archaeologist
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of archaeologist
Explanation
An archaeologist is a scientist who studies human history by digging up human remains and artifacts. Lucy, the oldest human known to man — nearly 3.2 million years old — was dug up in Ethiopia by archaeologist. We know about the history of the human species thanks to archaeologists who spend countless hours sifting through dirt and digging through ruins to find evidence of human life from across time. The word archaeologist can also be spelled archeologist. It comes from the Greek root archaeo-, for "ancient, primitive."
Vocabulary lists containing archaeologist
Play by the Rules: Arch
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Occupations
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The Origins of Civilization, Lessons 1–2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Holding her camera and notebook, archaeologist Micheline Kurdi walked through the ruins to document the site's state and plan the first "quick interventions" to restore it, she told AFP.
From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 2026
The remains were uncovered inside Heaning Wood Bone Cave near Great Urswick in Cumbria during excavations led by local archaeologist Martin Stables.
From Science Daily ● May 20, 2026
It follows the narrator and her 12-year-old daughter as they travel to Sicily, visiting the site where the narrator’s grandmother, an archaeologist, worked years before.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
The Game of Thrones star plays heroine Lara Croft - a globe-trotting archaeologist - in the upcoming video game adaptation.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
In the last few years researchers have focused more and more on a proposal linked to the name of Knut Fladmark, an archaeologist at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Her posture captures the human body in motion and archaeologists have long considered the sculpture to be of great artistic value and evidence of the civilisation's advanced knowledge of metallurgy.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
It was rediscovered in 2022 after decades of being overlooked by archaeologists, partially due to the calcite flow on top of it making the rock art difficult to see.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
Young’s team, the so-called Greek Desk, was comprised of fellow Ivy League archaeologists and Greek-American commandos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
It was there, at the outbreak of World War II, that he helped to “rebury” the treasures of the National Archaeological Museum to protect them from bombing raids, Nazi archaeologists and plundering soldiers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
The basis of Lapita subsistence can be reconstructed from the garbage excavated by archaeologists at Lapita sites.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
