Advantages of Archaeology
1. Helps to understand cultural diversity of humanity in every corner of the world.
2. It compliments other sources of history and makes the information more authentic. E.g the myth of the ancient wealthy city may be made more real by the discovery of Gold and other precious metals discovered in that area.
3. It provides accurate chronology of certain historical information.
4. Carbon-14 dating technique archaeology helps to get correct and exact date of certain fossils.
5. It is politically significant since it is used to reveal certain ancient political development. For example, Southern Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe in honour of the great enclosure walls of Mwenemutapa empire which were discovered by the archaeologists.
6. It enables us to determine the interrelationships between groups of people. For example, trading relationships, migrations, death, environment relationships and the like.
7. It shows facts about the stages of physical and technological development of man. For Example, from Australopithecines to Hominids (Homo-habilis, Homo-erectus, Homo-sapiens and Homo-sapiens sapiens), technological development from late stone age, middle stone age, late stone age and iron age.
8. It plays a great role in the study of early achievements. E.g early architectural buildings of Pyramids in Egypt.
Limitations of Archaeology
1) It is very expensive to conduct archaeological research.
2) It requires skills and special tools to conduct excavation.
3) It is time consuming
4) It is very hard to determine areas of archaeological findings.
5) It cannot provide reasons for occurrence of certain historical events such as wars.
6) It requires high knowledge of geology, chemistry, physics, medical science, and Botany.
7) Archaeology cannot explain the linguistic aspect of the past society.
8) Archaeology sometimes pollute environment since it involves clearance of vegetation for excavations.
Sample questions based on Archaeology
i. What are the advantages of archaeology?
ii. What are the limitations of archaeology?
iii. What are the
