by Mimi Lu

Created on: November 26, 2007   Last Updated: March 10, 2009

Archaeology today, involves not only a systematic and meticulous excavation, but perhaps more importantly, cooperation with a variety of specialist scientific and historical disciplines to analyse and synthesise evidence of the human past in a way that reflects history accurately. It is only through working collaboratively and examining an artefact from all perspectives that many of the problems regarding misinterpretations of evidence can be duly avoided and historical integrity preserved. Ultimately, it is through this alliance that archaeologists are able to reconstruct the past from a tangible accumulation of material such as trash, tools, ornaments and buildings' and maximise their understanding of the diverse human ways of survival, religious beliefs, family structure and social organisation.

Essentially, a significant portion of problems threatening the physical remains of the past is caused by the follies of mankind whether it be through ruthless, avaricious looting, the destruction of wars, vandalism, modern development, human induced pollution such the acid rain attacking Rome's Coloseum, urban explosion threatening the formidable features of Egypt, or simply through the adverse effects of the plethora of curious tourists. As a result, much of the precious collection of artefacts are fragmentary and therefore subject to a extensive range of personal interpretations, all of which strive to emerge from the tumultuous multitude, but only one of which is historically correct. This lack of consensus between scholars due to incomplete evidence can be demonstrated by the controversies raised by the Iceman's occupation, manner of death and his habitat. Eventually, it was the CT scan a decade after his discovery that revealed a flint arrowhead imbedded in his shoulder which had caused his demise, but as of today, the other mysteries shrouding the Iceman remains without a definite conclusion. Thus, it is even more critical for archaeologists to attain all the information possible from the examinations of other fields of expertise to overcome at least a few difficulties created by the fragmentary archaeological record.

Fundamentally, the dramatic transformation of an archaeologist's mentality from the tomb-robbing' era of Belzoni to the detailed examinations of evidence today has been facilitated by the extraordinary developments in science. Both the Persian mummy and the Iceman demonstrate the phenomenal role played by science in overcoming many of the difficulties

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