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How Archaeologists Reconstruct the Ancient Past
A plain overview of how archaeologists survey, excavate, record, date and interpret evidence, and why the picture of the ancient past always remains partial.
Cradle of Civilization
Archaeology Methods and Dating
The scientific tools used to date and reconstruct the ancient past.
Ancient DNA and What It Reveals
How scientists recover DNA from old bones and teeth, what it can show about migration, kinship and population history, and where its limits lie.
LiDAR and Satellite Survey in Archaeology
How airborne laser scanning and satellite imagery reveal buried and forest-covered settlements, field systems and roads, and why ground checking still matters.
Pottery Typology and Seriation
How archaeologists classify pottery into types and arrange assemblages in sequence to order sites in time, and why the results are relative, not calendar dates.
Radiocarbon Dating Explained
How radiocarbon dating measures carbon-14 in organic remains, why results must be calibrated, and what the margins of error and common pitfalls mean.
Tells and Stratigraphy
How tells, the layered settlement mounds of the Near East, form over time and how archaeologists read their stratigraphy from the bottom up to build a sequence.
The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment
How the trilingual Rosetta Stone, found in 1799, gave scholars a route into Egyptian script, and how Champollion built on it to read hieroglyphs in the 1820s.
Tree-Ring Dating
How dendrochronology matches the width patterns of overlapping tree rings to date timber to a single year and to calibrate radiocarbon measurements.
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Mesopotamia Overview The land between the rivers and how its civilization began. Sumerian Cities Uruk, Eridu, Ur and Nippur, the first great cities. Writing and Law Cuneiform and the earliest law codes. Myth and Art Gods, creation stories, the Gilgamesh epic and Mesopotamian art. Sumerian History The story of Sumer from early villages to the Ur III state and its rediscovery. Sumerian Innovations Farming, mathematics, technology and legal practice in Sumer. Ancient Crafts and Technology Metals, glass, cloth, concrete and the tools that built early civilizations. Women and Children in the Ancient World Family life, education and the women who shaped ancient history.