| Around 1770 Thomas Jefferson excavated an Indian | | | | their servants do the actual digging and who |
| burial mound in Virginia and carefully wrote down what | | | | conducted the excavations as fancy picnics. This sort |
| was contained in the mound. Jefferson was probably | | | | of digging was especially popular in England and |
| the first digger who could be called scientific. He not | | | | France, where there were many Roman ruins dating |
| only wrote down what was coming out of the ground | | | | from the time when Rome ruled Britain and Gaul. |
| but also noted the order in which the objects were | | | | Lovely mosaic floors, Roman burial grounds, and the |
| found. Other people could then read his report and | | | | ruins of villas were all fascinating to the picnic-diggers. |
| understand what he had found and where. This kind of | | | | However, these people viewed their finds only as |
| careful reporting is extremely important in archeology, | | | | pretty or curious objects. They gave little thought to |
| but more than 100 years passed before it became the | | | | the fact that the objects and their positions might be |
| generally accepted thing to do. | | | | clues to understanding the lives of the people who had |
| Another famous man with an interest in archeology | | | | made them. |
| was Napoleon Bonaparte. When he made his | | | | Later on, people became fascinated by life in England |
| conquering expedition to Egypt, he took along skilled | | | | under the Romans. But the material excavated on the |
| artists and scientists as well as his army. He wanted | | | | picnic expeditions was so mixed up that archeologists |
| these people to investigate, record, and draw all the | | | | could not make much use of it. Archeologists must |
| artifacts of ancient Egypt that they could find. He | | | | know the order in which things have come out of the |
| established a place for studying artifacts in Cairo. The | | | | ground; they must know which groups of things were |
| objects were meant for the Louvre museum in Paris, | | | | found together. Only then can they accurately |
| but because of an English victory over the French in | | | | reconstruct the scenes of life at any certain time in the |
| 1801, the artifacts all went to the British Museum in | | | | past. No detective wants his clues removed from the |
| London. | | | | scene of the crime before he has studied them in their |
| Both Jefferson and Napoleon were ahead of their | | | | relationship to each other. And no archeologist can use |
| time in archeology. Much of the digging that went on in | | | | clues that have been removed and mixed up. |
| the 1800's was organized by wealthy people who had | | | | |