Archaeology Vs Palaeontology: Know the difference!
When I get asked about what I do for a living, I say that I am an archaeologist. It is then often followed by questions like, "so you dig dinosaurs?!", "How many dinosaurs have you found yet?" and other questions related to "dinos" basically! Social media is largely responsible for the spread of information which is many-a-times full of ambiguity and errors. So here’s a basic write-up to help you understand how archaeology and palaeontology are different fields of study. Let’s look at archaeology first. A famous anthropologist Leslie White once said, culture is “man’s extrasomatic means of adaptation”. And archaeology is the study of past human cultures. Extrasomatic means anything that exists outside of the individual human body. Archaeology encompasses everything created by past humans as a means to adapt to their surroundings and advance as a species. The different types of objects produced by past humans are called artefacts. These are made by shaping