Archaeology is a source of history,mot just a bumble auxiliary discipline.Archaeological data are historical documents in their own right,not mere illustrations to written texts.Just as much as any other historian,an archaeologist sudies and tries to reconstitute the process that has create the human world in which we live-and us ourselves in so far as we are each creatures of our age and social environment.Archaeology data are all changes in the material world resulting from human action or,more succinctly,the fossilized results of human behavior.The sum total of these constitute what may be called the archaeological record.This record exhibits certain peculiarities and deficiencies the consequences of which produce a rather superficial contrast between archaeological history and the more familiar kind based upon written records.

Not all human behavior fossilizes.The words I utter and you hear as vibration in the air are certainly human changes in the material world and may be of great historical significance.Yet they leave no sort of trace in the archaeological records unless they are captured by a dictaphone or written down by a clerk.The movement of troops on the battlefied may "change the course of history",but this equally ephemeral from the archaeologist's standpoint.What is perhaps worse,most organic materials are perishable.Everything made of wood,hide,wool,linen,grass,hair,and similar materials will decay and vnish in dust in a few years or centuries,save under very exceptional conditions.In a relativeley brief period the archaeological record is reduce to mere scrapes of stone,bone,glass,metal,and earthenware.Still modern archaeology,by applying appropriate techniques and comparative methods,aided by a few lucky finds from peatbogs,deserts,and frozen soils,is able to fill up a good deal of the gap.