My brother is an archaeologist. He studies human activity through historic materials.
That is cool! Don't Archaeologists look at fossils and things like that?
Not really, the study of fossils is palaeontology.
Oh get those mixed up! What about Anthropology? Is Archaeology related to that?
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology, while in Europe it is often viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines.
Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development
disciplines such as mammalogy, biological anthropology, herpetology, ornithology, ichthyology, and entomology identify and classify species and study the structures and mechanisms specific to those groups.
Related fields:
- Evolutionary biology: Development of both animals and plants is considered in the articles on evolution, population genetics, heredity, variation, Mendelism, and reproduction.
- Molecular biology studies the common genetic and developmental mechanisms of animals and plants
- Palaeontology: Study of fossils of the life forms that are now extinct.
- Systematics