Why archaeology in america is part of Anthropology?

Question

I think archaeology is not usually part of Anthropology, it can be a part of History, Geography, Geology, or even Architecture and Engineering (like recontruction or experimental archaeology)?

Answer 1

In Europe it is usually a part of history or geography, etc because Europeans were investigating their own past.  In America it emerged to answer the question of "moundbuilders" and the Native Americans who were living here.

Answer 2

I kinda like the way we do it over here, because I hate history as it's usually taught and I love anthropology, and I am an archaeologist.  Anthropology is the study of people, and how groups got to be the way they are.  Archaeology fits in quite well with that, particularly in Northern America.  Europeans, Asians, and Africans have a heck of a lot more history than us.  We mostly have prehistory.  Since most native groups didn't have writing, and those that did were further south than the US, we've had to rely on what we dig out of the ground and what we learn talking to tribe members.  We don't have books talking about King So and So in this year, but we do have evidence of how people lived their daily lives.  I think archaeology as history in the US would be difficult, at best, because we just don't know too much about the political structures and movements before the Europeans came along.  We can infer from what we dig up and what we get from stories, but even now, we put the pre-colonial Native Americans into groups based on their material culture more often than not.

Ugh, I just noticed that the YA spellchecker dealie doesn't like me spelling archaeology with the second a.  It also doesn't like the word "spellchecker".  What the?

Answer 3

I agree

Answer 4

Archeology deals only with humans and human artifacts from the past.It does not deal with anything else. It is a sub-discipline of Anthropology and not any other subject. The information found in Archeology is based on physical evidence as opposed to a written record.

Answer 5

archaeology is definitely aprt of anthropology.  richard Leakey, probably from the most famous archaeological families, is by definition an anthropologist.  there are 4 fields in anthropology -- cultural, physical, archaeology, and linguistics.  it's like being a Finance major in college.  you're not really a finance major, you're a business major.  finance, marketing, accounting, are all sub-fields for Business.

Answer 6

Archaeology is the study of humans through material remains. Although it can be applied to history or geology, I don't see how it has more to do with those things than Anthropology, at least at its core. Archaeologists study humans.

Answer 7

Archaeology can definitely be a part of all those subjects that you mentioned, but it is also a very big part of anthropology.  When an American anthropologist is studying a certain culture, where do you think the physical evidence of what the culture was like comes from?  Typically here in America when archaeologists are excavating sites associated with certain cultures, a cultural anthropologist and physical anthropologist are usually involved in order to fully understand the site and the culture that built the site.  

American anthropology and archaeology really came together during the Classificatory-Descriptive Period when everyone was trying to explain the Myth of the Moundbuilders.  Archaeologists and physical anthropologists were both involved in trying to figure out the mystery, and so sort of developed together in America.

Answer 8

Archaeology is a sub field of Anthropology. Anthropology is the study of people and how we live.

To understand how we live, we must also understand how we lived. Archaeology, human archaeology anyway, looks at fossils and fossilized remains of people to examine their cultures, which can be used to examine current cultures and better understand them.