how has archeology changed through the decades?
Answers
There’s a lot more technology involved and forensic science does wonders. Originally archeologists dug up everything the hard way, relying on known ruins and ancient texts.
Nowadays they can do surveys with ground penetrating radar to make a 3d map of an area (that’s how we know England was heavily farmed during the bronze age).
We can use x-rays and MRIs and computers to make a 3d model of a corpse and to virtual autopsies (that’s how we know King Tut died from being run over by a chariot).
We can do isotope studies to not only reveal roughly when something was made but where it was from.
The field of linguistic has made it’s steady expanding course and revealed many tidbits. I.E. Copenhagen comes through the Norse from the Latin and means “Copper Harbor,” showing this was probably a Roman trading post. The Vikings immigrated and traded just as often as they plundered as seen by the volume of Norse place names around York and evidence of many people over time living in England but speaking English as a second language. The letter “R” was adopted from Runic during the Dark Ages because there is no “R” in Latin.
We can do DNA surveys to map out the movement of peoples and intermarriages even in place to fill in gaps in the historiography. I.E. most Native American DNA comes from Asia and Polynesia, all the communities that call themselves Jews were at one location around 2000 years ago (consistent with the history of how these communities retailed their identity even after the Romans forced them out of Palestine).
Facial recognition and reconstruction software can turn a skull into a digital face, combined with a rough knowledge of where the man came from can get a pretty good picture of what he looked like when he was alive. This is how we know we found Richard III’s remains because, well, it matches the painting we have of him.
Answer:
Archaeology has changed through the decades as now archaeologists have discovered many things from the past. For example, the Mesopotamian inscription has now been deciphered by the archaeologists and thus, they are now able to make various discoveries only through the deciphered language.