Fortunately, the human record is written not
only in alphabets and books, but is preserved in other kinds of material remains--in cave
paintings, pictographs, discarded stone tools, earthenware vessels, religious figurines,
abandoned baskets--which is to say, in tattered shreds and patches of ancient societies.
Archaeologists interpret this often fragmentary but fascinating record to reassemble
long-ago cultures and forgotten ways of life.
Archaeologists, long interested in the classical societies of Greece, Rome, and Egypt, have extended their studies in two
directions--backward some 3 million years to the bones and stone tools of our protohuman
ancestors, and forward to the reconstruction of lifeways and communities of 19th-century
America. Regarding the latter, many archaeologists work in the growing field of cultural
resource management, to help federal, state, and local governments preserve our nation's
architectural, historical, and cultural heritage.
