HOW TO READ AN ARTIFACT
The material remains archaeologists find are termed artifacts, which they define as “objects made and used by people.” By carefully collecting and analyzing artifacts, archaeologists are attempting to date and describe the beliefs, customs, and knowledge of past societies. Archaeologists are those who study the human past through its material remains. Usually, these remains must be removed from the ground, using systematic methods and a variety of tools and technology.
Materials
One penny for each student
Paper and pencils
Index cards
Discuss with Students
1. Ask students to imagine they are archaeologists living many years in the future. Excavating a site, they have found a coin from an unknown society.
2. Hand out one penny to each student. If available, hand out magnifying lenses.
3. Ask students to examine the penny and write down on an index card all they notice on both sides of the coin.
4. Ask students to consider what this coin could tell future archaeologists about this unknown society.
Answers could include:
the board and ask students: a) if they feel the statements are true; b) how a penny could suggest
those ideas. List of additional ideas from the penny:
• the man on the penny is a god
• the building is a temple for worshipping the god
• a statue of the god is inside the temple
• the people of this society had two languages (English and Latin)
6. Students might say the man on the penny is Lincoln and that almost nobody knows Latin.
Remind them a future archaeologist might not be aware of Lincoln or the languages of the
unknown society, so he or she could only make educated guesses, or hypotheses, from the objects.
7. Ask students what other items archaeologists might unearth that would help test their guesses from the
penny.
Answers could be:
• books about religious beliefs
• pictures that identify Lincoln as a president, not a god
• few or no more Latin inscriptions.
Remind students that ideas about the past change as archaeologists continue
to uncover new evidence.
Activity adapted from Society for American Archeology http://www.saa.org/publicftp/PUBLIC/educators/index.html
The material remains archaeologists find are termed artifacts, which they define as “objects made and used by people.” By carefully collecting and analyzing artifacts, archaeologists are attempting to date and describe the beliefs, customs, and knowledge of past societies. Archaeologists are those who study the human past through its material remains. Usually, these remains must be removed from the ground, using systematic methods and a variety of tools and technology.
Materials
One penny for each student
Paper and pencils
Index cards
Discuss with Students
- Among the hundreds, and often thousands of artifacts that archeologists find at a excavation site, sometimes a single object will provide a great deal of information about a society, culture or people. A coin is a great example as it can reveal much information about leaders, values, technology, language, politics, numerical systems, dates, etc.
- By looking closely at a United States penny, we can learn certain information about the people using that coin and the society they live in.
1. Ask students to imagine they are archaeologists living many years in the future. Excavating a site, they have found a coin from an unknown society.
2. Hand out one penny to each student. If available, hand out magnifying lenses.
3. Ask students to examine the penny and write down on an index card all they notice on both sides of the coin.
4. Ask students to consider what this coin could tell future archaeologists about this unknown society.
Answers could include:
- time the society existed (from date on penny)
- the people had a religion—they believed in a god
- the people knew how to work in metal (penny is made of metal)
- the people knew how to construct buildings
- some men in the society wore beards
- they construct open-air monumental architecture
- they have a numerical system
the board and ask students: a) if they feel the statements are true; b) how a penny could suggest
those ideas. List of additional ideas from the penny:
• the man on the penny is a god
• the building is a temple for worshipping the god
• a statue of the god is inside the temple
• the people of this society had two languages (English and Latin)
6. Students might say the man on the penny is Lincoln and that almost nobody knows Latin.
Remind them a future archaeologist might not be aware of Lincoln or the languages of the
unknown society, so he or she could only make educated guesses, or hypotheses, from the objects.
7. Ask students what other items archaeologists might unearth that would help test their guesses from the
penny.
Answers could be:
• books about religious beliefs
• pictures that identify Lincoln as a president, not a god
• few or no more Latin inscriptions.
Remind students that ideas about the past change as archaeologists continue
to uncover new evidence.
Activity adapted from Society for American Archeology http://www.saa.org/publicftp/PUBLIC/educators/index.html
