Archaeology is the science (sic) of things. It is a science of material that is lost, thrown away or placed on purpose in an inaccessible place. From the thing and its context a narrative can be created that sheds light on the past. I have done archaeology but prefer the historical activity of creating the narrative more.
Archaeology works best when you are dealing with a materialistic society. It is easier to draw conclusions when there is a lot of material to work with such as the grave of an Anglo-Saxon king or even a Anglo-Saxon peasants burial. These contain the remains and grave goods. Societies that don’t bury their dead with grave goods are far more tricky not least if you draw the conclusion that more grave goods means that the person was richer. Consider the grave of Medieval Christian knight verses the grave of the afore mentioned peasant.
If I lost all my possessions today I would be on a par with our earliest ancestors in the Palaeolithic era. These people were nomadic hunter gatherers who followed the seasons and the herds through the landscape. They pose a significant challenge to archaeology because they were a non-materialistic throw away society. First they were non-materialistic because they were nomadic. They needed to travel light and could not be encumbered with material possessions. Second they were a throw away society in that if they needed a flint tool they could pick up a nodule of flint, knapp a tool and then after it had been used throw it away. In fact at Boxgrove we can see where they knapped a handaxe, where it was used and where it was discarded afterwards. They were a throw away society to such an extent that stone tools are regularly found and in such numbers that museums are not interested in collecting them!
Historytalker 