Who cares about stuff that’s old, broken, half-rotted, and falling apart? Who likes to pick through garbage dumps?
Archaeologists do, because archaeology (ar-kee-AH-luh-gee) is the study of the material remains of past peoples. An archaeologist’s goal is to learn about people, long dead, who left things behind.
Finding artifacts, or objects made by humans, is the first step. Archaeologists must also recover them, preserve them, and unlock their secrets, such as: how and why were the artifacts made, and who used them? Bit by bit, archaeologists paint a picture of human history. It’s a picture that changes each time new artifacts are found. It’s never a finished picture, because many artifacts are lost forever, and many human activities leave no objects behind. But it’s the best picture we have of people and places from long ago.