Scientists, Bones, and Tools

       How long is a thousand years? It is not half that long since Columbus discovered America. Jesus was born almost two thousand years ago. The Egyptians built the pyramids of Egypt nearly five thousand years ago. But the story of early man goes back hundreds of thousands of years. It begins in what we call prehistory because it happened before man knew how to read and write. Writing was invented only about 5000 years ago, and so most of man’s story is prehistory.

       How would you read a story without a book or without any writing? Special scientists called archaeologists are able to do this. They read the story by studying the stone and bone tools of early man and charcoal pieces from his fire, and they call on other specialists to study the bones of early man that have lasted through thousands of years.

       Let’s suppose that you are an archaeologist of the future, living thousands of years from now, and that you want to “dig” the city of Chicago, St. Louis, or even New York City. You might dig in the city dump where everyone’s old broken dishes, old clothes, cars, and chairs had been thrown. The clothes and newspapers would have rotted away, but such things as a beefsteak bone and the steel blade from a carving set would have lasted, along with some broken dishes. If you think of all the things that would have fallen apart in the rain and snow or that would have rotted away, then you will have an idea of how hard the archaeologist of the future would find it to imagine what a modern city is like today if he had no written records to help him.

       Now let us think of the scientists of today who dig up the things used by people who lived thousands of years ago. These people had very few things, and so their story would be even harder to read than ours.

       Archaeologists are detectives. They have to find clues and fit them together to tell the story of early man. Before there were any archaeologists, people sometimes came across the tools of early man by accident. Perhaps when men were digging a well they found some chipped stones, or people walking past a gravel pit would pick up an odd-shaped stone and take it home for a souvenir. About a hundred years ago scientists began to study these stones. Some of the stones looked alike. They were shaped in the same way. Scientists then realized that the stones must be the tools of early man. After a while, instead of picking up things here and there, a scientist would try to find a place where prehistoric men had lived. Then he would dig carefully, looking for the tools of these people and the bones of the animals they hunted.

The archaeologist digs for ancient signs of life.

       Nowadays before the archaeologist begins to dig he studies everything he can find about the country where he is going to work. For Example when Dr. Robert J. Braidwood of the Oriental Institute of Chicago went to Iraq in search of the earliest farming villages, he already knew the country and had decided that the well-watered hills would have been the best place for the earliest farmers to grow their crops. He went to the hill country and there he found, under layers of earth, the little village of Jarmo. Other scientists were with him. One could tell about the first crops the farmers had grown. Another could tell about the first animals to be tamed. Still another, by studying the bones of these early farmers, could tell what the people looked like. Working together, these experts were able slowly to figure out the life of Jarmo, one of the earliest villages in the world. By many such careful “digs" as this, the archaeologists have traced the story of early man. Fleming

• Learn about the Neolithic village of Jarmo in Iraq
• Archaeological dig near Oakville, Iowa, finds an ancient village
• The story of St. Louis' beginnings becomes more complicated with new archaeological findings
• 'This whole area is covered with artifacts': Local archaeologist talks ancient discoveries in the south suburbs
• New York Archaeology Exhibits