How do we know what we know?
Our ancestors didn't come and go from this planet without leaving evidence of their existence, and it's up
to archaeologists to make sense of the random bones, clay tablets, tools, buildings and other items our
forebears left behind.
 Archeology informs our knowledge of history.
1) What is archeology?
2) What does an archeologist do?
 Historians rely on written records to reconstruct history;
Archeologists rely on the artifacts they excavate.
3) What is an artifact?
4) What is a fossil?
 So what?
5) What can these artifacts tell us about the past?
6) How do archeologists make sense of what they find?
In Johnson County, Iowa, archeologists excavated a site. They found a central hearth and
activity areas (including deer processing, lithic reduction, and discard areas). They also
found chipped stone tools made from types of stone that seemed to have come from central
or northern Iowa, and organic preservation that indicated camping in late summer or early
fall. Soil samples from the site contained seeds of little barley, a plant that is not native to
the area.
After a long process of excavation, archeologists concluded that the site was likely
occupied about 3,800 years ago and that the people at Edgewater were mobile hunters and
gatherers. The archeologists assume that they were probably headed south, and the site
offered a good spot to rest and resupply before continuing their trip toward the Mississippi
River valley for winter. The seeds discovered suggest that the people at Edgewater were
involved in the earliest stages of domestication. While the occupants did not grow crops,
they were changing the way they produced food, shifting towards plants that would later be
domesticated, a necessary step towards becoming farmers. This continued transition to
agriculture can be seen at other sites in Iowa…
1. A) What technologies did the archeologists find? B) What do they think this tells them about
the people at Edgewater?
2. A) What plant matter did the archeologists find? B) What do they think this tells them?
3. What artifacts did archeologists rely on to construct the past at Edgewater?
4. Besides artifacts, what else did archeologists rely on to construct the past at Edgewater?
5. What questions do you have for the archeologists who excavated this site?