From Camels to Computers: A Short History of Archaeological Method - The BAS Library
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From Camels to Computers: A Short History of Archaeological Method

By Thomas E. Levy

Professional archaeologists are often amused by the popular image many people have of us as fearless adventurers, dashing from one exciting escapade to another like Indiana Jones. Little do they know that our work is often conducted in dusty, out-of-the-way places that hold little interest to anyone but us. Until very recently, our tools have been modest worker’s implements: trowels, picks, levels and buckets. Supplementing these now are a whole array of high-tech machines that are swiftly changing the way we excavate. How do we really dig? And how have we dug in the past? In BAR’s March/April […]

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Footnotes

1.

As one of Dever’s students at the University of Arizona back in 1975, I found this socio-economic view of the past extremely refreshing.

2.

See “‘David’ Found at Dan,” BAR 20:02.

3.

See Harrison Eiteljorg II, “Reconstructing with Computers,” BAR 17:04.

4.

See Yonathan Mizrachi, “Mystery Circles,” BAR 18:04.

5.

See Thomas E. Levy, “How Ancient Man First Utilized Rivers in the Desert,” BAR 16:06.

Endnotes

1.

Colin Renfrew and P.Bahn, Archaeology—Theories, Methods and Practice (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991), p. 487; M.B. Schiffer, Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987).

2.

Kathleen M. Kenyon, Beginning in Archaeology (London: Publisher, 1952).

3.

P.R.S. Moorey, A Century of Biblical Archaeology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991). See also: Philip J. King, American Archaeology in the Mideast—A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983) and Neil A. Silberman, Digging for God and Country; Exploration, Archaeology and the Secret Struggle for the Holy Land, 1799–1917 (New York: Knopf, 1982).

4.

Renfrew and Bahn, Archaeology, p. 80.

5.

A.J. Witten, T.E. Levy, J. Ursic and P. White, “Geophysical Diffraction Tomography: New Views on the Shiqmim Prehistoric Subterranean Village Site (Israel),” Geoarchaeology 10:185–206 (1995).

6.

Joe E. Seger and Paul F. Jacobs, “Lahav Digmaster-An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual Database” NEH Proposal, (Starkville: Mississippi State University, 1994).

7.

For an overview and introduction to the newer socio-economic perspectives on the archaeology of the Holy Land, see Thomas E. Levy, ed., The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (New York: Facts On File, London: Leicester University Press, 1995).