archaeologist
Americannoun
-
archaeologists
plural
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:
During the 1950s, excavations led by archaeologist Ralph Solecki uncovered the remains of ten Neanderthals.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 31, 2026
But when James Mellaart, a British archaeologist, stumbled on Çatalhöyük in 1952, it was only a “whopping great mound,” 60-feet high and covered in grass.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
The supposed remains of Samuel were discovered by Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos in the 1960s.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
Leon Popek, an archaeologist with Poland’s Institute of National Memory that oversees the digs, said only 850 Polish victims have been found so far—perhaps 1% of the total killed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
My host that night was an American archaeologist.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
It was here that archaeologists unearthed the largest bronze statue ever found in Cambodia, "Reclining Vishnu", which is now touring the world.
From Barron's ● Nov. 10, 2026
What worries one of the archaeologists in the documentary and causes him to lose sleep is how similar our world is to that one.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026
For decades, archaeologists have disagreed about what happened to the people living near the eruption.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2026
Their ribs had evidence of a partly healed wound, which archaeologists believe was probably caused by a stone-tipped spear.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
Some archaeologists believe that the canal was never meant to function.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
