting, & Sharing
  • Animal Domestication
  • Summary: Studying Animal Remains
  • Try It: Studying Animal Remains
Other Evidence
  • Goals: Other Evidence
  • Human Remains
  • Coprolites
  • Bone Chemistry
  • Subsistence Tools
  • Summary: Other Evidence
  • Try It: Other Evidence
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Preserving the Trail

Preserving Our Imprint
  • Goals: Preserving Our Imprint
  • What is the Trail?
  • Cultural Resources
  • Who Owns the Past?
  • Summary: Preserving Our Imprint
  • Try It: Preserving Our Imprint
Preservation Efforts Begin
  • Goals: Preservation Efforts Begin
  • Antiquities Research & Preservation
  • National Parks & Reservations
  • As the 19th Century Ends
  • Antiquities Act of 1906
  • National Monuments
  • Summary: Preservation Efforts Begin
  • Try It: Preservation Efforts Begin
Before the Bulldozer
  • Goals: Before the Bulldozer
  • WPA Archaeology
  • HABS
  • Collection & Documentation
  • Historic Sites Act of 1935
  • Archaeology & Urban Expansion
  • River Basin Surveys
  • Highways, Reservoirs, & Pipelines
  • Preservation & the New Archaeology
  • Summary: Before the Bulldozer
  • Try It: Before the Bulldozer
Cultural Resource Management
  • Goals: CRM
  • CRM
  • National Historic Preservation Act
  • The National Register
  • The Section 106 Process
  • Preservation in the 60s & 70s
  • CRM & the Academy
  • The Sunken Past
  • Protection on Non-Federal Land
  • Summary: CRM
  • Try It: CRM
Organizing the Past
  • Goals: Organizing the Past
  • Curation & Management
  • Curation Regulations
  • Collections Management
  • Collections-Based Research
  • What Should Be Saved?
  • Site Management
  • Presenting the Past
  • Public Education
  • Summary: Organizing the Past
  • Try It: Organizing the Past
Owning the Past
  • Goals: Owning the Past
  • Looting & Vandalism
  • The Past for Private Sale
  • Landowners & Guardianship
  • Human Burials
  • Just Compensation
  • The Archaeological Conservancy
  • Summary: Owning the Past
  • Try It: Owning the Past
A Past Without Borders
  • Goals: A Past Without Borders
  • Global Culture
  • Global Past at Risk
  • Global Responsibility
  • UNESCO & World Heritage
  • World Heritage List
  • Endangered World Heritage
  • World Heritage Fund
  • Summary: A Past Without Borders
  • Try It: A Past Without Borders
Negotiating the Past
  • Goals: Negotiating the Past
  • Appropriating the Past
  • Archaeology & Native Americans
  • NAGPRA
  • Repatriation
  • The African Burial Ground
  • Patrimony in Peril
  • Understanding & Compromise
  • Summary: Negotiating the Past
  • Try It: Negotiating the Past

About the Authors: Heidi Katz, Ph.D., and Laurence E. Bartram, Jr., Ph.D.

Heidi Katz earned her B.A. from Tufts University and her Ph.D. from New York University, both in Anthropology. Heidi has conducted fieldwork at Paleolithic sites in France, Iron Age sites in Israel, and prehistoric and historic sites in the United States. Her primary research and publication focus is technological innovation and design. Her work includes extensive experimental research on Paleolithic hunting technologies. In addition to journal articles, Heidi (Knecht) is the editor of Projectile Technology (Plenum Press) and co-editor of Before Lascaux: The Complex Record of the Early Upper Paleolithic (CRC Press).

Laurence E. Bartram, Jr. earned his B.A. (Anthropology) from the University of Arizona and his Ph.D. (Anthropology) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has conducted archaeological research in the United States (Arizona, Illinois, Wisconsin), Europe (Denmark, France), Africa (Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania), and Asia (China, Kazakhstan). He pursued innovative ethnoarchaeological research with two groups of hunter-gatherers in Africa (Botswana, Tanzania).

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