xxvIntroduction
Th e story of the ancient world spans the globe and covers vast
amounts of time. It is the largely overlooked story of the tre-
mendous diversity in human experience, ranging from the ice
age societies whose way of life is so remote from ours to the
citizens of Greece and Rome whom we easily recognize from
history books. During the 2 million years since we became
human, members of our species have settled every corner
of the earth and organized their lives in countless diff erent
ways. Th e articles in this encyclopedia will provide you with
an overview of the various ways in which people lived in the
past and point to sources where you can fi nd more informa-
tion about the topics that interest you.
To learn about the modern world, all we have to do is look
around, travel, read, or watch a video about what we cannot
see. But we cannot travel back in time to see what life was
like several thousand or several hundred thousand years ago.
We cannot hear an ancient Roman speak, nor can we meet
a Stone Age hunter in Siberia. We have to rely on research-
ers to piece together many diff erent bits of evidence to come
up with a picture of past life. A lot of the pieces are missing.
Many people say that it is like putting together a jigsaw puz-
zle, but it is a puzzle in which most of the pieces are missing
and, worse, there is no picture on the box.
Th e people who study the humans of the past call them-
selves various names. Archaeologists excavate and study the
physical traces of past societies, called sites and artifacts,
while physical anthropologists study the remains of ancient
humans to learn about their evolution, health, and genetics.
Researchers who study both the archaeology and the physi-
cal anthropology of the earliest humans are called paleoan-
thropologists. Historians and epigraphers study the texts and
monuments of ancient civilizations, while historical geogra-
phers examine the ways in which past societies interacted
through exploration and trade. Paleobotanists and archaeo-
zoologists study the remains of the plants and animals that
were used by ancient people, while geologists study events in
the earth’s history that may have aff ected the lives of nearby
people. Many other fi elds of research also contribute to our
understanding of how people lived in the past.SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT
THE ANCIENT WORLD
Scholars who study the ancient world have many sources of
information to reconstruct life in the past. Th e most impor-
tant categories are ancient sites, ancient artifacts, and ancient
texts, supplemented by information on the ancient environ-
ment and climate. Th ese are the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle
that researchers must fi t together.SITES
Ancient sites are the locations where human activity took
place in the past. Since there are many diff erent types of hu-
man activities, there are diverse types of sites. Th e most im-
portant are settlements, burials, and ceremonial sites, but any
location where ancient people performed some activity and
left traces behind can be considered an archaeological site.
Settlement sites are probably the most common form
of ancient site, for they are the locations where people lived.
Th ese can range from Stone Age caves to the residential parts
of cities such as Athens and Rome. All settlement sites have
characteristics in common that are of special interest to ar-
chaeologists. Th e fi rst special characteristic of most settle-
ment sites is that people built structures of various types. In
the Stone Age cave they might have built a hearth by digging
a pit and lining it with stones, while in larger settlements they
built houses and other domestic buildings, along with storage
pits, barns, and other necessary structures. Th e other impor-
tant feature of settlement sites is that people create a tremen-
dous amount of rubbish, and this rubbish contains a lot of
information for archaeologists. In addition to the broken
tools, pots, and other equipment of daily life, it also contains
animal bones and charred seeds that provide information on
the ancient diet.