High School > Social Sciences > Archaeology Videos
When people think “archaeologist”, what usually comes to mind is Indiana Jones. They think of archaeological research as stealing figurines from temples, and the temples come crumbling down afterwards while the archaeologist narrowly escapes with his life.
But that only happens in the movies. Real life archaeologists don’t do that. They don’t steal stuff from temples. Instead, they usually dig through buried civilizations and uncover its secrets.
This digging is also not done in a haphazard, careless way. Real archaeologists care about preserving the native form of the artifacts they dig up. They take lots of caution in obtaining artifacts, even in digging through the ground. They won’t allow things to crumble right before their eyes. That’s a big no-no for them.
The aim of archaeology is also not to get valuable treasures, but to gain insights on ancient civilizations. Archaeologists are curious about how those people lived, what their societies were like, their livelihoods, the structure of the houses they lived in, their cultures and practices, and many more. Each piece of evidence that they dig up provides new knowledge on what a particular ancient civilization was like.
True archaeology also does not involve lots of running, jumping, and shooting. Unlike the Indiana Jones movies, there are no giant monsters or hidden booby-traps in real-life archaeological expeditions. There are just remnants of old buildings, tables, chairs, statues, and other such things. Removing an artifact from an old table does not awaken a horde of zombie knights. In fact, there are no hordes of zombie knights in real life. That only happens in the movies.
There are also no evil archaeologists bent on taking over the world using the powers of ancient artifacts. Yes, artifacts may have gems and other shiny parts, but they don’t hold any world-destroying abilities for sure.
