Archaeologists also define "SITES" that reflect places where people did something. They might be small, or they might be very large. Indiana Jones visited a site in the deserts of the Middle East called Petra.
Petra was a large city when it was occupied. It was a major trade city that emerged because people there invented a way to ride camels with a saddle. This enabled them to shoot bows as they rode. This meant they could control trade in the area. Petra is an archaeological site - a place where people lived, irrigated the desert, interacted and traded with others, and died and were buried. Today we find the clear traces of those types of behavior at Petra and reconstruct the patterns of life through the artifacts and features found there.
Below is the story of another site - this one is simply called the "Lost City". Yet it was never lost - it was a city of life where people lived, played, and created a part of the human legacy. We often talk of sites as ruins or lost cities and yet they were places as active as towns or cities today. The archaeologist attempts to reconstruct this life from what appears to be a ruin.
How do artifacts, features, and sites all come together? Actually, sites are locations where people did something. They left us with traces of the behavior they did in different locations. These locations are archaeological sites. As a result of behavior people used artifacts and constructed features to help them survive and adapt.
Lets explore how artifacts, features, and sites relate. These artifacts and feature were observed in an area south of Mesa near the Santan Mountains. What can you say about these based on the attributes from each of these?
Click on each item to see an attribute
list.
