| Description: | This program examines past human societies primarily through their material remains, or "material culture." Archaeologists explore the nature of and changes in past cultures around the world through survey, excavation and analyses of stone tools, pottery, bones, plant remains, architecture and other cultural residues.
Some of the major research foci of archaeologists are the nature of hunter-gatherer technology and economy in the Pleistocene, the origins of agriculture, pastoralism, urbanism and politically complex states, the workings of ancient exchange systems, and the development of class-based and gender-based political and economic inequalities in complex societies. |