My brother has the strangest collection of stuff.  I know he's an archaeologist, but still, stuff is weird.
yes they do the coolest stuff. Archaeology  is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture.
He calls them his artifacts.  But see, all the really cool stuff gets sent to a museum.  So he has pottery shards and little tools instead.
It would interest you to know that record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, and cultural landscapes.
Yeah, it does.  Each artifact, at least according to him, has a story to tell about and ancient people's way of life.  Like one of the pottery shards had evidence of alcohol inside, meaning it was used to brew beer.
You brother is an interesting person. Actually, archaeology is both a social science and a branch of the humanities.
I suppose you could glean a lot of the social structure of ancient peoples through looking at their tools.  I never thought of it that way.
In the USA most especially,  archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology
I'll definitely have to ask him about all this once he gets back from his dig site!
Ok do that. Archaeology is important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study.