Suggested Readings

Chapter 2: Methods of Studying the Human Past

Fagan, B. M. (1998). People of the Earth: An introduction to world prehistory (9th ed.). New York:  Longman.

There are a number of good texts that, like this one, try to summarize the findings of archaeologists on a worldwide scale. This book, being one of the more recent ones, is reasonably up to date.

Feder, K. L. (1999). Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries (3rd ed.). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.

This very readable book is written to enlighten readers about the many pseudo-scientific and even crackpot theories about past cultures that all too often have been presented to the public as “solid” archaeology.

Joukowsky, M. (1980). A Complete Field Manual of Archaeology: Tools and techniques of fieldwork for archaeologists. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

This book, encyclopedic in its coverage, explains for the novice and professional alike all of the methods and techniques used by archaeologists in the field. Two concluding chapters discuss fieldwork opportunities and financial aid for archaeological research.

Sharer, R. J., & Ashmore, W. (1993). Archaeology: Discovering our Past (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield.

One of the best presentations of the body of method, technique, and theory that most archaeologists accept as fundamental to their discipline. The authors confine themselves to the operational modes, guiding strategies, and theoretical orientations of anthropological archaeology in a manner well designed to lead the beginner into the discipline.

Shipman, P. (1981). Life History of a Fossil: An Introduction to Taphonomy and Paleoecology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

In order to understand what a fossil has to tell us, one must know how it came to be where the paleoanthropologist found it (taphonomy). In this book, anthropologist-turned-science-writer Pat Shipman explains how animal remains are acted upon and altered from death to fossilization.

Thomas, D. H. (1998). Archaeology (3rd ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.

Some books tell us how to do archaeology, some tell us what archaeologists have found    out, but this one tells us why we do archaeology. It does so in a coherent and thorough way, and Thomas’s blend of ideas, quotations, biographies, and case studies makes for interesting reading.