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 modern Harvard Cornell partnership began in 1958 under Harvard archaeologist George M. A. Hanfmann and Cornell architect Henry Detweiler from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, whose expertise centered on documenting historic buildings.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 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
Suppose that a time machine could have transported an archaeologist back in time, for a world tour at around 11,000 B.C.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
However, the Richard III Society and University of Leicester archaeologists decided to investigate suggestions the king had actually been buried in the former Greyfriars friary in the city.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
For decades, archaeologists had struggled to explain this pattern.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2026
But archaeologists have now used scientific advances to date the rock art to at least 17,100 years ago - also making it the oldest in north-western Europe.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 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
Because modern-day hunter-gatherers in Africa live in egalitarian bands that constantly move from place to place, archaeologists assumed that Native American hunter-gatherers must also have done so.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
